Category: Good News

DIVERGENT ARC Winner! (And a Friday Five)

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And the winner of a Divergent ARC is…

PAM HARRIS

Pam, please email me your mailing address at katy(dot)upperman(at)live(dot)com. I will mail your book out as soon as I hear from you. 🙂 

Thanks so much to all who entered, subscribed to the blog, and tweeted about this contest. If you didn’t win, please do stop by Alicia Gregoire’s blog, Slice of the Blog Pie. She’s hosting a Divergent ARC giveaway too! You can also purchase your very own copy of Divergent on May 3, 2011.

For the record, if I was a part of the Divergent world and had to chose a faction, I’d totally pick Amity. I like red and yellow, I have a not so secret wish to live on a farm, I hate conflict, I enjoy being outdoors, and I’m a hippie at heart. 

And, in celebration of Friday’s arrival (finally!), here are five blog posts  I loved this week:

1. Roni Loren’s How to Amp Up Sexual Tension in Your Story

2. Natalie Fischer’s Why I’m Scared (To Self-Publish)

3. Amie Kaufman’s Can Jack Write Jill? Writing Across Gender Lines

4. Anne R. Allen’s What If Someone Steals Your Plot?

5. Kate Hart’s YA Deals by the Numbers: Single vs. Multi Book Deals by Genre

Have a wonderful weekend! 🙂

Thankful Thursday

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Oasis for YA knows that the surest way to get good things in life is to be thankful for what you have.  So why not encourage a group thankful-fest once a week in which we all send out good energy and hope to get some back in return? Plus, participating in Thankful Thursday is a great way to connect with other writers.

Here are the rules:
1.  Do your own blog post on what you’re thankful for today.  It doesn’t have to be book or publishing related (but it can be!).
2.  Be sure to grab our badge and include it in your post.
3.  Post a link to your blog in the comments here so that others can find you.
4.  Go forth and share your gratitude!  (And when friending new blogs, be sure to let them know you found them because of their participation in the meme.)This week I’ve lots to be thankful for. In the words of the fabulous Andy Cohen, Here’s What:

1) Last week I entered Brenda Drake’s Show Me the Voice! blogfest/contest. There were well over 100 entrants, yet somehow the first 250 words of my YA ghost story Where Poppies Bloom was awarded third place! I’m very thankful to the judges, especially lovely literary agent Natalie Fischer who’s going to critique my query letter. (Pardon me for tooting my own horn on this one, but yeah… I’m excited!)

2) My husband is at Ranger School. If you’re unfamiliar, Ranger school is an intense 2 month Army training school that is often referred to as a cross between boot camp and a concentration camp. I don’t use that comparison lightly. Ranger School is all about pushing participants to their physical and mental limits. Very little sleep (outdoors, in the rain), very little food (MREs), mind games, and miles and miles of walking with a hundred pound ruck sack. No fun! What, you might ask, does Ranger School have to do with being thankful? Well, I’ve been getting letters from my husband! Like, the old-fashioned paper and pen kind of letters. Plus, every night I get to write to him. It’s a little retro and a lot inconvenient, but there’s something so romantic about opening the mailbox and finding mail from someone you love.   

3. This POST from Hannah Moskowitz about making a playlist for your WIP. Rules to write by. 🙂 

4. Fellow writer/blogger Caroline Tung Richmond, and her recent mention of  the online indie clothing site ModCloth. Cute clothes alert! I placed an order yesterday, which included this adorable dress (I plan to wear it to my husband’s graduation from Ranger School):

5. If you follow me on Twitter you might know that my daughter (three-and-a-half) had one of her teeth knocked out the other day. She was climbing up the ladder of one of those inflatable bouncy slides, slipped, and somehow nailed her tooth at the perfect angle to take it out. Needless to say, I was SO sad! Her new tooth won’t grow in for about two years, plus she was bleeding and worried that our dogs wouldn’t love her anymore because her tooth was missing. Ugh… heartbreak! Still, I’m thankful. It could have been worse. There could have been broken bones or a neck injury or any other number of tragedies. Plus, she’s still cute as can be, even with a missing tooth.

What do you have to be thankful for today?

And the winner is…

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Thanks so much to those who entered my Where She Went ARC giveaway. It was such fun to hear about your favorite contemporary YA picks. Without further ado, I’ve used Random.Org to determine that Katie Vincent is the winner! Congratulations, Katie! Please email me your mailing address at Katy.Upperman@live.com. I’ll have your Where She Went ARC in the mail as soon as I hear from you. I hope you love it as much as I do. 🙂

Critique Update & A Tuesday Christmas Tune

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In case you’ve been waiting with bated breath for an update on my last post (the whole fear of critique thing), here it is:

Mentor’s critique of my manuscript was AMAZING! 

