So a few weeks ago I met Lauren Myracle at a signing. As a fan, it seemed natural to give her an advanced copy of DUMB. Not that I was sure she’d have time to read it, mind you, but it was pretty cool to think that one day she might.
Well, she did . . [...]
My sister-in-law sent me a cool link to the Guardian newspaper, which was running a series in which authors submitted their Rules for Writing. There’s some good stuff in there, such as:
“Read it aloud to yourself because that’s the only way to be sure the rhythms of the sentences are OK (prose rhythms are too [...]
At dinner the other night, a friend asked what I was working on at the moment. I ran through my project list, which includes both YA and fantasy, and he asked how I was able to work in two completely different genres at the same time.
It’s a good question, too. I’ve never had trouble working [...]
Super-author Mandy Hubbard (whose fantastic debut novel, PRADA AND PREJUDICE is already in its fourth printing!) wrote an insightful (and very honest) piece about how having a book published has changed her life as a writer. It’s a question authors get asked a lot, and got me thinking . . .
I think Mandy’s list [...]
Yes, indeed, writing really is the most ridiculously gratifying career. In what other job can you justify taking time off to read biographies of Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix, or obsessively (re)watch YouTube footage of the aforementioned artists (pre-suicide/overdose, of course)?
All of which is to say that things are going well on the book front . [...]
Today, I bit the bullet and Googled myself. Or rather, I Googled my book, figuring it was about time I uncovered any negative reviews and took the authors off my Christmas card list.
Trouble is, even with the most specific search terms imaginable (”antony john busted confessions flux”) I was flooded with links to all sorts [...]
Or not.
One of the peculiarly masochistic pleasures of having a book release date is seeing who you’re up against. In my case, October 1 sees the release of at least 15 other YA books (or books with YA appeal) including those by Tamora Pierce (Melting Stones), Cornelia Funke (Inkdeath), and Terry Pratchett (Nation).
Oh crap.
Just think about that [...]
From sketchy half-baked idea to shiny, hardback novel:
Agent extraordinaire Ted began pitching Busted to publishers in June 2007, and shortly after, Andrew Karre at Flux called me to chat about the book. I was completely wowed by his vision, as well as his remarks on how it could be improved. (And yeah, he was dead [...]
The unconventional route to landing your dream agent:
As I mentioned, my friends sure didn’t lack for ideas when critiquing my book. In fact, put all their emails together and I’d have enough material for a sequel. In the end, I spent as long editing BUSTED as I did writing it, and it wasn’t until summer [...]
How to suck really, really badly, and live to tell the tale:
My novel, Busted, was written in the spring of 2006. My wife had given birth to our first child a few months before, and as a new stay-at-home dad, I was looking for a creative outlet to take the place of music composition (which [...]
