How to Wait Well: Get Out Your Pom-Poms

Confession: I don't always wait well. When I was a kid and I had to wait for something, I would just make a paper calendar with elaborately doodled pages and mark off the days until the SUPER EXCITING THING arrived. But give me a wait without a specified end date, and waiting well quickly turns into waiting cranky. I don't think anyone has ever died from waiting, but dang it if it doesn't feel like a real possibility some days.

Ask a writer what it's like to write a book and you'll get all sorts of answers. It's fun...it's challenging...it's fulfilling...it's exciting. And it's all those things. It's an amazing experience in which we sit at our computers and populate the blank page with words, bringing to life the vibrant world inside our heads as our characters whisper their stories in our ears.

...

Yeah, mostly it's this:

But honestly, I think the hardest part of writing comes once the book is finished, because if there's one thing all writers can agree on, it's that pursuing a career in the book world involves a whole lot of w-a-i-t-i-n-g. In fact, if I were to make a pie chart to illustrate life after writing a book, it would look something like this:

(If my agent is reading this, I promise that "write next book" slice is a lot bigger than it looks.) 😉

And the waiting comes with every stage of the journey. First you wait for agents to reply to your queries, then you wait for them to read your manuscript. Then you countdown the hours until THE CALL, and the moment you can officially announce I HAVE AN AGENT! And once you've waited for your agent to finish reading your revisions, guess what?

YOU WAIT SOME MORE!

Because once you're on sub, then you're waiting on replies from editors and eventually, if you're lucky enough to get a publishing deal, there's more announcements to wait for and more edits to complete, the countdown to publication day, and by then, you've hopefully finished another book and get to start the entire process all over again.

So, how does one survive? How do we wait well and not end up a hot mess, clutching our manuscripts and begging PLEASE JUST LIKE THESE WORDS I WROTE while consuming an entire pint of triple chocolate cookie dough ice cream? "Write the next book" is the suggestion I hear most often (for good reason). And of course, there's always the distraction of that never ending pile of books waiting to be read. But I've found that one of the best (and most fun) survival techniques is cheering on my fellow authors.

A great way to stop focusing on your own wait is to support someone else in theirs. And let's face it. It's super easy to fall into the comparison trap in this business. No matter where we're at in our own journey, there will always be someone who reaches the next stage ahead of us. What better way to beat down the green-eyed monster of jealousy than by celebrating others' success? (Something I need to remember not just in writing, but in life.)

I'm fortunate enough to have a great group of writing friends, both locally and online (looking at you, Pitch Wars 2015 crew) and they've been incredible examples of what it means to wait well and root for one another. My time in the waiting trenches would be ten times harder if not for their camaraderie. The writing world is such an incredible community precisely because of the support we lend each other, so...

Obsessively checking your email? Send an encouraging note to a friend who's in the midst of a first draft. Are the aisles of Barnes and Noble silently mocking you with their rows of bestsellers? Offer to CP or beta read for a fellow writer who desperately wants to be on those shelves, too. Procrastinating on social media? Retweet that deal announcement, blog post, or book trailer. 

While you're waiting for your own time of celebration to arrive, LET THAT CONFETTI FLY.

And, hey, a little retail therapy never hurts, right?

My Very Own "How I Got My Agent" Story!

I have a literary agent.

Did I really just get to type that sentence?!

Two weeks later, and it's finally starting to sink in. It's something I've hoped for, worked toward, and daydreamed about for such a long time. Now that it's real, I'll do my best to squash into a few paragraphs the crazy journey that got me to this point, in the hopes that my story can encourage someone else. (Basically, I'm here to once again be that annoying person that shouts at you, "DON'T GIVE UP!")

All I ever wanted to be was a writer. I remember writing some of my first stories in elementary school. My go-to Mother's Day gifts were poems, decorated with doodles and stickers and homemade cardboard frames. (My mom still has one of them, tucked away in a box filled with old family photographs.) But somewhere around high school, becoming an author turned into a pipe dream--as likely as becoming a pop star, or an actress, or living in one of the castles on the posters I had pinned to my wall. (That's right, while my friends had N'SYNC and Backstreet Boys, I plastered my walls with maps of Europe.)

Still, there was a hope...maybe someday.

A few years later, and I still had my someday dream. The desire to write wouldn't leave me alone, and neither would my amazing husband who nudged and encouraged me to actually do something about it. So I enrolled in a writing course from the Institute of Children's Literature. I learned a lot about the basics of good storytelling, but most importantly, I learned what comes after you write the story: Querying.

