So of course, after deciding on Monday that I would officially take a break from Book Two, my muse stopped by on Tuesday to tap me on the shoulder.
Me: No. I’m not listening to you.
Muse: Don’t be mean and nasty.
Me: You abandoned me!
Muse: And you’re oppressive. But let’s not get bogged down in the details.
Me: That’s just it, though, isn’t it? You never give me details! It’s all so dry and boring.
Muse: …Oh no you didn’t.
So despite my best efforts, Tuesday was spent writing between fits of reading other books, and guess what? I banged out 2,500 words. Exactly 2,500 words.
Figuring that this was a sign, I tried to do the same thing yesterday, but that didn’t quite work either.
Me: Oh Muse! Where are you?
Muse: I’m dry, remember? And boring.
Me: But I have chocolate!
Muse: You always forget that I’m allergic, dimwit.
So I’ve decided to just let it be. (The Beatles still give the best advice.) If the words come, they come. If they don’t, so be it. I don’t have the time to wheedle.
I started editing Book One, however, and this is exactly how I feel. Where did my genius go?! I am very upset about this. I’m pretty sure that it’s been kidnapped (probably by one of the short stories on my hard drive that I’ve been neglecting). If you happen to see said genius anywhere, please let me know. I will give you chocolate.
It’s not as if my muse wants any.
So give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses–tell me about your starts and stops for the week, and your horror stories of writing gone wonky over night. We shall commiserate together.
It’s been a while since I last posted, but for good reason. I’ve found that prohibiting myself from getting online does wonders for my production capacity. And since I’m too addicted to Facebook and email to let myself just switch off wi-fi, it seems that I have to physically remove myself from striking range of the series of tubes. I swear they have vacuum power.
So when my grandmother asked me to come stay with her for a few days to help around the house, I knew that I should begin turning out my next project in another self-sustained writing retreat. I had planned to start July 10th, since that’s the day I planned to return my other manuscript to NY, but starting early wasn’t a bad idea, if I had the time. I told myself that I needed to hit 15,000 words by the end of the week, at a pace of about 3,000 words a day. I also told myself that I’d probably get distracted and never manage it.
So what did I manage by the end of my stay?
26,500 words. That’s right. I amaze myself sometimes.
Getting out the first draft, in all its rough and tumble glory, is always my favorite part of writing, and I’m really enjoying the beginnings of this book. I’ve put it on hold since Saturday, when I came home, because I need to clean up the draft of Grim before sending it out later this week, but hopefully I’ll be able to pick this draft up and get back to work again without too much trouble.
AND the batch of books that I ordered from Amazon came in while I was away, so now I have plenty of reading material. Considering I still have books on loan from a friend, I think that I’ll be set for the next few weeks. Which is good, because I really don’t need to spend any more money.
That’s the only update on my end, but since today is MJ’s memorial service, I guess that I should leave you with a video.
“If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.”
-Michael Jackson, King of Pop
So I made it home okay and have been taking a few days to settle back in. It’s funny, because I wasn’t all that excited about leaving NYC, even though it meant that my relaxing summer was beginning. Then, as the plane was skimming down over OKC, I got this huge wash of emotion. I was happy to see things that felt familiar, and excited to see my family in the terminal, and even relieved to feel the long-lost pressure of humidity as we deplaned. I knew two things: It was good to be home, and this was going to be the setting of my next novel.
Since then, I’ve spent time cooking and visiting people and talking to my brother. And taking my dog on walks. And gathering books from my to-be-read list. Oklahoma really makes me appreciate the simple things.
I’ve also finished up edits and sent out copies to a bunch of friends. I need some time away from the novel, and I need a pool of feedback to draw from. I hope to get comments back by July so that I can rewrite again and send the second draft back to NY. Until then, I think that I’m going to take a few days off from writing to do things around the house and digest some new books. Then I may get started on my new next novel. Yes, that does mean that the last new novel is being put on hold. But that’s okay. I think that it’s one that deserves more tact and time than many.
So just a quick post to keep you updated on where I am. More news within the next few weeks, I’m sure.
I’ve been posting more often than usual, but I suppose it can’t hurt since who knows whether or not I’ll go underground after getting home from New York? It looks like it’s going to be a pretty literary summer though, so maybe I’ll stick around.
