R. J. Anderson

This week we have the amazing R. J. Anderson. She is known to her friends as Rebecca, is the daughter of a Bible teacher, the wife of an agricultural biologist, and the mother of three energetic young boys. At five she was reading every fairy tale and myth she could get her hands on; at twelve she borrowed her parents’ electric typewriter and began hammering out stories of her own; and at nineteen she finished her first fantasy novel — but it was almost two more decades before she signed her first book contract. There is a lesson about persistence in this somewhere: but unfortunately Rebecca spent so many years feeling sorry for herself while her manuscripts languished in a drawer that she is almost certainly the wrong person to teach it!

(Snoop begs to disagree. “It is the one who takes the hardest path who can show the easiest path to others.” - Bunfucious)

FAERY REBELS: SPELLHUNTER

And here’s the scoop on her debut novel FAERY REBELS: SPELL HUNTER …

Youngest and boldest of all the faeries of the Oak, Knife fearlessly battles the savage crows and other predators who threaten her dying people. But when she strikes up a forbidden friendship with a human named Paul, she arouses the wrath of the powerful Faery Queen herself. With the help of some unexpected allies, Knife sets out to solve the mystery of the Oakenfolk’s missing magic - but she soon discovers that the truth may cost her everything…

It will also available in the UK as KNIFE in January 2009.

Now let’s start the interview. When you received your offer, what happened?

My agent had drummed up enough advance interest that he felt confident about taking the book to auction — I trusted his judgment, but I could hardly believe that such a thing would happen to me and my little book! When HarperCollins stepped up with an offer for a two-book deal I was overwhelmed, and as soon as the deal was confirmed I posted an all-caps, red-letter SQUEE on my LiveJournal and then phoned everyone I could think of to share the good news. My husband took me out for Indian food to celebrate, and a friend sent flowers — I floated on a cloud of happiness for days.

So now that you have a contract, what’s it like to be on the other side-on the verge of publication? What does it feel like to be official?

It still seems unreal somehow, even now that I’m going through the process of revisions and talking to my editor on a regular basis. Part of me still thinks that there must have been some mistake and that I’m bound to wake up eventually. I don’t feel any different in a lot of ways than I did a year ago when I feared I would never be published — I still question and doubt myself often, and I still don’t feel like a “real writer”. But when I stop and think back, I’m enormously excited by how far I’ve come on the road to realizing my dream — to see my book in print and on the shelves for others to read.

Tell us a little bit about your path to publication.

It was a much longer and rockier road than it needed to be, I think. I finished the novel in 1994, but quickly got discouraged by the long waiting times in the slushpile (one publisher took three and a half years to reject my manuscript) and gave up after only a couple of rejections. I spent the next few years writing fan fiction and posting it to the Internet for feedback, which had its own rewards — I managed to put together a great bunch of critique partners that way, and accumulated some loyal readers. But I should have gone on writing and submitting original work during that time as well, and I didn’t. It was 2002 before I decided to stop licking my wounds and try submitting again, and soon I started getting professional advice from editors and agents that brought my work up to a whole new level. I realized then how foolish I’d been to give up on my novels as early as I did… but you know what they say about hindsight!

And here’s our favorite question. How many rejections did you receive IN GENERAL (not just for these books) before you landed your first major publishing contract?

• 0-10
• 11-25
• 26-50
• 51-100
• 100+

Tell us about one of your most heart-breaking rejections and about one of your best. 

Last year I received a rejection from an agent I’d really been hoping to work with, saying that she’d read my novel but didn’t warm to my characters at all. Nothing terribly harsh about that, but since I’d always thought of myself as a strong character writer, it came as a serious blow. When shortly afterward I received several more rejections from other agents just based on the query (writing good query letters is an art in itself, and one I have yet to master), I hit rock bottom. I’m not normally an emotional person, but in mid-April of last year I lay on my office floor sobbing, bitterly convinced that I’d been deceiving myself all this time and that I would never, ever be published… but less than a month later, I had an agent and six weeks after that, a two-book contract. You just never know. On the positive side, once I was agented the rejections became much nicer. One editor said that while he didn’t think my book was right for his house, my prose was “so darn smooth!” and that I was “every editor’s dream”. I’ll treasure that rejection forever!

How long did it take to sell your books, from putting the first words on the page to receiving an offer?

13 years, but for eight of those years it was just sitting on my hard drive while I moped. I let my work sit for years at a time whenever I got discouraged (which was pretty much whenever I got a rejection). I still wonder how much sooner I might have been published if I hadn’t allowed myself to give up so easily.