Suddenly, the path to publication didn't seem so mysterious. It started to feel less like a pipe dream, and more like a possibility. Especially when I got my first acceptance letter for a short story I'd submitted to a children's magazine. But could I really go from short story, to full length novel?

Enter NaNoWriMo.

I wrote my first novel in November of 2009. 50K in 30 days. A young adult fantasy that no one else will ever, EVER set eyes on. (Seriously, you would probably fall into a plot hole and never be heard from again. But it proved to me that I really could write enough words for a whole book and for that reason, I will allow it to live out its days in peace, buried in a folder on my laptop.) I continued to participate in NaNoWriMo every November, and in 2012, I wrote my first children's novel. In 2013, I wrote my second, a middle grade fantasy called FOLLOW ME, which would eventually...

(fast forward to more recent months)

...earn me a spot as a mentee in Brenda Drake's 2015 Pitch Wars contest. My amazing mentor, Kara Seal, helped me make FOLLOW ME even stronger. I got a handful of requests in the Pitch Wars agent round, but it would be the slush pile that would finally land me an agent: the ever-so-lovely Marietta Zacker of the Gallt-Zacker Literary Agency! Marietta had actually read FOLLOW ME almost two years ago when it was still...well, let's just say "in progress." (AKA it was a hot mess, but Marietta's encouraging words spurred me to take it from "almost there" to "By George, I think she's got it!") After Pitch Wars, I queried her again with the revised manuscript, and I'm SO glad I did! From our very first conversation, I knew that having Marietta as my agent would mean having an incredible champion in my corner. I feel very fortunate to have found such a great match; someone who is passionate about my stories, loves my characters as much as I do, and is excited to help me build my writing career. 

The road here has been filled with highs and lows, plenty of rejections, tears, frustrations, and triumphs. Not to mention countless hours of rewrites, edits, and revisions (and a fair share of both pity-party and celebratory ice cream). I have gone from optimistic and sure of myself one day, to depressed and feeling like the worst writer ever the next. There were times I wanted to quit, but thankfully I have a community of family, friends, and fellow writers (and, of course, those pesky characters demanding their stories be written) who wouldn't let me. 

So here it is (I warned you it was coming)...

Even if it feels like a pipe dream...

Even if you feel like you've been at it forever...

Even if you've gotten a hundred rejections...

Even if it means shelving one story and starting a new one...

Even if the words don't come easily...

Even if you're terrified it's never going to happen...

DON'T GIVE UP. 

If you require further convincing, check out this blog post I wrote while I was in the midst of writing FOLLOW ME (and pretty convinced it was going nowhere): The Day I Almost Quit.

Learning to Embrace the Story

For the last couple of years, I've seen a trend on social media. Come January, people start posting their "word" for the year. Something that speaks to them, to what they want out of the shiny, clean slate that is a brand new calendar. A word of encouragement; one that points toward a goal. A hope. An area of growth.

I like this idea. But then again, I'm a fan of words in general.

After pondering for a couple of weeks, I think I've landed on my 2016 word of the year...

Embrace.

            em•brace  verb

            1. to accept (something or someone) readily or gladly

            2. to use (an opportunity) eagerly

I especially love how this word applies to both my life in general...

Embrace the messy house. I have two children. And a life. Mess comes with the territory.

Embrace simplicity. Contentment is the new black.

Embrace the present. There are memories to be made now. The future can wait its turn.

...and to my writing career...

Embrace the wait. The perfect thing later is a lot better than the wrong thing now. 

Embrace the rejections. That agent/editor/publisher wasn't the right one. But the next one could be.

Embrace who I am as an author. Focus on sharing a story, not selling a book.

That last one is the hardest (at least for me). I think one of the most sought after - and most feared - words in the writing world is "marketable." If you're a writer you've probably heard people say, "Don't write for the market! Write the story only you can tell!" And if you've ever been told that your book is lovely but not marketable enough, you've probably felt the strong desire to pummel those people with the largest, heaviest book you can get your hands on. (I keep a nice, fat hardcover copy of War and Peace in my living room for just such occasions.) 

(Just Kidding.) 

(Or am I?)

