What's the best and/or worst experience you've had at a writers' conference?

I've never had the pleasure to go to one of the big industry conferences like RWA (Romance Writers Association) or SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators), I belong to both of those organizations, but didn't even know about them (or in the case of RWA, why I should join them) until after I was under contract to publish my first book. And since that point, I haven't had the time or money to go. I really hope this changes soon, possibly next year, as I imagine there is a lot to learn and a lot of fun author bonding time to be had. More than anything I kick myself for not joining these fine organizations before I was published because I probably would have known a lot more about the industry and other aspects of writing if I had. So aspiring authors, I highly recommend joining both organizations (if you write stories with even the teeniest bit of romance or if you write for children/teens, if not, there are other orgs out there, I just haven't had personal experience with them.)

I got most of my "writing education" through attending school for writing and I went to more academic writing conferences like AWP (Associated Writing Programs). These were definitely fun, though usually more than half of the panels didn't apply to me because they were about poetry or ummm something super literary that honestly made me feel dumb and like my books were fluff. But one of my coolest conference experiences was being on an AWP panel in 2009 when it was here in Chicago that was about pop culture and literature and (I believe) proved that if you write about superheroes or rock stars or make references to B-movies, your books can be just as interesting and powerful as those uber-literary books (in fact I'd say more interesting, but that's just me.)

I also enjoyed the socializing aspect of these conferences, though um... at 2 out of the three AWP conferences I attended, I enjoyed it too much, and got way too drunk with my literary friends and missed things I wanted to see because I was hungover. But um.... hopefully I've learned that lesson.

But definitely my ultimate conference moment was meeting my agent. This happened at a very small conference that my writing program at Columbia College Chicago puts on annually called Story Week Festival of Writers. It lasts a week and there are readings and panels with authors as well as people in the industry like agents and editors. All of the events are free and open to the public, but the advantage to being a Columbia student is that the teachers handpick some students to meet with the Story Week guests. In the past I'd gotten to meet with author John McNally, who in a half hour session, showed me how to inject humor into my darker stories to make them more accessible and also make the darker sides have more impact. John and I actually went on to become friends and he was the one who later helped me plan that AWP panel on pop culture. Then I'd also gotten to meet with Johnny Temple, publisher of Akashic Books, who also gave me some great feedback and that was pretty much what I thought I was going to get when I was told that I'd be meeting with agent Caren Johnson, who at the time was with Peter Rubie (now she goes by her married name Caren Estesen and runs her own agency Caren Johnson Literary Agency).

Caren read the first chapter of what would become I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone and I entered the office she occupied hesitantly with a notebook at the ready. The first words out of her mouth were, "I loved this. I want it. When can it be done?"

I was two-thirds of the way through the book at that point and seriously having writer's block. But as it was March, I decided a summer would give me enough time, so I told her, "Umm Labor Day?"

The cool thing was that she wanted my friend Katie's book, too, so I had someone to celebrate with. She took the two of us out to lunch and I stepped out of the academic world and started to learn about real writing industry stuff for the first time. I danced around giddily at Story Week's best event, Literary Rock N Roll, where writers read from the stage of Chicago's greatest rock venue, The Metro. (And if I ever get invited to do that event, it might become a top conference memory.) I felt like I was living in a dream world. I knew that this was not how authors generally found agents, so it seemed like a Cinderella story.

Of course, the part of the Cinderella story we never hear is how Cinderella's married life with the prince actually works out and how she adjusts to going from living among the ashes and evil step-sisters to being royalty. I'm sure it wasn't all happily-ever-afters and of course neither was my journey. I did a lot of hard work and revisions for Caren before she decided the manuscript was ready to shop, a little less than a year after I met her, and it was more than two years after I met her that I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE actually sold. During that time, Caren changed agencies and opened her own, Caren Johnson Literary Agency, but she always stuck by me and continued to encourage me when it seemed like IWBYJR wasn't going to sell. She believed in the book more than I did at times.

So I didn't just meet an agent that was interested, I met an agent who was truly passionate about my work and really believed in me... and honestly now that I think about it, I don't believe any other conference experience *could* top that, even being invited to be a part of Literary Rock N Roll. I was invited to read at the Harold Washington Library as part of Story Week, which was a huge honor and what made it even better was they had Caren back that year, so she got to attend my event and go to dinner with me, my mom, and my critique partner afterwards. That was another cool moment.

So my conclusion is that conferences are definitely worth it, even the little local ones--maybe especially those, since you never know who you'll meet!

What's the best and/or worst experience you've had at a writers' conference?

I started going to writing conferences long before I was a published author. I arrived at my first one not knowing anyone or what to expect, although I was sure everyone would be much more experienced than I was. Some writers were, but many others were first-timers, too. I was thrilled to have my manuscript critiqued by a “real” editor who wasn’t completely horrified by my writing. But by far the best part of my experience was all the friendly, encouraging people I met.

Since then I’ve tried to attend at least one writing conference a year. I’ve been privileged to meet wonderful children’s authors like Sid Fleishman, Bruce Coville, Jane Yolen, Lin Oliver, and R.A. Nelson. I’ve lunched with agents, editors, art directors, and dozens of writers. And I’ve learned that people who write for children are the friendliest, most supportive, most helpful people I know. We celebrate each other’s successes and commiserate about our setbacks.

Now to answer the question of my best and worst conference experiences. By far, my best experience—although I didn’t realize it at the time—was meeting my fabulous agent, Rosemary Stimola in April 2005. I’d sent in a middle grade manuscript and requested that she be the conference speaker to critique it. She didn’t like it, but she liked some things about my writing and the first page of a work-in-progress called Crowning Glory. Two years later I completed the manuscript and queried her. The result was my first published novel, Fairest of Them All. That conference experience is pretty hard to top!

My worst experience, which was mostly just annoying, was also with an agent who was also supposed to critique Crowning Glory. I’d sent in the required first 10 pages and synopsis long before the conference deadline. During our meeting he commented several times that there was nothing that set my manuscript apart from all the other “beauty queen” stories out there. I bit my tongue until he’d finished and then I asked, “Doesn’t the fact that her hair falls out make it different?” He flipped through the 10 pages I’d sent and said, “I didn’t see that here,” to which I replied, “It’s in the synopsis.” His response, “I never read those.”

There was $35.00 flushed down the john!

That conference experience was my only “bad” one, and it’s been far outweighed by everything I’ve learned and the memorable people I’ve met. When the next conference registration form pops up in my email, there’s a good chance I’ll be signing up.

"What's the best and/or worst experience you've had at a writers' conference?"