Prior to selling your books, you were …

A stay-at-home mom.

While staying home to raise my three young sons, I also did a bit of freelance graphic design.

Now that you’ve sold some books, you plan to …

Quit to become a full-time writer.

I’ve already dropped the graphic design work I was doing and cut back on some other commitments so that I can concentrate more on my writing.

What are some of the new things you worry about now that you have a contract?

Right now I’m fretting over the sequel, which exists only in outline and a couple of sample chapters. I’m experiencing a creative dry spell at the moment, where writing feels like drudgery, and that’s discouraging. I worry that I won’t be able to make the story and characters in this second book come alive the way they should, and that I won’t finish it in time for my deadline (which at present is fourteen months away — but I’m a slow writer, so that isn’t nearly as much time as it might seem!).

If you’ve already begun or have finished the editorial process with your publisher, let you us know what that’s been like.

I had the benefit of going a couple of rounds of revision with an editor before I was under contract — she gave me some terrific detailed advice on how to deepen and clarify my manuscript, and the revisions I did for her were what enabled me to eventually sell the book (even if she didn’t end up being the editor who bought it). So when I got my seven-page letter and marked-up manuscript from my editor at HarperCollins, it didn’t come as quite the shock it might otherwise have! I rewrote a large portion of the book and knocked off 11,000 words in the process of addressing her comments and suggestions; she says that revision’s a definite improvement, but that we still have some tightening and clarifying to do. So I’m expecting another letter of the same length or perhaps even longer, and an even more marked-up manuscript for the second round. Still, I don’t think this revision will take as long as the last one — most of the big structural issues have been addressed. Besides, I enjoy revision: I find it a lot easier to take an existing book and make it better, than to boldly tackle that daunting first draft where no one has been before.

Describe a typical day in your writing life.

My boys are still young, so I can only write when the toddler is sleeping or when all three children are in bed. Since I try to go to bed no later than 11 p.m., that gives me just three hours a day to write — and what I’ll do when my youngest stops napping, I can’t imagine. One neat trick I’ve discovered, however, is that I’m much more productive if I work on a laptop with no Internet connection. I used to waste a lot of time checking e-mail and browsing author forums when I should be writing — but no more!

(Snoop says, does this mean you aren’t reading about ME anymore? Sniff, sniff.)

Any advice for aspiring authors?

DON’T GIVE UP. Don’t let rejection, even photocopied form rejections that come after two years of languishing in the slushpile, get you down. Just keep writing, keep revising, keep sending your work out and eventually you’ll start getting the kind of personalized rejections that will really help you as a writer — if you’re willing to listen and respond well to criticism instead of resisting it or taking it personally. And I really believe that once you reach that stage, it won’t be long before you find the agent and/or the editor who’s right for you.

Any inspiring quotes you live by?

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it.” — Psalm 37:4,5.

What is one of the biggest myths in children’s book publishing that you wish aspiring writers would just forget about?

I don’t know about aspiring writers, but I really dislike the idea some people have that protagonists in children’s books are “role models” for the child reader and therefore need to be sinlessly perfect — as though children are too ignorant to tell the difference between a good example and a bad one, or to understand that just because a wrong action doesn’t result in immediate disaster doesn’t make it right or the smartest thing to do. I think a lot of times a child reader will learn more and think more deeply about a protagonist who makes a mistake or a questionable decision than they will about someone who does the obvious right thing straight away.

Finally, Snoop wants to know: what favorite children’s book can you not stand to hear criticized?

I have a deep and abiding passion for the NARNIA series. Those books are my childhood in a bottle: my father started reading them to me when I was barely old enough to understand, and they kindled my lifelong love of fantasy. I know Lewis’s avuncular narrative style has gone out of fashion: even I roll my eyes every time he reminds the reader that it is a Very Foolish Thing To Shut Oneself Up In A Wardrobe, for instance. But there’s so much beauty and wisdom and truth in those books — not to mention such rollicking fun — that I really don’t care about the flaws. It actually hurts me when I hear people attack those books, they’re so close to my heart. So if you’re a fellow author and I catch you bashing NARNIA, I will stick my fingers in my ears and chant LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU. And then I will refuse to buy your books. (Yes, really.)

(Snoop says, NARNIA is the BEST!)

This concludes our interview with our latest amazing author, R.J. Anderson. We wish her much success with her debut novel FAERY REBELS: SPELL HUNTER and the forthcoming books in the series.

To see what R.J. Anderson is up to these days, visit her website at http://www.rj-anderson.com or her blog at  http://rj-anderson.livejournal.com/.