I realized recently, as I've been exploring ideas for new writing projects and revisiting old ones, that I've been trying to shove myself into the elusive box of marketability. And it's sapped a lot of the joy I once felt at the prospect of putting new words on paper. It's a difficult balance, wanting to write the story that brings you joy, but also wanting it to bring you an agent and a book deal. And while I think writing with the awareness of what makes a book marketable is a good thing, writing solely with the intention of creating a sellable story is a recipe for disaster. Writing is like cooking: the secret spice is love. It's the difference between a bland TV dinner and a spicy home cooked meal. It's the difference between a good book and a great one. 

“To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.”

—Allen Ginsberg

That's not to say that the story you're passionate about comes easy. Even things you love can make you want to pull your hair out (every mother in the world knows this). But it's worth every single edit. Every single rewrite. Every single moment of questioning your sanity.

I read a story this week, after the passing of Alan Rickman, that really drove this point home for me. Evanna Lynch, who played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films, shared a story on her Facebook page of an interaction she had with Alan at a charity dinner a few years after the filming of the HP movies. At the time, Evanna says, she "was stressing about the pressure I felt to already be a successful actress and that I'd run out of time to make mistakes." Then she goes on to share Alan's advice...

"As an actress, already having to lie about my age at 24, it seems mad that Alan only found his vocation and began his acting journey at 26 and turned out to be…Alan Rickman. But when I told him that I was worried if I didn't figure myself out quickly I would miss the most important opportunities and never get them back, he simply told me that I was focusing on the wrong thing. He said not to worry about getting 'there' and instead to focus on feeding my soul and following my heart from place to place."

As I move into this new year, I want to embrace the stories that are tugging at my heart. The ones I can't stop thinking about. The ones that bring a smile to my face and make me eager to take up my pen again...and again...and again...even when it's hard. 

Because after all, those stories are the reason why I started writing in the first place. 

DIY Writing Planner (For Under $10!)

Every year, my writers' group does a gift exchange at the holidays. This year (because, life) we ended up having a New Year celebration, rather than a Christmas one, so we decided our gifts should be something to encourage one another to write throughout the coming year. I put together a simple, inexpensive writing planner and loved it so much I decided to make one for myself! 

When I'm working on a story, I like to have a notebook handy so I can jot down notes and inspiration that come to me during the day when I don't have time to pull out my computer. If you're a wee bit OCD like me and secretly annoyed by having a notebook filled with out-of-sequence notes, this binder gives you the bonus of being able to add and/or rearrange pages as needed. 

All the materials can currently be found (for under $10 total!) in what my kids call the "Dollar Section" at Target. (You know, that section near the entrance where everything is cheap and adorable, AKA, the most dangerous aisle in the store.)

Materials:
1 Mini Binder
1 Filler Paper/Pocket Divider Combo
1 Pack Pencils

Plus:

Printable Monthly Writing Project Sheets

Printable Daily Word Count Sheets

(I like to use a sturdy card stock for these.) 

Print the project and word count sheets
(pro tip: draw a cut line 1/4" from
the edge of the first column to get nice,
evenly sized sheets).

Use the filler paper as a template to mark
where to hole punch.

Separate the lined paper into three (roughly)
equal stacks, split them up with the pocket
dividers, and add a project and word count
sheet at the beginning of each section.

And there you have it! There are so many ways to make it your own...print writing prompt cards or inspirational images to stick in the divider pockets (Pinterest is a great place to find both), add character profile sheets, setting maps, calendar pages to help schedule writing time...whatever helps get you excited and motivated to write.

Have you made your own writing planner? I'd love to see photos of your creation! Leave one in the comments below or tweet me @papergram.

My Pitch Wars Inspiration Story

When the Pitch Wars mentor picks went live, I was sitting on my couch frantically refreshing my browser along with the rest of the mentee hopefuls who had (naturally) broken Brenda's site the moment she hinted at posting the list. My husband very calmly asked me what the website was and proceeded to look it up on his iPad.

Me: "C'MON! LOAD!"
Husband: "Honey, I've got the list."
Me: "I've almost got it! It's loading!"
Husband: "HONEY, I'VE GOT THE LIST."

As soon as I looked up and saw his face, I knew what he was going to say next. (Although it took me a whole heck of a lot longer to really believe it.)

"Your name is on it!"

And thus began two of the coolest, craziest months ever. They've gone something like this...

I've learned so much from my mentor, Kara Seal. (Seriously, you guys, she's the BEST EVER.) And I've gained the most incredible community of writers, ready and willing to lend encouragement and support every step of the way. This experience is something I will never forget, and I know I will continue to reap the benefits of what I've learned and the people I've connected with for years to come. 