Seriously! Flattering enough to remain motivating, but full of valuable feedback that’s forcing me to take a critical look at a few flawed aspects of the story. She pointed out plenty of things she loved, and, conversely, some problem areas that I myself was unsure of. She contributed some really awesome ideas for how to address the issues. Plus, she pointed out little symbloism/motif things that I sprinkled throughout, wondering if they were right and enough. What a relief to know that they are AND that they’re doing their job. Oh, and she loved the ending–yay! 

So, today I’m going to begin my revision and I can honestly say I’m excited about it.     

I have the time to begin revising today because… I’m done Christmas shopping AND wrapping gifts! I don’t think I can properly express how happy I am about this. At the risk of sound Grinch-like, this is not my favorite time of year. I always feel so rushed and stressed and like I’m not spending equal or enough time with family and friends. Not only do we have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day festivities, but my parents’ anniversary and my husband’s birthday also fall during the next few days. Needless to say, it’s a busy time. So, the somewhat mundane tasks of gift buying and wrapping are items I check from my To-Do list with a flourish. Now, I feel like I can relax a bit and actually enjoy myself.

In that spirit, I leave you with a Tuesday Tune. And, it’s not a country song! It’s my favorite Christmas song, Oh Holy Night. While I think Mariah Carey does it best, Eric Cartman’s version always makes me laugh. 🙂

Teaser Tuesday! Well, sort of…

So, today is a big day in my little writing world:

I typed THE END at the bottom of my WIP, Where Poppies Bloom!

Eighty-five thousand words in just under three months. Whew! I can’t tell you how excited I am to be done with the first draft of this story. It’s become a labor of love, a leap out of my comfort zone, the bane of my existence and also the favorite of  any writing project I’ve ever worked on. All that, and I haven’t even started revisions yet!

The good news is, I’m a revisions kind of girl. The drafting part is SO HARD! Shining a story up, three dimensionalizing characters, tightening arcs, contemplating word choice, deleting bits and adding new ones, rearranging paragraphs, playing with sentence structure… this is the stuff of the writing process I love. (Interestingly, the lovely Mindi Scott wrote an insightful post about writers’ love/hate relationship with writing this week. You should check it out!)

Anyway, in celebration of the completion of WIP’s first draft, I’m teasing you with the last few lines. Don’t worry–they don’t give much away. 🙂

            He pulls me forward, up and out of my chair and into his lap. His arms come around me, enveloping me in warmth and the fresh sunshine scent I’ll forever associate with him. Leaning in close to my ear, he whispers, “Remember when I told you Bell Cove was the shit?”

            I nod, my skin breaking out in shivers.

            “It’s true, right?”

            I look him straight in the eye, a smile teasing my mouth. “Only because you’re here.”

            He laughs and leans in to kiss me again.

            This time, I meet him halfway.

Pitching…

So, I’ve had some interesting experiences with pitching in these last few weeks, and I wanted to take a moment to share them here. First, let me say that I’ve never pitched in person to an agent or editor, and I’ve only pitched live online a few times, so I’m by no means an expert. For some great pitching advice, look here (scroll all the way down!), or here,  or here (for a LOT of pitch info).

That being said, here’s what I’ve leanred.

As a member of the amazing writing community Savvy Authors, I’ve had the opportunity to pitch my work to some well-respected and highly successful literary agents in a private chatroom at the Savvy site. Sounds easy, right? Comfort of home, slippers on, no nerve-wracking face-to-face encounter to stress about. 

No. It’s not easy. Easier then pitching in person? Probably. But still, very much an anxiety inducing experience. Here’s how it works at Savvy: 

1) Show up in the chatroom on time.
2) You (and the other selected pitchers) are assigned the order in which you will pitch by a moderator.
3) Upon your turn, you enter the private Pitching Chatroom where the agent will be waiting. 
4) Very briefly introduce yourself (because time’s a tickin’! You’ve only got ten minutes!).
5) Copy and paste your title, genre, word count and 3-line pitch.
6) Wait (without biting your nails or tapping your foot or freaking out in any way whatsoever) while the agent reads and reviews your pitch.
7) Answer any questions the agent might have about your manuscript or yourself (they always have questions!).
8 ) Hope and pray that the agent will request to see more of your work.
9) Politely hank the agent for her time, no matter what the outcome of the pitch.
10) Return to the general chatroom and report to your fellow pitchers and moderators how things went.
11) Listen and respond while fellow pitchers and moderator either congratulate you (!) or sympathize with you.