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And we have a winner for the contest to name Josh’s book….. drum roll please…… (Snoop?  A bit louder.) brrrrrrrrmmmmm, brummmm,  brummmmmm!

FROM JOSH:

Thanks you so much to all of you for playing “Name Josh’s Book!” I feel really fortunate to have the collective brain of such a fun & creative group working on titling my book. There were so many great titles and kind messages. I wish it was like Little League and that everyone could get an award (even if it was the lame one I always got like “best teammate!”), but I’m just going to man up and pick a winner.  The name of the book might end up being something totally different of course, but it was great to have such fun suggestions and I did share the winner with my editor.

So the winner is Traci at—email hidden to protect her identity–I don’t think I got a last name from you, Traci.

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Laurel Snyder

This week we have the lovely Laurel Snyder. So there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is Laurel got skipped during my hiatus from the web, so we completely missed her debut. (GAH!) The good news is Laurel’s books are out now, and she’s got two of them! She is the debut children’s book author of UP AND DOWN THE SCRATCHY MOUNTAINS (Random House, 2008), and INSIDE THE SLIDY DINER (Tricycle, 2008) . A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered, she has also written several books of poetry for adults. She lives in Atlanta with her family.

And here’s the scoop on her upcoming books …

UP AND DOWN THE SCRATCHY MOUNTAINS

UP AND DOWN THE SCRATCHY MOUNTAINS is a kind of old fashioned fairy tale, about a milkmaid with chutzpah, a prince who can’t help it, a prairie dog named Cat, and good government. INSIDE THE SLIDY DINER is a creepy picture book about a little girl named Edie who lives in a spooky diner full of wigglepedes.

(Snoop says, EEK!)

Now let’s start the interview, Laurel. When you received your offer, you …

… screamed my face off and cussed like a sailor! Then I was forced to sit in 2 hours of gridlock Atlanta traffic with a sobbing baby in the back seat. (I got the call at work, and then had to pick my son up). All the way home I just kept thinking, “I’m an author. I’m an author. I’m an author…”

INSIDE THE SLIDY DINER

So now that you have a contract, what’s it like to be on the other side.  What does it feel like to be official?

Honestly? My life hasn’t changed very much, but my sense of expectation, of what I have the *right* to demand from myself and the world, that’s different. I don’t mean this in an obnoxious entitlement way, but it’s a pretty strange feeling to be able to negotiate for $$$ as a stay-at-home-mom. I wish all moms could know what it feels like to think of their time in terms of $$$. Because their time IS worth money, too.

Tell us a little bit about your path to publication.

Well, my path was weird. Both my first novel and my first picture book were pulled from slush. But in each case, the book was accepted more than a year after I sent it in. In the case of SLIDY DINER, the editor found it, unread, while cleaning out her inbox. She emailed me to say, “Is this still available?” Uh, yeah!!!

And here’s our favorite question. How many rejections did you receive IN GENERAL (not just for these books) before you landed your first major publishing contract?

• 0-10
• 11-25
• 26-50
• 51-100
• 100+

Tell us about one of your most heart-breaking rejections and about one of your best.

Best of all was the rejection I got for SCRATCHY MOUNTAINS, from the very editor who acquired it about a year after she sent the rejection! I basically refused to consider it a rejection. She said so many nice things, but faulted it for not being enough of a book to stand alone. So of course I rewrote it, made it meatier, longer, and sent it back to her. There’s a picture of the note on my blog!

How long did it take to sell your books, from putting the first words on the page to receiving an offer? Here are your choices.

• 0-3 months
• 3-6 months
• 6 months to 1 year
• 1 year - 2 years
• 2 years - 3 years
• 3 years+
• The manuscript has been around longer than I have.

Prior to selling your books, you were …

A stay-at-home mom.

For a long time I was a waitress and student, and then I worked for Hillel (non-profit). But immediately before selling these books, I was staying home with my boys.

Now that you’ve sold some books, you plan to …

Hire a part-time sitter and have my house cleaned professionally. YEE HAW!!!

What are some of the new things you worry about now that you have a contract?

That the next book won’t be any good. Or that I won’t have time to give it my all, because of trying to be a full time mom at the same time I’m trying to be an author. I need to get better about setting boundaries.

If you’ve already begun or have finished the editorial process with your publishing house, let you us know what that’s been like.

Well, copyediting and all that– it’s painful. And scary because you’re so afraid you aren’t catching something. But the art stuff, collaboration with an illustrator, and seeing the design take shape. That’s SO FUN! And I have to say I LOVE my editors! I’m very lucky.