On Tuesday (which, by the way, also happens to be my 30th birthday) all our super-shiny, newly polished novels will get their first peek at the world when our pitches and excerpts go live on Brenda's blog. To distract ourselves from the looming agent-round jitters, some of us mentees are doing a blog-hop to share our experiences and the inspirations behind our novels. In my middle grade novel, FOLLOW ME, twelve-year-old Alivia Hart searches the woods for her missing mother and finds a family tree full of secrets that lead to a place called Wonderland. And here's how it started...

The idea for FOLLOW ME began with a setting. I had just finished watching the movie EPIC with my kids and as the credits rolled, I couldn't stop thinking about the magical world inside the forest, where good battled evil and a darkness threatened to destroy everything from the inside out. I knew I wanted to write a book with a setting like that--dark and mysterious, with just a bit of creepiness around the edges. When I'm planning a novel, flashes of scenes play in my mind, like clips from a movie trailer. I kept picturing a girl, standing in front of an open window, shivering in the cold while she waited for something...

A wind from the woods. 

Carrying a voice. 

A mother's voice. Whispering, "Follow me..."

When I first started plotting the book, I had no intention of connecting my story to Lewis Carroll's Wonderland. But then I had an idea for a scene that required my main character, Alivia, to have the same first initial as her mother. The first A name that popped into my head was Alice. And then I thought...

"What if her mother is THE Alice?"

I love Alice's adventures--they were the start of my classic children's books phase as a preteen--so it was easy to get excited about the direction that idea took me. And the rest of the pieces fell into place from there! (Okay, so there was a lot of hard work and crying and pleading and it felt more like forcefully jamming the pieces into place at times, but it's all good now and if I've gone a little mad in the process it's okay, because all the best people are, right?) 

So that's the story behind my story! You can find links to some of the other mentees' posts here. 

To all my fellow mentees: You guys are an amazing group of crazy talented people and I can't wait to have a whole bookcase full of your stories! I'll be cheering on each and every one of you in the agent round!

More Pitch Wars:

Why I Heart Pitch Wars

My Pitch Wars Mentor/Mentee Spotlight

Don't Give Up (Or, Why I Heart Pitch Wars)

I've noticed a common theme among the mentor's Pitch Wars tweets this year: DON'T GIVE UP. Now, I know it's sometimes hard to hear that from another writer when they've already got the finished book, the agent, AND the book deal. If we're being honest, we've all thought it at some point...

Easy for you to say.

Well, as a hopeful, yet-to-be-published Pitch Wars submitter, I'd like to echo the "keep at it" sentiments. (Also, you shouldn't compare your journey to someone else's, but I already wrote a post about that here.)

Last year I submitted to Pitch Wars right after receiving a pretty heartbreaking rejection. It went something like this:

Start querying first MG novel.
Get a bunch of rejections.
Get a full request! Huzzah!
Have phone call with agent. Double huzzah!
Be told book is awesome, but too quiet to sell as debut. Huzzah?
"Do you have any other books?"
Scramble to finish WIP and send to agent, hoping it's enough to tip the scales.
Email notification dings. Heart leaps. Open email...
Heart sinks.

Let me just say, this agent was over-the-moon wonderful and encouraging and supportive, and I could not have had a more lovely interaction with her. But the very nice, very complimentary no was still a no, and of course I was disappointed. So I had some Ben and Jerry's...

...decided it wasn't meant to be, determined I wouldn't let it get me down, and that very night I submitted my manuscript to Pitch Wars.

I didn't get any requests for additional pages.
I didn't get picked as a mentee.

I did get feedback. (Thank you Michelle Hauck and Joy McCullough!) And wouldn't you know it, they both said the same thing: lovely voice, hard to market the story. But they also had some really great advice on what they felt could be improved. Because of them, and tweets from some of the other mentors, I at least knew what I had done wrong in my query and I'd grown as a writer. I knew it was time to move on to the next book.

So I didn't give up, and I kept going, and it was all rainbows and unicorns from there, right?

Um, yeah, no.

About six months (and a slew of rejections) later, I'm in the midst of waffling between two WIPs, and feeling like this...

It had been FOREVER since I'd made any real progress, and I was desperate to just FINISH SOMETHING, DAMMIT. I had three-quarters of a novel--why was the last bit SO FRIGGIN' HARD? I felt like a complete failure. Like maybe I should just give up on this whole writing thing.