 Here’s my pitching history so far.

Effort #1 – I’ll be the first to admit, my pitch was untested and a little iffy. The agent I spoke to was pleasant, though not much interested in my genre and not interested at all in my manuscript. Boo! But the great part is, she was forthcoming and more than willing to offer advice on how to make my pitch sparkle. Slightly disappointed about not getting a request, I went back to work on my pitch, taking her advice to heart.

Effort #2 – I had a new and improved pitch. This agent was incredibly kind. She doesn’t tweet or blog, though, so I didn’t feel like I had a great handle on who she was or what she was seeking. Luckily, she was interested in my pitch and had tons of questions. I mean TONS. That’s good though. She wasn’t bored. I answered them as quickly and directly as possible. And… she requested a partial! Awesome!

Effort #3 – Intimidating. This pitch was with well-known agent in the Kidlit scene. Popular on Twitter, popular blog. It’s weird how you feel like you sort of know a person just from their online presence. Again, she was very nice, as I imagined she would be. She had questions too, most notable, Can you compare your book in voice, subject matter, etc… to that of another author. Why, yes, I can! Again, she was interested and happens to be seeking books that fall into the genre I write. And… another partial request!

Now, I just have to wait. The hard part. 🙂

Here’s the greatest thing about these online pitches (other than getting to wear slippers while you do them!): Pitching online (or at a conference, for that matter) cuts out a lot of waiting time. For example, one of the agents I follow on Twitter recently commented that her query inbox was at over seven-hundred queries. Seriously?! I imagine it will take weeks to get through all those, and I can also imagine that it will be difficult to give each and every one close and personal attention. Pitching takes that portion of wait time out of the game. It also makes your name just a tiny bit more memorable in a sea of hundreds (thousands?) because hey, she spent ten minutes discussing your book with you. That, in my opinions, is so much better than being one letter in a sea of many, many more.

Moral of the story? If the opportunity to pitch arises, run with it!

Odds and Ends

Here’s my To-Read pile:

Here’s what I picked up today:

Seriously. I think I have a problem. Surely there must be a 12 Step program for people like me: people who buy books compulsively even though they have plenty to read. But really, I couldn’t pass these up. It’s been awhile since I’ve read a contemporary YA romance, probably because I’ve been heavily immersed in writing my own, but now that I’m in the final edits stage, I feel my favorite genre calling me back. Still, I’m going to start with Faithful by Janet Fox, a historical YA romance. Honestly, I totally judge a book by its cover and this one is gorgeous.    

In other news, last night I stayed up super late finishing Catching Fire. Oh my gosh, that book is amazing. I had a hard time falling asleep after. I was on total emotional overload thanks to the insane cliffhanger ending. Thank goodness I don’t have to wait long for Mockingjay because I can’t stop thinking about Katniss, Peeta, and Gale. And speaking of my new favorite love triangle, how talented is Suzanne Collins? To create these two possible love interests for Katniss, both of who are completely wonderful in their own very distinct ways, and to give her a logical and compelling reason NOT to pick one or the other… Really. These books blow my mind. How will Katniss ever choose?

And finally, I sent queries to three highly respected agents last week, my first round of queries for WIP! Two agents I’ve yet to hear from, but one requested a partial! I’m thrilled! First, because it would be nothing short of amazing to work with this particular agent and her agency, and second, because I have some confidence in my query now! Who knows how things will pan out, but I’m definitely praying she’ll love it and ask to see more. Stay tuned… 🙂       

Time for a little celebration!

I officially finished WIP today, and really, I kind of love it. It still needs work: revisions and edits and deletions and transitions and several read throughs, but the story is there and it’s strong. I’m elated, but a little sad too, sort of like how after childbirth you briefly miss pregnancy. Then, of course, you totally get over that and thank God the swollen ankles and heartburn and extra thirty-five pounds are gone. Or, in the case of WIP, I’ll thank God that the plotting and characterizing and constant knuckle-pop-inducing typing is over.

I can’t wait to delve into revisions now, to make sure it all flows and sounds pretty and provokes the appropriate emotional responses. Can’t wait to hear from my awesome CP and read all of her fabulous comments and suggestions. Revisions are my favorite part! Stay tuned for more on that process, and later… the querying process.

For now, I’m celebrating!