Anyway, today after work I went to Chinatown to buy souvenirs and food, armed with a single dollar and a debit card, intending to withdraw from an ATM. And then Chase rejected me. What the hell, Chase? Not cool. So I bought a dollar’s worth of fried dumplings, which was actually a decent deal–they were good dumplings and surprisingly filling–and took the subway all the way back to Harlem. My hostel’s ATM machine didn’t reject me! Take that, Chase! But because I didn’t by the croissants I intended to, I decided to just give up on the tasty sandwich I was planning. So now I’m eating a pint of AmeriCone dream, trying to ignore the calorie count. For my stomach’s sake, it’s a good thing I’m leaving NY soon. I need green things. And natural sugar from fruit. And fish that isn’t canned in tomato sauce.
But the bigger news is that we went over another section today! About eighty pages. Most of the work I’m doing is on character development. Going deeper than before and filling in small plot holes. I’ve been getting into my characters’ heads in a more direct way, which is proving interesting. I’m glad, because the story is very character-driven and revealing more about them to the reader is giving the novel far more strength overall. Luckily, my muse seems very willing to rise to the occasion, so I’m trying to humor her. Hence the ice cream dinner. Or at least this is how I justify myself. To myself. Yes, I have issues, I know.
I’m also about 10,000 words into the project I have planned for this summer, which I’m super excited about. The first few pages don’t really match up with where I’m heading right now, but I can always go back and edit. I’ve decided to take notes on discrepancies and just focus on getting the thing on paper, since my goal is to have a workable draft by August. I have a few basic concerns, but we’ll see what happens. After all, things may get changed around a lot by the time I hit the gut of the story.
Also, when I get back to St. Paul for my fall semester, I may end up taking a day trip to Fort Snelling for research. Intriguing, I know.
Oh and I saw Up this weekend! So good! Big themes! I think that Disney is trying really hard to break from the criticisms that it’s received in the past, but I do believe that the break is good. They don’t have everything pinned down yet, but they’re working hard, and their stories are all the better for it. So kudos to Disney. And to Pixar, of course. Everyone is infatuated with Pixar.
Lost track of time a bit and so it’s been a while since my last post. Things are going well. The move was… interesting. But fairly smooth. No longer effectively in a single, but it isn’t bad. I’ve discovered through this trip that I’m perhaps a little too comfortable with being on my own, so maybe it’s good for be to be in contact with people outside of Scholastic again. It’s amazing how easy it is to slip into anonymity.
Speaking of Scholastic, I do believe we’ll be starting in on the next few chapters tomorrow morning. I’ve been working on finishing up some short stories that I began last semester, as well as starting in on a few new ones and knocking out a bit of poetry that’s been caught up in the rafters of my mind. And since I’ve become an office nomad once more (for “trimming” the internship program, Scholastic has certainly seen a burst of new ones–I’ve been switched out of a desk twice already haha. I think that at least five new people started this week.) I’ve found that writing on the patio upstairs frees up my muse much better anyhow. Yay for revelations!
To stymie this productivity (because productivity always needs stymieing), a friend from home challenged me to write something without a sad ending, and I plan to take her up on that. I’m not a depressing person, honestly, but I have noticed that depressing stories come to me more easily than happy ones. I’ve been asked more than once why the world makes me so sad.
Truth told, I usually just wait for a setting or character to come to me and then try and follow that thread through to its source and find the life that it’s trying to tell. I don’t actively control these threads, or at least I don’t feel that I do, so changing a story to make it happy or sad would kind of be like changing the ending of a film that I’m watching. When I write, it’s almost as if I’m pulling out something that has already been said–as if I’m piecing together something with a beginning, middle, and end already in place, if only I can find them. It’s common for me to make mistakes when I’m puzzling out how a story is supposed to be, but when I finally put it together correctly, it feels as if that’s the only way it could ever properly be told. I say “correctly” and “properly”, but of course those definitions change every time I run something through an edit. So, in the end, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Perhaps the other writers out there can put in their own two cents about finding stories.
As for me, a happy ending is in the works, even if it is a bit clumsy right now.
We were intending to start edits yesterday but it didn’t work out; this is such a busy month in publishing! My heart goes out to all the editors, agents, and authors who are scrambling to get everything to press on time. We did dive in today though, and it was a great experience.
My emotional state in regards to the contest is constantly in flux, though always on an upswing. Sometimes I’m going along just dandy and then someone says something or does something that makes me stop and think and realize what a complete honor this really is. And then I go back and look over the pages that I submitted last spring and wonder why in the world they picked me, and feel so utterly indebted and so pathetically shocked that I stare at my keyboard, frantic because I can’t possibly live up to all of the expectations.