I haven't attended a lot of conferences. In fact, I can count them on one hand - 2 "major" industry conferences and maybe 3 minor ones. And I haven't had any badly memorable experiences at any of them. In fact, only good experiences. Probably because I never attended a conference until I was a published author, so I was usually speaking on a panel or signing books. And that's a blast. And nothing I'd ever complain about.

My favorite conference experience: I got to meet, sit next to and talk extensively with Ruppert Holmes, singer of the infamous "Pina Colada" song. The man is brilliant. Hadn't even known he was a writer. He is funny and smart (used to write songs for porn movies and has greatly amusing stories). The thing is, I LOVED that song in sixth grade, owned it and knew every word of the lyrics. It was a watershed moment for me. I went home and called my best friend from sixth grade and told her. She was equally in awe of the greatness I had shared a table with during an autograph session.

I haven't attended a conference in four years. And the one thing I really enjoyed, and sorta miss now that I'm reminded of how long it's been, is hanging out with other authors. Authors are fun and friendly and a great crew to hang out with. And four years is way to long to go without such great company.

MTV Author Snapshot: Kathy Charles

Hello everybody!

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kathy Charles and my debut novel, John Belushi is Dead, will be released on August 24 by MTV Books. John Belushi is Dead (or JBID as I shall forthwith refer to it) is about teenagers living in Los Angeles who are obsessed with dead celebrities. I am so excited to be here, and look forward to getting to know you all through the MTV Authors blog!

I thought for my first post I would just share some of the things in my life that are important to me, so you can get a sense of the type of gal I am. Let us begin! Heeyah!

My favorite book: It's a tie between 'Pet Sematary' by Stephen King and 'Lunar Park' by Bret Easton Ellis.

My favorite movies: Mulholland Drive, Annie Hall, An American Werewolf in London, L.A. Story.

My favorite dead celebrities: John Belushi (of course!), Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, James Dean.

My favorite music: Neil Young, Frank Black, Modest Mouse, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Arcade Fire, The Doors, Marilyn Manson, Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

If I could have lived during any period in any place it would have been: Laurel Canyon in the 1970s, right in the heart of the music scene. Joni Mitchell and Neil Young would have been my neighbors.

Starsign: Libra.

My day job: I work in the film industry as a sound post production supervisor. This means I coordinate the final sound mix for a movie before it goes to print. It's a pretty stressful job but it's also very creative, and I get to meet lots of interesting people.

Weird stuff I'm into: I'm a big true crime buff and I'm interested in serial killers, cults and the paranormal. Yes, I'm weird. I know.

Why I write: Because it's fun! I'm a big fan of popular culture and am really interested in how it affects our lives and shapes who we are. Music and movies have had such an enormous impact on the person I am, and I'm interested in exploring this relationship between people and pop culture in my writing.

My writing habits: I write after I get home from work and on the weekends, but only after I've walked my very demanding little pug dog. When I'm working on a first draft I write 1000 words a day on weekdays, 2000 words a day on weekends.

So there you have it! Me in a nutshell. I can't wait to start blogging with all the other wonderful MTV authors, and if you'd like to know even more about me you can check out my website where I also blog about the weird and wonderful stuff I'm into. Until next time, adios!

What's the best and/or worst experience you've had at a writers' conference?"

I am a huge fan of writers' conferences and attend at least two every year. One of the main reasons I go is to get to hang out with author buddies and meet new ones too. There is something in the air at comnferences because I am always super charged to write when I leave them.

I've never had any really bad experiences at a conference, thankfully. I've heard editors tell stories about how writers follow them into the bathrooms, even trying to slide their manuscripts under the stalls. I've certainly seen some interesting "characters" breeze through conferences. You know the ones who wake up in the morning and decide to write a book and have it published the next day! Not surprisingly, these people do not usually come back the next year. They're probably off to try a new hobby like brain surgery or rocket science. But I must say that most everyone I meet from writers to editors to agents at conferences are so helpful and sweet.

The best thing that has come out of conferences for me is buliding relationships with other authors, editors and agents. Publishing is really a small world and you will run into people again and again! Plus, I have picked up a lot of great writing tips and strategies from other presenters.

I taught my first SCBWI YA workshop this past June (see pic above of me) with my Flux editor Brian Farrey and it was such a great experience. Not only do we have a lot of talented writers in South Florida, but it was also wonderful to work alongside my editor and actually meet him in person. I hope to lead a lot more conference workshops in the future because I really enjoy sharing what I have learned over the years. As writers we spend a lot of time, well, writing and it is really nice to get out of the house and socialize with people that have the same interests! So what are you waiting for? Go, get out there, and sign up for a local writers' conference in your area. You'll thank me:).

The DIY Writer's Retreat

Sunday afternoon, I'll be driving a couple of hours northwest to a cabin in a state park with my mom and a friend. Vacation? Well, for my mom it is. She will be bird watching and hiking and catching up on her reading. For me and my friend/critique partner Jenny, it will be a writer's retreat.

I've applied for artist's residencies in the past and never gotten in (of course this was pre-publication so maybe now my resume would hold a little more weight). I was incredibly disappointed at first, but then I realized I could do it myself. All I needed was

1. A location away from civilization. Preferably without reliable internet access.

2. A few creative people to go with me to share inspiration, cooking duties, and a bottle of wine at the end of the night.

In the summer of 2005, I had to finish my first novel because I'd met my agent at a conference at my school and she'd loved the first chapter and I told her I'd have it to her by Labor Day. I was still in grad school at the time and had three other good friends who were very serious about their writing and willing split the cost of renting a place to write for a week. I wanted to go somewhere in Southern Wisconsin since that is where I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE is set. We found this place in Mineral Point, Wisconsin:

We went for five days (or maybe it was six?) and spent all day writing, then one of us cooked a vegan friendly meal (my friends are so awesome and accommodating of my dietary choices), and we built a fire and drank a ton of wine. Probably too much wine. This is all of the wine the four of us drank in a week. Mind you, we were grad students:

Despite all the wine-drinking, it was very productive and I hoped to be able to do it again.

Then in 2007, when I was halfway through writing BALLADS OF SUBURBIA, a former professor of mine told me about a writer's retreat he'd created in a house in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada. Right by the sea! And he invited my friend/critique partner Katie and me to spend 10 days there for free! All we had to do was pay airfare! So I asked my parents for money for my birthday and Katie and I flew to New Hampshire and then drove north. We stayed in the house with two other guys, writers from other colleges, and another guy who wrote and also watched over the house for my prof.

