What do you do?

I'm sitting here wondering if my fellow YA authors have ever endured a conversation like this:

RP = Random Person (who shall remain nameless)
Me = Me

RP: What do you do?
Me: I'm a writer.
RP: Oh? That's cool. What kind of books do you write?
Me: Young Adult
RP: What, like The Hunger Games and Twilight?
Me: No, I write contemporary. Like Sarah Dessen, John Green, that sort of thing.
RP: I've never heard of them. Are they like Sweet Valley High?
Me: (thinking: how old are you?) No, not like Sweet Valley High. YA fiction has changed a lot since the eighties.
RP: What are your books about?
Me: Well, they're all about different things, but they mainly focus on teenage girls overcoming their pasts, trauma, etc.
RP: So they're realistic?
Me: I hope so.
RP: I don't like realistic books. I read to escape.
Me: .......
RP: You should write a vampire book so you can be rich like Stephenie Meyer.
Me: Nice weather we're having today, don't you think?


The next time someone asks me what I do, I'm going to say "I'm writing a non-realistic Sweet Valley High-type book about vampires."

                                             (I did not make this book cover, I found it online)

Invoking My Inner Teenage Girl

Like most young adult writers, I write YA because teenagers fascinate me. One lives in my house (my 15 year old daughter) and I study her and her friends like they're some kind of exotic, unpredictable creatures in the wild. I've been told more than once that I have an "authentic teen voice", and while that pleases me, I also wonder why I can pull it off. Because I never grew up? Because I'm still a teenager inside? Because I remember the conflicting emotions and the feeling of first love and the confusion of trying to find my place in the world?

Still, I do struggle sometimes to identify with the 21st century teenage girl. I was sixteen years old in 1993. A lot has changed in twenty years. In 1993, we didn't go around with cell phones (they were probably the size of a laptop at that point). We called each other on the phone. We didn't text...we wrote notes and passed them under desks while the teacher wasn't looking. We didn't constantly take pictures of ourselves making ridiculous faces. We didn't have Facebook or Twitter. There was no such thing as cyber bullying. There was no Lady Gaga. Music was angsty and grungy and people wore flannel shirts and combat boots and worshiped Kurt Cobain. And it was pretty awesome.

So what else do I do to familiarize myself with the modern teenage girl? I google stuff like cell phone rules in high schools. I eavesdrop on conversations. I watch Degrassi: TNG and enjoy it more than a grown woman should. I devour YA books and take note of how other writers do it. I remember myself, way back in the ancient days of 1993, and include just a tiny piece of that girl in each of my characters. 

Minus this, of course:

Best Reads of 2012

I've read so many amazing books in 2012. Here are some stand-outs:

Top 3:

Girl Unmoored by Jennifer Gooch Hummer
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey

Honorable mentions (in no particular order, and not necessarily published in 2012, I just read them this year):

Falling Under by Danielle Younge-Ullman
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
Mice by Gordon Reece
Easy by Tammara Webber
This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers
The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty
Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Ordinary Beauty by Laura Wiess

What were your top reads of 2012?

Holiday/Celebration Sale!

To celebrate both the upcoming holidays and the announcement of ABNA 2013, Just You is only $1.00 at AMAZON and $0.99 at  KOBO!

ABNA 2013

It's that time again. Thousands of writers from all over the world are flocking to Amazon to enter their book babies in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Can you feel the excitement? I sure can.

This year, ABNA has changed. There will be five categories: General Fiction, Mystery/Thriller, Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror, Romance, and Young Adult. One finalist will be named from each of these five categories. Penguin is out. The grand prize winner now gets published by Amazon Publishing and this includes a $50,000 advance! Wow! And the rest of the finalists ALSO get a publishing contract with Amazon (and a $15,000 advance). ABNA has really stepped up their game this year. These are amazing prizes, you guys.

As one of last year's finalists, and a person who has entered ABNA a grand total of three times, I have a lot of advice to pass on to the new crop of entrants:

1. This should go without saying, but make sure your manuscript is 100% finished, edited, and polished to a high gloss shine.

2. Need help with your pitch? Take a peek at mine or ask for help on the ABNA forum pitch thread.

3. Yes, you can enter your self-published book. At least half of last year's finalists were/are self-published.

4. DO NOT...I repeat, DO NOT...put your name anywhere on your pitch, excerpt, or manuscript. You will be disqualified.

5. Your excerpt must be the FIRST 3000-5000 words of your manuscript. Stop it at a good point. Leave them hanging.

6. Don't be discouraged if your second round reviews aren't the greatest. Mine weren't.

7. If you're not from the US, and you make it to the semi-finals, make sure you have a current passport, just in case. I didn't.

8. Participate in the discussions on the ABNA forum. The people there are not only interesting and hilarious, they are also extremely supportive. There's a lot of waiting involved in the ABNA contest, so why not pass the time with other writers who are going through the same thing?

9. If you're anything like me, you might want to blog about ABNA so future entrants can read about the process.

10. See #4 again. This mistake knocks out at least one person every year.


Have fun and GOOD LUCK with ABNA 2013! You're in for a wild ride.