I felt like all I would ever be was an almost.

Almost good enough.

Almost represented.

Almost published.

It was really, really hard to write. I ignored my manuscript(s) for weeks. But eventually I admitted it felt worse to NOT write. So I limped along. Some nights I think I managed to add one decent paragraph to my almost finished novel. Then, after borrowing Write Your Novel From the Middle by James Scott Bell from a dear friend/CP, I had a plot breakthrough. I thought maybe, just maybe, I could do this. 

I gave myself a deadline: Pitch Wars 2015. I started to feel the excitement of possibility again. Several sleep-deprived weeks later...

The Pitch Wars Mentor Blog Hop went live and I sat down to make a list of the mentors I wanted to submit my FINISHED manuscript to. 

Would I love to sit at the feet of a mentor for the next two months? Of course. But whether we get picked or not, or whether our manuscripts are all shiny and ready for the world or a hot mess that needs way more work, we'll have to remind ourselves to keep going. There's always more to be learned, more stories to write, more ways to improve. There will always be super awesome 2,000-word days and really, really crappy one-sentence days. If there's one thing I've learned thus far, it's that this writing thing takes a lot of working and waiting...and then working and waiting some more. I happen to think it's worth it.

So for those of you in the Pitch Wars trenches (or the querying trenches, or the WIP trenches), let me be that annoying person who says it for the one hundredth time: DON'T GIVE UP.

And THANK YOU Brenda Drake, and Pitch Wars mentors. Whether I get picked or not, I have a novel. I've gained invaluable advice from the mentor's tweets and blog posts, not to mention connections with other writers. I've remembered what it feels like to be passionate about telling stories. To be hopeful and positive and excited about my writing journey. This year's contest has seriously been so encouraging and helped me so, so much. It's been exactly what I needed. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled Pitch Wars twitter stalking...

My Pitch Wars Mentee Bio!

(If you're reading this and wondering what on earth Pitch Wars is, go here to find out.)

Hi, I'm Ashley and I'm a night owl with a caffeine intolerance.

Seriously, there should be a support group for this.

I'm also a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom of two--one girl and one boy, ages (almost) 10 and 7, respectively. Now that I think about it, a support group for that would be handy, too.

I write middle grade--a.k.a. the best age category--and my Pitch Wars submission is a fantasy novel titled FOLLOW ME. (Fun fact: The first draft of FOLLOW ME was written during NaNoWriMo 2013.)

When all the other kids still wanted to be zookeepers and astronauts, I wanted to be a writer. Sure, the elephants and giraffes tempted me on occasion, but books always had my heart.

When I'd get in trouble as a kid, my mom didn't take away my allowance, she gave it to me--and then banned me from the bookstore for a week.

I was a very obedient child.

Some of my favorite books (I'll keep it to 10, though it pains me to list so few):
THE MEANING OF MAGGIE by Megan Jean Sovern
The Flavia de Luce novels by Alan Bradley
THE VERY NEARLY HONORABLE LEAGUE OF PIRATES by Caroline Carlson
UNFORTUNATELY, THE MILK by Neil Gaiman
THE HOBBIT by J.R.R. Tolkien
THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins
THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak
And just to prove that I do occasionally read adult fiction:
THE BEEKEEPER'S APPRENTICE by Laurie King
MR. PENUMBRA'S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE by Robin Sloan
THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern

It's always been my dream to be a published author and over the last few years I've stopped just dreaming and started hustling. It's been a challenging road paved with my fair share of rejection letters, but I have no plans of quitting. So...

Why should you pick me?

1. I'm a hard worker, ready and eager to scrub, wax, spit-shine, and otherwise polish my manuscript.

2. I can take feedback, edits, and constructive criticism with gratitude and grace. Confession: When I was taking courses with the Institute of Children's Literature, my very first assignment came back covered in red ink because I'd managed to type "it's" instead of "its" through my entire short story. If that doesn't humble you as a writer (and make you an obsessive compulsive editor), I don't know what will. Also, I swear I passed the second grade.

3. I'm an INFJ, which means you can brag to your fellow mentors that your mentee is the scarcest form of introvert, rarely seen in the wild.

Which means I have even more time to work on my manuscript.

Thanks for stalking stopping by! And thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my words with you. Best of luck to all my fellow Pitch Wars hopefuls! (Feel free to visit some of their mentee bios via the handy list here.)