This was by far my most productive writer's retreat. I got up early in the morning and bundled up (it was late November) to walk down to the sea:

Then I did some pilates, showered, ate breakfast and sat down to write.... usually for 10 to 12 hours with lunch and dinner breaks. (Katie and I usually cooked together. We'd lived together before and had a good cooking rapport.) Then I collapsed on the couch with my fellow writers to watch TV (House or Degrassi) or a movie. I think we only went out drinking once. I finished half of BALLADS and did a revision on it in those 10 days.

Last year, I was struggling to get a novel started, so I asked my friend/critique partner Jenny if she wanted to go somewhere to write for 5 days. This time another professor volunteered to let us use her summer home near Iowa. Jenny and I wrote by day, then one of us made dinner, then we did a mini-writer's workshop and settled down for a glass of wine and watched Veronica Mars. I also read a ton that week. It wasn't as productive writing wise as I had been in the past because I was struggling to start something--actually an early, very different version of what I'll be working on this year.

This year, my mom was grumbling about how she hadn't taken a real vacation at years (she has spent her time off doing things around the house) and she'd love to go to a state park or Michigan or Wisconsin. So I ran the idea past her of going to a cabin with Jenny and me, explaining that we'd be writing during the day, but we'd cook a meal at night and could have some wine and watch movies or tv shows. Mom loved the idea. And knowing that our financial situations aren't as good as hers, she agreed to foot half the bill! (In return, Jenny and I are doing most of the cooking.) So we found a nice cabin near a state park with a full kitchen, a TV (not that we really needed that, we can watch DVDs on our laptops), and probably way more cushy amenities than we actually need.

My plan is to work on my "bartender book." I've recently posted two teasers from it on my blog here and here. I am 130 pages into it and hoping to finish it by September so my agent can get it out to the world before she goes on maternity leave. It might be quite a stretch because I'm a much slower writer than I'd like to be, but my agent and I have decided that I really need to write and try to sell full manuscripts rather than partials (and my anxieties over that and that process of coming to that decision is detailed here.), but I'm really in the zone with this book, so I'm hoping my natural binge habits will emerge on this trip and it will be quite productive.

I've also got some excellent meals planned thanks to the new cookbook that my hubby got me for my birthday. I picked up a couple bottles of wine from Trader Joe's. And Mom got me seasons three and four of the Gilmore Girls for my birthday, specifically so we'd have them to watch on this trip. (The Gilmore Girls has been a huge inspiration for the bartender book because of the quirky mother/daughter relationship.) I've also got a stack of books to sort through to bring with me for nightly reading. (Among the top contenders: Tell Me A Secret by Holly Cupala, the latest in Jeri Smith-Ready's WVMP series, the latest in Alyson Noel's Immortals series, and possibly The Lightning Thief since I haven't read that series yet, but I think I might need more contemporary women's or commercial fiction if anyone has suggestions since those are the categories that my agent says my new book falls into.) Mom is also adding board and card games to the mix this time--she has a fine collection of them, mostly word related so they should be good for the muse.

I am beyond psyched for this trip and while I am planning to apply for a fabulous looking writer's residency in Washington next year (because I always am looking for an excuse to visit Washington), I am happy with my DIY retreats.

Fellow writers, what kind of retreats have you done or would you like to do?

Synopsis + Bio = Torture!

Before Fairest of Them All was published, I was one writer among thousands hoping to catch an editor’s attention. I revised my stories eight or nine times and proofread each one meticulously because I knew editors expected polished manuscripts. I studied formatting guidelines and followed them to the letter. My margins were exact, my headers and page numbers were placed just so. A slave to every single detail, I spent countless hours creating a manuscript that was a work of art.

Flushed with success and a little woozy from switching the font size from 11 to 12 and back again 50 or so times, I grabbed my trusty market guide and turned to the first publisher on my list. Looking for contemporary young adult fiction from 50,000-70,000 words. Couldn’t be more perfect! Query with synopsis and brief author bio. How hard can that be?

A dozen or so synopses later, I can answer that question. Writing a synopsis is like painting a mural on the wings of a hornet. You have to make the most of a very small space, and there’s no room for error. All that’s required is condensing your 300-page novel into a page, a paragraph, or—my personal favorite—a single sentence. Remember to describe the main characters, setting, and plot while capturing the voice of your story. And don’t be too wordy.

Coming up with a brief bio is equally difficult. What does “brief” mean? 100 words? 200? More? Should I include my education, publishing experience, interests, significant other, pets, blood type, and/or favorite shade of nail polish? When I Googled to find some examples, I got 25,000,000 hits on author bios. Just terrific.

It’s embarrassing that I can write a 50,000-word novel but can’t come up with a coherent summary of it. Two months ago my agent asked me for a one-sentence synopsis of my upcoming book, A&L Do Summer. After ten pathetic attempts I finally wrote something she didn’t have to change--too much. I can only imagine how much hair she pulled out as she read and politely rejected each one.

That’s my sad story. Does anyone else have synopsis/bio phobia? It would really help to know I’m not alone.

Vacation, all I ever wanted...

Summer vacation is in full swing-- around here, it's mostly meant no alarms, no homework, just basically taking it easy. I suppose this either makes me the world's best mom or the world's worst mom, depending on who you're asking. My kids, so far, think it's great, because there are no demands on their time. I think it's great because there are no demands on my time. I'm sure there are super moms out there who think it's terrible, since I don't have every moment of their summer planned to the nth degree. But I'm sort of a purist that way-- I happen to think summer's about being a kid. Which isn't to say we're not doing anything. We're in a new, glorious part of the country, with lots to explore, lots of different festivals and events to go to, and best of all, weather that doesn't leave you feeling damp, gross, and thinking you're breathing through a warm, wet washcloth. We're also taking advantage of the type of city we live in, with both kids going to a computer/software camp in August. Gotta love living in a cradle of technology.

There's also a family vacation on tap in a few weeks in the form of a cruise. My in-laws will be celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary in November, but they decided to celebrate early, to take advantage of summer vacation with my kids, so they're taking all of us on an Alaskan cruise. (Also taking advantage of our convenient location as a cruise ship port.) Frankly, I'm beyond excited for this vacation. The husband and I went on an Alaskan cruise for our honeymoon-- in fact, it's when we first fell in love with this part of the country and decided that we'd one day live here-- and the cruise will coincide with our eighteenth wedding anniversary. (Who let us get married that young? I mean, really?)

The cruise itself ought to be interesting. I mean, it's a family vacation and the dynamics, as in all families, can be... interesting. I keep coming back to two thoughts: one, lots of potential material and two: big, freakin' boat. If things get too crazy, I see a lot of spa time in my future.