Getting line edits from David is one such experience; knowing that he not only took the time to give my novel multiple reads, but is now taking the time to go through and tell me exactly what needs to be worked on, and why, exactly, each change needs to be made, is enough to make me both giddy and frantic for quite a while. We went over the first three chapters this morning and then I edited through the afternoon, and, when I finished, I reworked a short story that I wrote yesterday.
Most of the changes made on the novel were pretty basic–cutting and reworking scenes and tinkering with dialog and descriptions. I have a feeling that once we get into the heart of the plot, though, there will be a lot more overhauling to be done. I have to say that I’m looking forward to it. It was awesome to get critiques on issues that I hadn’t even considered before, and to hear the logic behind fixing scenes that I knew needed work, but was too close to to be able to say why.
Tomorrow is moving day! You can only stay in hostels for fourteen days so I have to move out of this one after tonight. After much deliberation, I decided to get some of my stuff over to the new place today so that I wouldn’t have to stress about it tomorrow, so I went after work to scout it out and ask whether that would be okay and then came back and picked up my big duffel bag. I considered taking the subway but once I realized that I couldn’t lift the thing higher than six inches for any extended period of time, I caved and hailed a cab. That’s what I get for trying to live out of one bag for four weeks I guess. But it wasn’t that expensive so I shouldn’t complain.
I also have a whole stack of postcards that I need to send out. On my to-do list for tomorrow, hopefully. Also on my to-do list? My brother and I decided last night/this morning to write a book together over the summer. Considering our sense of humor, you should probably be very, very afraid. I, on the other hand, am only very, very excited. We talked about it for three hours last night and decided that it should involve Wisconsin, nanomachines, titanium fangs, and possibly the letter Ø.
OhmyGodfinalsIhateyou. It’s crunch time people! Which means procrastination time, which means (drumroll) Question and Answer!
From Nicola: I was hoping you could answer a question: the guidelines say that you need to submit an outline. How detailed does my outline need to be/how detailed was yours?
What they’re looking for is a standard synopsis, like any synopsis you would submit to an agent or editor. It seems that the judges don’t assume you’ve finished your novel, which makes it a little different from a normal pitch, but they do want to know where you’re going with it. I personally had finished my novel, so it was pretty easy to outline. Include all major characters, the setting and main plot points, and, if you have it, the ending. Mine was two pages exactly, double spaced. I don’t remember whether or not it said how long they wanted it, but two pages is a conservative standard so if they don’t specify I’d say go along those lines.
Here are a couple of resources: How to Write a Synopsis (From Nathan Bransford, Literary Agent) Workshop: Writing the Novel Synopsis
They can take a lot of work and honing, so don’t get frustrated if you find yourself slaving over writing and rewriting at this stage.
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From T.K. Harpene When did you find out that you were advancing on/receiving an award in the contest? What did you gain from it (awards, lessons, etc.)?
I heard back on April 30th. Since the novel side of the competition is through PUSH and is read over there, you don’t actually move from state to nationals like in other categories in the Art and Writing awards. The pieces are all read over and narrowed down, and then the gold key and silver key winners are announced. David told me that he normally puts in a call, but I happened to be at work when he called my house, so he left his number and sent me an email. We finally got a chance to talk on the phone a few days later and he went over some more of the specifics on what they’d decided on their end and how things were going to progress.
As far as what I gained, I’m sure you’ve read over the specifics of the contest as often as I did prior to submitting, because everyone deserves to be a little OCD sometime. The guidelines are pretty straightforward without being straightforward at all, which seems to be a special talent among contest developers. Basically, you get invited to the national awards ceremony in New York, which I wasn’t able to attend, unfortunately, because I was out of the country. If you do get to go, I’m pretty sure that they have workshops and general get-togethers for contest winners in all the different categories. They’ll give you a medallion and a certificate, or mail it to you if you can’t attend. Since I had a complete manuscript I went ahead and sent it to David, but I’m not sure what happens otherwise. Perhaps you send what you have so far? I couldn’t really say. You’re offered an internship in New York to work on editing the manuscript (or finishing the novel, as the case may be). It’s an offer that can’t expire, so since I couldn’t go last summer I’ll be going this year, but I could have put it off even longer if I’d needed to. I don’t know too much about the logistics of the internship, except that it’s paid, but considering cost of living in NY, and the plane ride out there, I’ll be lucky to break even. I think that they tailor what you work on with where your manuscript is at at the time of your arrival, so I’ll probably be doing heavy rewrites. The hope is to start the piece on its way to publication, but Scholastic never commits itself to actually publishing. If the board decides that it’s publishable and thinks that it will sell, then you’ll be offered a standard contract and they’ll begin that process. They do have first rights to the piece, so if you decide not to publish with Scholastic (for some insane, unknown reason) you can’t actually shop it out to anyone else.
