Bookalicious

Wallace from Unputdownables asked me the other day if I had ever explored how I went from Blogger to writer and then to agent. I haven’t even thought about doing that. Especially because everything I have done has been very untraditional.

It all started in third grade when Mr. Helms told me that my use of the word ‘kindred’ in my poem was beyond grade level. I’m guessing that is not the story you want to hear though…

I had been blogging here for about two years and I was reading queries for another literary agency. I could see early on that they were not going to allow me to learn anything beyond how to add a form rejection and send. So I left.

There aren’t many publishing jobs in Northern California and I always had a love for writing and I have an immense love for young adult and a love for science fiction. I wasn’t seeing much in the way of science fiction on the shelves of my local bookstore. Beth Revis was the shining star and freaking James Frey was the not so bright bulb. I started to write my own.

I got invited to a fabulous critique group from Heather W. Petty and that was a complete life saver. My work was rough and so many of my partners helped me sort it out. I finished the first draft but it was no where near where it needed to be for me to query.

Julie Kagawa had a launch for her latest Iron Fey book on Twitter. I helped out with that and met Julie’s agent there whilst writing dirty poetry about fairy boys on Twitter. She lived local and we decided to have lunch. At this lunch we discussed my desire to work in the field of YA books. I told her about my draft and she gave me two months to soup it up.

In those two months I worked with my critique group, I worked with Laurie on other things like how to train to be an agent and some backlist ebook stuff. I gave my draft to Laurie in January. It wasn’t good enough. The story was there but my technique was/is not good enough.

Instead of saying no to me, or telling me to focus on the agenting stuff (where my abilities are far greater) she suggested some changes to the book and also suggested I rewrite it. And instead of leaving me to my own devices to do it wrong again she is going through the process with me chapter by chapter. We have chapter one complete (yay!) and I am almost done rewriting chapter two.

My book is stronger, my skill is increasing with her education on the things I do that aren’t up to snuff and I am incredibly excited about all of this. About finishing my book and it being possible that someday you guys will read about my sad boy and his robot girlfriend. It also excites me that I will be an advocate for others books, what has Bookalicious been about all these years? Advocation of good books!

So while I came at this untraditionally (dirty rhymes FTW!) I did work hard for years on this blog, on learning as much as I can about writing and by being a beacon in my community for literature.

So there is my story so far, and there is so much left to come!

Edit:

I forgot to add in here that along the way I scored three anthologies. One is unCONventional from Spencer Hill Press that just came out and it was a lovely launch at Arisia in Boston. The second (I should really finish writing) is Two and Twenty Dark Tales: Dark Retellings of Mother Goose which is a YA Lit Chat charity anthology with some super big and cool names. That comes out around October. The third also coming out in October is a witch anthology from Ambush :)