It'll be good to be relaxed, too, since on my return, I'll be attending my first Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators conference in Los Angeles and I'm absolutely freaking. out. I haven't missed RWA in over six years and I'll be the new kid on the block and I won't know anyone and... and...

Yeah, I'm a big chicken.

So, now that we're into July, any summer plans for you guys?

See the World

I've been receiving a lot of emails from readers around the world lately, from Ireland to Spain to Brazil. And that's very cool. And makes me feel very boring here in a suburb of Boston.

I also just finished reading a book about a girl who travels to China in the second half of the story, and I really enjoyed it. Which made me realize that I always love books about exotic places, places I'd like to go. But I also love stories that take place at home, in a 'normal' location.

I've always had an idea for a sequel to PLAN B where Vanessa and Reed head to Europe for the summer where he's filming a movie. Thing is, even though I've been to Europe a few times, to really write about it well I think I'd need to spend a lot of time there. When I wrote LOCAL GIRLS and RICH BOYS I spent a ton of time on Martha's Vineyard with a notebook and pencil taking notes. I think it's so important to get the details right. I seriously doubt research via the Internet could substitute for the sounds and colors of being there in person to actually feel what it's like.

One of the emails I received recently from a girl in Europe asked in Martha's Vineyard was a real place. That made me even more concerned that I get the surroundings right in my books. If someone is experiencing a place for the first time through my book, I sure want them to feel like they're right there!

What about you? If you write, do you have to experience it yourself to get it right? Or can you imagine what it's like? Do you like reading about places you haven't been to? If you've been somewhere and read about it, have you ever been disappointed when an author got it totally wrong?

How do you deal with rejection?

You'd think that after dealing with more than a year's worth of rejection for my first novel, I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE, before it finally got picked up by MTV Books that I would have this handling rejection thing down pat.

Not so much. I'm an emotional Cancer girl. I'm a volatile creative type. I still suffer from really low self-esteem at times. Rejection, bad reviews, and the general instabilities of being a writer (not having any control about how many copies of your book are printed, how it is promoted, and whether you will ever make something resembling a living off of it) always send me into a horrible tail-spin. I can't tell you how many times I've considered throwing my pen (or laptop, I guess) down and quitting because clearly I am Not Good Enough.

But the thing is I can't quit. There is always a story that needs telling. While I was trying to figure out an alternate career path and berating myself for spending so many years and so much money on not one but two degrees in Creative Writing while IWBYJR wasn't selling, I was also writing BALLADS OF SUBURBIA. Because I couldn't NOT write it.

So I guess that is when I developed my two prong approach to coping with rejection:

1. Freak out.

2. Write my way through it.

More often than not, I am doing both at the same time.

I freak out in different ways to different people. My agent gets the emails where I try to figure things out. My critique partners and writer friends get the emails that are part plans-of-action, part rants about the unfairness of it all. My husband and mother get the full-on nervous breakdowns.

And then I piece together the plans that I make with agent and critique partners, as well as the writerly sympathy, advice and anecdotes from critique partners and writer friends and the plain old cheerleading and nurturing I get from husband and mom and I go back to work.

I was lucky after IWBYJR sold. I got a teeny bit of respite in that BALLADS OF SUBURBIA sold before IWBYJR even came out. For about a year there I was floating on cloud nine. Then IWBYJR got some bad reviews (don't get me wrong, it got lots of good ones, but I really focused on the bad ones for awhile), the print run for BALLADS got cut, and at the beginning of this year, my third book got it's first rejection. I only freaked out a little bit with that one because I already had an idea for tweaking it and selling it as a women's fiction book rather than a YA and I had this brilliant idea for another YA that I was already writing.

Then the partial for that YA went out on submission and started piling up rejections. When my dream editor said no to it. I lost it. Worst nervous breakdown yet. But somehow, I got up the next morning and continued work on my revamped women's fiction project.

The rejections kept coming and I kept writing. I took what I could from them to strengthen my writing in general and I will steel myself and look at them again for more specific pointers in the coming weeks. Once the women's fiction project goes out, I will turn back to that YA project. The partial has been rejected by 11 editors, but most of them requested to see the full if if I write it. So I'll will. Because I have to. Because it will keep me strong while the women's fiction project inevitably picks up some rejections. Because both are stories I need to tell.

I will cry. I will write angry emails and emails questioning my abilities as a writer. I will write brainstorming emails. I will eat too many salty things on one day and too many sweet things the next. I will do kickboxing workout DVDs to work through the aggression (and the over-consumption of salty and sweet things). I will probably drink too much on at least one day and keep my husband up all night as I alternate between rage at the unfairness of it all and depression that is nearly as bad as it was in my teenage years. The next morning, I will be hungover and sulk on the couch watching bad TV.

But ultimately I will drink lots of tea and sit down at my computer. I will get lost in the story and hanging out with the characters that I love. I will continue to write because I have to, because their story needs to be told, because despite my often pessimistic, volatile Cancer artist girl personality, I believe that an editor will see that too.

How to handle rejection like a professional published author

1. Call critique partner. Whine.

2. Tell critique partner you need to get off the phone so you can go cry.

3. DO NOT CRY.

4. E-mail agent. Whine.

5. Text husband. Whine. Strangely, husband claims later that he never received this text, though he responded to the one you sent right after this about your son's friend insisting that you crawl onto the roof to retrieve his Nerf darts.

6. Run five miles.

7. Clean. Vacuum or mop every floor in your house. Dust furniture you didn't even know you had. While cleaning, think to yourself, "It's good that I get rejected every once in a while. Otherwise the baseboards would never get scrubbed." Also: "I am so glad I am a professional published author. If I'd gotten this rejection before I was published, it would have taken me months to get over it. But now...gosh, I hardly feel anything."

8. Eat your own weight in ice cream.

9. Sleep.

10. Wake up in the morning feeling refreshed, almost as if you were never rejected, and your beloved main characters were never shot execution-style and buried underneath your front lawn.

How do you deal with rejection?

Would you believe I’ve never had a manuscript rejected? Of course you wouldn’t. Facing up to rejection is a huge part of being an author, and it doesn’t go away for writers who’ve had 5, 10, or even 30 books published. If you're going to stick your neck into the publishing world, you'd better learn to deal.

Rejection hangs around even after you’ve sold your manuscript. The publisher may reject your title—Fairest of Them All was originally Crowning Glory, your main character’s name or age—Ori grew from 14 to 15 in one stroke of an editor’s pen, your favorite subplot--Rhonda's secret past went down the drain, even your book’s ending.