Hope those answers were helpful! Everyone is invited to ask anything they want and aid my procrastination campaign!
I don’t want some wild rumor to take root (as wild rumors are prone to do), so I think that it would be best to cover exactly what the PUSH/Scholastic Press Novel Contest is and what winning it entails.
To quash one of the most common misconceptions, let me just say that I am not being published.
Hold on! No need to break camp and head home just yet!
You see, when it comes to my writing I transform into a surprisingly superstitious person, so you won’t hear words like “potentially” or “conceivably” cross my lips very often. Instead you’ll hear a crisp “we’ll see” followed by lots of crashing as I devolve into a woodpecker and knock the nearest table into cardboard.
You might argue that there really is talk of “…the possibility of publication…” and even “…in the hopes of publication…” when combing the Scholastic and PUSH websites (Which I would never think of doing. Honest.), but I feel better glossing over this for the time being (My optimism is a delicate thing and should not be encouraged).
So allow me to point you in the direction of the concrete:
The set-up?
Every year Scholastic Inc., in conjunction with many other respectable and venerable companies, hosts the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. These awards have been in full-swing for 60 years now (impressive, no?), but the latest addition came in 2003 with the founding of PUSH, an imprint of Scholastic Press dedicated to finding unpublished authors. This new imprint was the brainchild of Scholastic Press’s editorial director and was linked to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards via a contest. A novel writing contest.
The PUSH/Scholastic Press Novel Contest seeks manuscripts of all genres from novelists grades 8-12. Prizes are given through the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards: honorable mentions, silver keys, and a single gold award. The gold key winner is then taken under wing by Scholastic Press and PUSH’s editorial director. Manuscripts are drafted and drafted again, a summer internship is offered, and, sometimes, the finished product sees print.
What does all of this mean?
It means that I’ve been a downright giddy person for the last two-and-a-half months. It means that every time I think about it, a little of the shock (yes, there is still shock) subsides and is replaced by excitement. It means that I feel indebted to Scholastic, to the judges, to my family. I’ll stop there before I bore you more than I already have.
To review: I’m superstitious (but don’t spread that around), I need to stop hanging out at the Scholastic website, and it’s possible that I’ll spontaneously hug and thank you (if I haven’t thus far). It’s okay. Just smile and nod along.
Hello! My name is Anna W. Waggener and I'm an author of Young Adult Fantasy and other well-intentioned lies. To learn about me, please feel free to read along. And comment! I love comments.
So of course, after deciding on Monday that I would officially take a break from Book Two, my muse stopped by on Tuesday to tap me on the shoulder.
It’s been a while since I last posted, but for good reason. I’ve found that prohibiting myself from getting online does wonders for my production capacity. And since I’m too addicted to Facebook and email to let myself just switch off wi-fi, it seems that I have to physically remove myself from striking range of the series of tubes. I swear they have vacuum power.
So I made it home okay and have been taking a few days to settle back in. It’s funny, because I wasn’t all that excited about leaving NYC, even though it meant that my relaxing summer was beginning. Then, as the plane was skimming down over OKC, I got this huge wash of emotion. I was happy to see things that felt familiar, and excited to see my family in the terminal, and even relieved to feel the long-lost pressure of humidity as we deplaned. I knew two things: It was good to be home, and this was going to be the setting of my next novel.
I’ve been posting more often than usual, but I suppose it can’t hurt since who knows whether or not I’ll go underground after getting home from New York? It looks like it’s going to be a pretty literary summer though, so maybe I’ll stick around.
Lost track of time a bit and so it’s been a while since my last post. Things are going well. The move was… interesting. But fairly smooth. No longer effectively in a single, but it isn’t bad. I’ve discovered through this trip that I’m perhaps a little too comfortable with being on my own, so maybe it’s good for be to be in contact with people outside of Scholastic again. It’s amazing how easy it is to slip into anonymity.
Ah, Wednesday. So busy.
OhmyGodfinalsIhateyou. It’s crunch time people! Which means procrastination time, which means (drumroll) Question and Answer!
I don’t want some wild rumor to take root (as wild rumors are prone to do), so I think that it would be best to cover exactly what the PUSH/Scholastic Press Novel Contest is and what winning it entails.