I’m pretty flexible when it comes to changing names, ages, and book titles, and I’ve deleted some of my favorite passages with minimal pouting. I haven’t been asked to change an ending, yet. That could be tough. But it’s been my experience that editors know what they’re talking about, so I’d try to listen with an open mind.

Back to the big question. How do I deal with having a manuscript turned down by a publisher or two or seven? Before I wrote Fairest of Them All I collected enough rejections to earn my Masters Degree in Rejectionology. For a couple of years, I let being rejected get me down to the point where I stopped sending out manuscripts. And it took several swift kicks in the rear—and tons of encouragement--from my writing group to help me get my courage up and try again.

Now that the giving-up stage of my writing life is over—Oh, yes it is!—this is my new process for dealing with rejection:

1. Forward the offending email to my writing group. I’m guaranteed a “How could they?” response within the hour.

2. Print out the email and turn it face down on my desk for a day--two days if it's really harsh.

3. Turn the email over and try to objectively read the details. One of the many perks of having an agent is getting meaningful feedback from editors. The generic “It’s not right for our list” we writers get from the slush pile doesn’t give us anything to go on.

4. Take another look at my manuscript and see if the feedback makes sense.

5. Drink wine, eat chocolate, and do what needs to be done!

How do you deal with rejection?

To quote Jenny: "Not well."

I mean, come on, rejection sucks. You can prepare yourself for it. You can tell yourself over and over that this is a subjective business (true), that one man's (editor's) trash is another's treasure (also true), that all it takes is one person to love it (true), that they're making enormous mistakes and are going to kick themselves mightily like all the editors who passed on Harry Potter (okay, not likely, but a girl can dream, right?) but in the end, all you want to do is stomp your feet and shake your wee fists at the heavens and call everyone involved in saying "no" big ol' poopyheads (even if you know that's not in the slightest bit true-it's a business after all). Then you go eat lots of chocolate, drink wine, and watch Love Actually for the 483rd time. (That last one might just be me...)

And you know what? That's all okay. Up to a point. I've been told wallowing is good-- up to a point. I actually suck at it-- I have this mentality that demands I be all stoic and suck it up because I was well aware of what I was getting myself into when I signed up for this writing gig. And regardless of situation, I also have very little patience for extended wallowing-- actually, I have very little patience for wallowing period. But here's the thing-- sometimes, you just have to give yourself permission to wallow.

I never realized how important that could be until the most recent rejection, which came just a couple of weeks ago. I won't lie- it was spectacularly rough. You spend enough time in this industry, you'll hear every editor you come in contact with talk about how they're so tired of the status quo, how they want something different, unique, that gem that every editor wants to discover, the book that will really touch people. And if you have ambition and anything resembling an ego-- and yes, I do--you imagine that it's your book, the manuscript you love and have given your all to, that will be that book. And in this case, it's a book I have huge faith in, that I know is good, because despite all the rejections it's received, it's never been because the book wasn't good. It's because it was different. And editors don't know what to do with it. I think that's the hardest rejection to receive, in a lot of ways-- the one where you get the compliments on your craft and your storytelling and the fact that you've tackled an emotional, difficult subject with sensitivity and skill and made it work, but...

Oh, that "but..." is a bitch, isn't it?

And I knew it going in. I knew this book was difficult and it would take that one editor who loves it as much as I do and who has the power to push it through (because let's say it again, this is a business). Publishing is rough right now. And as much as editors might say that they want something beyond the status quo, so long as the status quo continues to sell, it's what's going to be bought. Yes, there are always going to be exceptions to the rule and yes, it stings that I couldn't be that exception (there's that ego thing again), but in the end, it is what it is. What am I going to do, quit?

As if.

So we come back to how I deal-

My writing group, the Tiaras, has a twenty-four hour rule. We're allowed to wallow in the muddy, boggy, chocolate-and-wine-soaked, romcom movie depths of disappointment for twenty-four hours. Then we haul ourselves out, shower, and sit our butts back down in the chair and get on with it, whatever form "it" takes. For some, it's the next project, for others, it's deciding where next to submit, for me, it's making a plan. Hello, Virgo here. I planned my midlife crisis fer heaven's sake! So it's a case of assessing where I'm at with everything, talking to my agent, deciding whether we're going to continue to submit or shelve the project for a while, and what the status is of my current projects. Even if nothing is set in stone, I feel better for having laid it all out with her-- it's just my particular quirk.

Oh, and more chocolate never hurts.

How do you deal with rejection?

Rejection, I am all over you as long as there is hope! It’s par for the course and I’ve learned to pause and then quickly move on. I did not get published over night so I definitely had my fair share of rejection, which propelled me to hone my craft and keep on going.

However, if I never had hope, I think I would have quit a long time ago. That’s why it’s so important to surround yourself with positive people that respect what you’re doing. I am very happy to be part of a critique group that has definitely helped me grow and been there for me when I received those dreaded rejection letters. Also, my husband has always believed in me and supported me in my quest to be an author. To have him to lean on is awesome.

When I receive a rejection it definitely hits me but I quickly say, what next? If there is something to improve on I do and if not I just move on. Not everyone is going to like everything so I try not to take it personally. Besides, I have more important things to worry about. Like right now as I'm writing this blog, I'm also feeding the baby, cooking Boca burgers with the hopes that they'll pass as hamburgers, and playing referee in the fight over which one of my sons has a better secret passowrd!

I’ve heard rejection only makes you stronger and if you offer me chocolate I might agree with you, but I would be just fine without it! And on that note, I’m sending out good vibes to all on whatever type of rejection you’re fighting!

First Drafts & First Chapters

For the past week I've been struggling with the first chapter of my work-in-progress (some of you know I have two works in progress, but in this case I mean the bartender book).

This book has had many different first chapters. To be far, I started writing it without really categorizing it (much like I did with I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone). Then I decided that I should try to write a book that was solidly YA. The partial I wrote didn't sell and I realized it's because the story was all wrong so I started it over as a book that will appeal to both adults and teens, but likely be called "women's fiction." (I really still hate labels as much as a I did as kid... so restrictive.) Anyway, the story is on the right path and I struggled so long with writing the perfect first chapter. And then I had one of those rare moments of clarity: my fighting cats jumped on my bed and I realized, Bar fight! Perfect!

Only it wasn't. My agent read it and pointed out it's flaws. I grumbled about it, pondered for a few days and realized she was right. Then I got this brilliant vision for the perfect intro that would capture the characters and the place and be chock full of imagery. I thought it would be about five pages. Right now it's a twenty-five page mess. *Sigh*

So what's a girl to do? Go back and look at drafts of old novels and reassure myself that I always suck in the beginning and things will be okay.

Well, um as it turns out the first paragraph of I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone has been virtually the same give or take a word since day one. Okay, so I knew the beginning of that book pretty well, but I struggled in other places. There was a terrible case of writer's block 2/3rds of the way through the first draft. And that book went through so many titles....

Ballads of Suburbia was a little more fun to re-examine. It only had one other title. The version of it that I wrote during my first year at Columbia College was called The Morning After, which was what I'd always wanted to name a band when I was in high school. I wrote a full draft of The Morning After and honestly, it's probably a completely different book except there is a main character named Kara with boyfriends named Adrian and Christian and she also has a more innocent fling with a guy named Liam. Her brother in that version is named Sam and I guess ultimately I decided those characters should be merged and that I liked the name Liam better. Speaking of names, Maya was Lana and Cass was Acacia (she would be Ava for most of the time I wrote Ballads actually, before one of my critique partners pointed out that I had too many names with double a's). Oh and while I use the real name of the park that the characters hang out in, Scoville Park, I give the town a fake name, Lincoln Prairie. I'm not sure what I thought I was doing there... Instead of starting the book with Kara returning to her hometown four years after a heroin overdose, I started with Kara returning to Scoville Park in the spring of her junior year after not hanging out with her friends for some time because she's been trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship with Christian. This was actually much more autobiographical than Kara's storyline in Ballads ended up being.

It starts with a very melodramatic reference to Kurt Cobain's suicide involving shotguns shoved down scratchy, song-torn throats and "exquisitely scarred poetry." *shudders* The whole thing is so overwrought and angsty, that I can't even bear to post the first paragraph, but here's a line describing the park that I still like for some reason even though it makes NO sense.

The bark of the trees smelled like ashtrays and through the sparse tufts of grass there was a muddy path that lead to where they all sat in the sun staring at a statue dedicated to soldiers who fought in long gone wars that they didn’t remember, understand what was fought for, or feel what was lost or won.

I don't why on earth I felt that tree bark could smell like ashtrays, but I still like the idea of it. Somehow it's so very Scoville Park.

Basically the first chapter of "The Morning After" is beyond cringe-inducing. I learned *a lot* from going to school for writing.... but my first drafts are still usually way off from how the book ends up.

This is the beginning of the first chapter of the first real version of Ballads, which I started writing in my last semester of grad school while my agent shopped I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone.

Now at this point I came up with the idea for starting with the epilogue and it is largely the same except for some extraneous information about Stacey and Cass (who was called Ava at the time) that I cut:

Sirens and lights welcomed me back to the suburbs of Chicago after my four-and-a-half year absence. It seemed fitting. Symbolic, considering they had also heralded my exit. And it could not have happened anywhere else: only a Berwyn cop would pull Stacey over for rolling a stop sign, cash in on her total lack of insurance, but not notice the pot smoke lingering in Stacey’s long, auburn ponytail, my cropped, black hair, and beneath both of our winter coats.

Stacey had spent two hours on the phone convincing me to come back from California for winter break that year. I planned to spend the first three nights with her, her husband, Jason, and their four year old daughter, Lina—a situation I was still having trouble grasping at twenty. My mother didn’t even know I was back yet, nor did the only other high school friend I’d kept in touch with, Ava. Stacey was the one who needed me.

Ava had turned out to be more stable than any of us, devoted to nursing school and her boyfriend of two years whom she lived with in Wicker Park (as Stacey said, “Only losers like me still live around Oak Park.”). Ava had managed to pull together a completely normal life while Stacey was a walking disaster and I vacillated in between the two of them. I had the successful-college-student, laid-back-west-coast-transplant façade, but I hadn’t stuck it out and healed like Ava. I’d run, and the reason I hadn’t risked coming home was because I feared that if I did, I’d find out that I was still the same fucked up kid I’d been at seventeen, like Stacey thought she was.

Right before we got pulled over, Stacey was saying, “God, Kara, I’m such a fuck up. The night Jason took Lina, I tried to drown myself in the bathtub.” She rolled her cerulean eyes and exhaled a dark, nicotine-tinged laugh. “Do you know how hard that is? Your body really fights to survive even when your heart is broke so bad and your mind wants to die. I laid in the tub swilling tequila for hours, till the water was ice cold, dunking my head underneath, and trying to force myself to stay down. I fell asleep in there, but I didn’t fucking die. I woke up wet and miserable and still without my kid. So I begged Jason to take me back. Told him I’d sober up, that I wouldn’t cheat again, and I’m working on it, ‘cause I need my baby with me.”

We were on East Avenue between Cermak and Roosevelt Road where there’s a stop sign, like, every block. Stacey paused at them all, tapping her brakes, then moving on. I mean, honestly, when there’s no traffic, what Chicago driver comes to a full stop? “Fucking motherfuck!” Stacey cursed. “Don’t the goddamn Berwyn cops have anything else to do? Shit!” She slapped the steering wheel hard with the heel of her hand as I turned my head to gaze at the flashing red and blue behind us.

Then there is the actual chapter one of the book (the chapter after the epilogue since my epilogue functions as a prologue...)

It’s the ballads I like best on movie soundtracks—hell, on any album. And I’m not talking about the kind of song where a diva hits her highest note while singing about love or a rock band tones it down a couple of notches for all the ladies out there (though Poison’s “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn” is a classic, by rights). I mean a true ballad, according to the dictionary definition: a song that tells a story in short stanzas and simple words, with repetition, refrain, etc. I’m talking about the punk rocker or the country crooner telling us the story of their life in three minutes, belting out that chorus a few times to remind us of the way they messed up love and success yet again. That’s the music I’ve gotta face, my own cycle of despair.

But my story is going to take a little longer than three minutes to tell even though the concept is pretty basic: the fallen girl child. Like Persephone from the book of Greek mythology I got for Christmas in second grade. Maybe I imagined myself to be Athena, but my tiny fingers traced the drawing of little Persephone, hands thrown to the air, mouth open in a scream as Hades took her away from the bright sunshine and flowery existence that she had known. Even though her mother would eventually save her, Persephone was doomed to relive her mistakes with every winter, with every chorus. And she probably never got to be the perfect, beautiful goddess she was supposed to be.

I am definitely not the girl I was supposed to be, the genius girl that my parents, teachers, and guidance counselors wanted to mold. And I don’t mean the kind of girl who works on movie soundtracks, that’s fine, I suppose. I mean, I’m a functional human being with a career path, but I’m marred. Like Persephone, I’m an ice queen on the inside instead of content like I used to be, all because I wasn’t supposed to stumble down that path, take those turns, follow those curves. And I don’t really know how it happened. It’s like one day I got out of bed and then I closed my eyes—you know, the reverse of what you are supposed to when you wake up in the morning. Starting in the spring of my sophomore year of high school, I did that every day for a little over a year.

Cue the music here. Cue Dinah Washington crooning “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes!” But that’s already been done and that’s not my ballad, mine would be something by PJ Harvey or the Screaming Trees because if Ms. Polly Jean and Mr. Mark Lanegan had a bastard child, it would be me.

I’ll begin with the setting of my movie, what you’d see as the opening credits rolled: Oak Park, Illinois. Oak Park isn’t one of those suburbs—you know, the type with no grid system, no streets or avenues, all courts and lanes that twist through subdivisions, which center on a strip mall or a manmade lake. No, it’s nothing like that. It doesn’t have what Maya’s grandmother would call “ticky-tacky box houses”—you know, where the only thing that varies from one house to the next is the paintjob. Pale blue, pale gray, and a bunch of other shades of pale that god knows how you tell apart at night, especially if you’re drunk or stoned. I’ve heard stories about kids walking into their neighbors’ houses, accidentally climbing into bed with their friend’s sister, and getting the cops called on them. But I don’t know anything about it first- or even second hand.

‘Cause I didn’t grow up in one of those suburbs with wide lawns and narrow minds. Even though Hemingway coined that phrase about Oak Park, I’ll give it more credit that that. The lawns were broad and beautiful, true, but the people kept their minds open for the most part. I just can’t say the same about their eyes—not when it came to their kids. But, you know, it was the early nineties and there was a recession and property taxes were high and the kids needed stuff—well, we needed something and we let stuff be that thing. Anyway, everybody’s parents seemed to work long hours in Chicago, that’s where their minds and eyes were most of the time.

Of course, we didn’t live in one of those suburbs with an hour commute into the city—in fact, you can just cross Austin Boulevard and there you are on the west side of Chicago. But Oak Park is definitely not the city, which made a big difference to me because I lived on the south side of Chicago in Morgan Park until the summer before second grade when my dad got promoted. My brother, Liam, was about to enter kindergarten and my parents decided he should do so in “better public schools” now that they could afford them. Even though I didn’t really remember the old neighborhood, I claimed it as my real home for years because I didn’t want to be a suburban kid. It felt like a stigma I didn’t deserve. I mean, I remember that winter when Maggie Young, the most popular girl in the class of 1990 at Washington Irving Elementary, came up to me and asked if my coat had a YKK zipper. When I checked, responded that it didn’t, and Maggie made it into another reason to shun me—we were seven, for fuck’s sake!—I knew I could never be one of those kids from the suburbs.

The final book version of the first chapter begins with:

The summer before I entered second grade and my brother Liam started kindergarten, Dad got the promotion he’d been after for two years and my parents had enough money to move us from the south side of Chicago to its suburb, Oak Park.

Then I describe Oak Park briefly and we go into a scene with Maggie Young--an actual brief scene not just Kara's narration of it.

In the original first chapter, Kara sounds a lot more like Emily from I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, which is fair because I'd just finished that book, so I was stuck in her voice. She also explains a lot, tells instead of shows, which is a MAJOR first draft problem for me, but I also think it's part of the process for me to get to know the characters. I needed to know that Kara was the bastard child of a PJ Harvey and a Screaming Trees song. (I actually wrote that down on a sticky note somewhere and listened to both of those artists repeatedly during revisions.) Like I wrote those few lines in the epilogue about Cass/Ava because I needed to know that she became a nurse. I needed to know that Kara wanted to be Athena but was drawn toward Persephone... though actually that was also me. The original version of Ballads had more references to Greek Mythology that I cut because I thought that was better saved for another book.

Actually, now that I've gone through this whole analysis, I'm not sure I feel better. I'm half-worried that the newest version of the first chapter of my bartender book will end up cut to pieces.... though wait, didn't I want to trim it down? Maybe this will help me. I guess I should go find out.

As for my fellow writers out there. Do you write crappy first drafts? Do you do a lot of voice-heavy telling instead of showing like I do? Or what are your early draft bad habits?

How do you deal with rejection?

Not well.

Work in progress

Besides publicity for my Simon Pulse book, ENDLESS SUMMER, which came out in May, and my MTV Books novel, FORGET YOU, which will be published on July 20, I am hard at work on my July 2011 MTV Books release, entitled THIS BOOK HAS SUCH A COOL TITLE IT WILL BLOW YOU AWAY or MY EDITOR HAS NOT DECIDED WHAT THE TITLE IS YET. The deadline for this book is August 1, but I'm trying to finish the first draft by June 25 and the second by June 30 so I'll have plenty of time to send it to my critique partners and think about it and stop myself from making some horrible glaring error before I turn it in to my editor.

Even so, I was thrown for a loop last week when my editor asked for the first two chapters to show to the sales force. I had the first two chapters, but they were nowhere near polished, and one of them needed a lot of research that I hadn't planned to do until later.

I did complete the research, polish the chapters, and turn them in last Monday. And part of me feels a lot better about this book now that the beginning is set in stone, sort of. But I really would have preferred not to let anyone see my work, even the very beginning of it, until I was finished writing the entire novel. Normally I would go back and make huge changes to chapter 1 after writing chapter 20, because I'm not absolutely sure what goes on in chapter 1 until then.

I don't write in order. I write some of the beginning, some of the end, some of the middle, a conversation three-fourths of the way through, back to the beginning, a hilarious scene three chapters in... In other words, I write the whole book at once, not a chapter at a time. I realize most people don't do this, and I have tried writing a book in order, with disastrous results. This makes it really hard for me to sell on proposal--writing the first three chapters and a synopsis of a book, selling it, and then finishing it. In fact, the only book I've ever sold that way was ENDLESS SUMMER, but that's because it was a sequel, so I already had those characters' voices in my head.

I feel like this is a real handicap for me. But hey, writing a novel is difficult work, and if I have a quirk while doing it, well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to live with it.

What about you? Does this writing process mess sound familiar or completely insane?

From My Point of View

Several years ago I had Lasix surgery in Kansas City, and for the past few months my distance vision has gotten worse. So the Friday before Memorial Day, Mike and I drove down to KC for a check-up, which for me resulted in a procedure to “tweak” my correction.

I’m not a person who expects the worst-case scenario—although it’s happened to me enough times that I should. As a result, I wasn’t prepared for my vision to be so blurry that I couldn’t read, write, drive, watch TV, or even see my own face in the mirror for five long days. (Well, the mirror part wasn’t THAT bad!) About the only thing I could do was pull weeds in my garden and hope I was pulling more weeds than flowers.

While I was stumbling around in a haze, reassuring myself minute-by-minute that my vision would improve, I saw things from a different perspective. For instance, a person who has been sightless would be ecstatic to have even my blurry vision. Someone losing her sight would cling to each fuzzy image in case it was the last thing she ever saw. A woman training to be a pilot would freak out, try to hide her condition, or both. The person's reaction would depend upon her viewpoint.

When we write, we see the world through the eyes of characters that are often very different from ourselves. Yet we need to “know” what those beings feel and think, love and hate, want and fear. Since we’ve all lived though our teens, we can draw on those experiences when we craft our characters.

It’s not quite as easy—though still doable--to adopt a viewpoint further from our range of experience. Danielle Joseph and Jenny O’Connell have both written from the male p.o.v. R.A. Nelson uses the female first person quite effectively in two of his books. In THE HOST, Stephenie Meyer writes from the p.o.v. of a female alien symbiote. Hmm. Thinking back on some of my past relationships, maybe that's not too much of a stretch. But you get my point.

I feel pretty confident that I can switch sexes and ages and even become mythical creatures if my story calls for it. The one area where I don’t feel comfortable is in creating a viewpoint character from another culture. For example, I’ve been in Jamaica several times, and I’ve spoken with a number of the people, but I wouldn’t attempt to write a novel from a Jamaican’s point of view even if I immersed myself in their culture for years. In other words, I'd take a stab at being a male troll with wart issues, but I'd feel like a fraud writing as a teen living in a culture I don't understand inside out.

Do you think I'm a chicken? Are there any first person viewpoints you wouldn’t attempt? I’d love to hear your take on it.

Concert time!

So, tonight, I'm going to my first Seattle-area concert. It's not in a little hole-in-the-wall club or at the Paramount or Key Arena. Nope, tonight we go outdoor, to the White River Amphitheatre where Sting will be performing his greatest hits (both from the Police era as well as solo works) with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra.

I love going to concerts-- from dark jazz clubs to symphony halls to arenas to stadiums-- And they all have such unique memories attached. My first rock concert: Rick Springfield when I was fourteen years old. Hey, don't mock-- forget the pretty boy actor on General Hospital, this cat could rock out. It was a fantastic concert that even my sister, who grew up on seeing Cream and Led Zeppelin and The Who, loved. I had such a giggle when I spotted him at BEA in New York last week and kind of wanted to tell him he popped my concert cherry, but figured a) he might take a statement like that wrong and b) not like I could get all that close, what with the middle-aged ladies clamoring to take pictures. (Yeah, yeah... I know how old I am, but I don't clamor.)

My first week at college, my roommate and I bonded over an REO Speedwagon concert-- I still remember Kevin Cronin's impossibly curly hair and breaking the heel of my boot on the cracked sidewalks walking back to our dorm from the Tallahassee Civic Center (crummy acoustics, but best place to have a large concert in town). College gave me some great concert memories: The Moody Blues, Pat Metheny (oh my heavens, bliss!), the first time I saw YES, when it was such a magical, transcendent experience that if the entire stage had levitated and raised towards the heavens, I wouldn't have been surprised (and that was without smoking or ingesting anything-- I was a boring concert goer that way). College also brought me the first time I ever saw Sting-- on his Dream of the Blue Turtles tour, with Branford Marsalis as one of his band members. Best moment? Singing "Roxanne" with nothing but his guitar and Branford on his soprano sax as counterpoint. *le sigh*

Jimmy Buffett was... interesting. Good thing I was in college when I saw him. I think it's probably the best time to take a visit to Margaritaville.

Jazz trumpeter, Chris Botti is another concert favorite, mostly because I can see him in a multitude of different venues. The man is a touring beast. I've seen him at open-air jazz festivals, in arenas, at concert halls, and my favorite, at the Blue Note in NYC, with some guy named Sting, coming up to sing a song with him. (Chris got his start as a member of Sting's touring band-- the music world, she can be crazy-incestuous that way.) I've seen Josh Groban perform a couple of times (yeah, I know but seriously, he's a very, very good and naturally gifted musician), but while I love watching him perform, I do not love his die-hard fans. There's a pack of them who will follow him from concert to concert, sort of like Dead Heads, but without the mellow, herb-assisted goodwill. Nope, these ladies are aggressive and entitled and do their very best to ruin the concert experience for everyone around them because they won't stop talking, they shriek during the on-stage chatter because they already know the punchlines to the jokes, and they think they're being noticed from the stage. Got news for them-- I've been up on many a theatre stage. You can't see squat.

It's because of people like that, that my concert-going has become more selective I don't really love out-of-control screaming throngs, so a lot of rock concerts have gone by the wayside for me (it'll be interesting to note the makeup of the crowd tonight). However, there are some artists I'd make that exception for-- I'd love to see Jason Mraz, because I think he's an amazing musician as well. The Dave Matthews Band is renowned as a jam band and I love nothing more than to see musicians just go off and let the music take them where it will. There are tons more, but I could keep blathering until the cows come home and still keeping going.

Which brings me back to tonight and Sting. I mean, seriously, commence the squeeing and bouncing. At least, that's what I'm doing. Sting is absolutely one of my favorite musicians,and has been an artistic inspiration since I was probably ten years old. To me, he embodies everything I respect in an artist-- he's talented, but refuses to rest on his laurels, chafes at being contained in any one box, is always expanding his knowledge of world music and allowing it to inform his own work, and is always, always, expanding his horizons.

Kind of how I want my writing to be.

Any concerts you're looking forward to this summer?

ETA: BTW, my recap of the concert and how Sting reasserted himself as my total writing Yoda is up on my regular blog.

Summer Reading Slump

I am in a book rut. I've started maybe four books in the past four weeks and only finished one. The thing is, all of the books are supposed to be "good." They got good reviews on Amazon, they're about topics I normally find engaging. They're my "type."

And all this has me worried. Because either 1) I have no taste in books and don't know what "good" is (not a good thing if you're a writer), or 2) there are no originally entertaining ideas left which means that my work in progress will be met with the same so-so reception by readers.

Or maybe I'm just in a pre-summer reading funk. I want a book I can't bear to put down, one that makes me laugh and keeps me captivated. I felt like that when reading John Green's AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES last summer. I felt like that reading Tara Altabrando's THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS (a fellow MTV Books author).

I've decided to accept the blame. Like that age old reasoning, "It's not you, it's me." So I'll continue to buy books and try them out, and at least feel like, regardless of my reaction to the story, I'm supporting fellow writers - which is so important these days!!! What about you? Ever gone through a "dry spell" where you couldn't find any books that that hit the spot?