Any advice for aspiring authors?

ALWAYS have something in the mail. It keeps you moving forward. And set reasonable goals. I try for 1000 words a day when I’m on a deadline, and 500 when I’m not. If I can’t write 500 words a day I shouldn’t call myself a writer. The main thing is to only do it if you love it. I never understand why you’d write if you didn’t enjoy the process. There are so many awesome things to be! People should do things they love.

Describe an Ah-ha moment you’ve had that influenced your writing in a positive way.

A teacher I had in college used to lecture us about “cop talk”. She used to take off points not only for errors, but for using unccesarily big words and overly complicated sentence structures. She’d ask why we “utilized” instead of “using”. This has been a HUGE thing for me as a writer. I’m always trying to simplify. I believe that the best version is almost always the shortest, simplest version.

Aside from WRITING FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS: A CRASH COURSE<—shameless plug, are there any other books on craft you recommend?

The Triggering Town, by Richard Hugo. It’s not specifically for children’s authors, but it has been an essential read for me.

Finally, Snoop wants to know: What kind of book would you like to do that you haven’t done?

I’d like to do a really irreverent (but also reverent) Jewish picture book. Something really different from the books already out there.

(Snoop says, Hmmm… how about a Jewish bunny book?)

This concludes our interview with our latest author, Laurel Snyder. We wish Laurel much success with her debut books, UP AND DOWN THE SCRATCHY MOUNTAIN and INSIDE THE SLIDY DINER, available now! To see what Laurel’s up to these days, visit her website at http://www.laurelsnyder.com or her blog at http://www.laurelsnyder.com/?page_id=4.

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THIS FREE-TIQUE ROUND IS NOW CLOSED.

Here it is: an opportunity of a lifetime—win a critique from Josh Berk and a chance to name a real book coming out from Knopf. But first you ask …

Who is Josh? Josh Berk is a librarian and author from Allentown, PA who signed a two-book Young Adult deal with Knopf. The first book comes out in early 2010 and he needs a title! And he promises he will deliver a brutally honest critique of the first three chapters of your children’s or teen novel (25 pages max).  Josh is particularly qualified because a) he and Snoop get along and b) he knows that Snoop’s fans can take the heat!

What is the book that needs a title? It is a YA “boy book” that mixes humor with mystery. The tale is about an overweight, deaf, and very sardonic teenaged boy whose school is obsessed with a rich boy’s upcoming fancy birthday party. There’s lots of humorous school shenanigans and the halls are buzzing with talk over who will get invited. Then the rich kid gets thrown down a coal shaft. The deaf boy, named Will Halpin, gets pulled into solving the murder with his tech-savvy, detective-fiction-loving friend Devon Smiley. It all takes place in the coal-mining region of Pennsylvania and there is some family drama mixed in with the wacky school stuff.

A note from Josh: I’m trying to avoid predictable coal mining or deafness puns and go for something funny and catchy like KING DORK or FAT KID RULES THE WORLD. I promise to pick a winner from this group and make good on the critique, but just because I choose your title as the winner of this contest, it is not guaranteed that your suggestion will be the book’s actual title. (There are editors, marketing people, etc. to appease and they might not agree with me on what is best for the book.) If two people happen to suggest the same title & that’s the favorite, I’ll flip a coin to choose a winner and a consolation prize of a signed book will be given instead of the critique. If three or people suggest the winner, I’ll flip some sort of crazy three-sided coin (or a similar random method of choosing). Thanks so much for playing!

Now here are the rules: You have 72 hours (until 11:59 PM Friday CST) to e-mail winning titles to JOSH, not Snoop.  Josh will choose his favorite, based solely on his personal taste. Here’s how to enter. Break any one of these rules and face the wrath of Snoop (and Josh!).

1. Format your email subject in this fashion: NAME THAT BOOK: INSERT TITLE SUGGESTION HERE

e.g. NAME THAT BOOK: IT AIN’T OVER UNTIL THE FAT BOY SINGS

2. You may enter as many DIFFERENT titles as you want, but only ONE title per email. So if you have ten title suggestions, email Josh TEN times. Yes, you heard that right. And again, the title MUST BE IN THE SUBJECT LINE OF YOUR EMAIL. This helps Josh easily scan the emails in his inbox for winning titles without having to click into every single email. Got it?

3. Email your titles to josh berk AT gmail dot com.

Josh will announce the winning title here at http://www.writingforchildrenandteens.com no sooner than Saturday, Nov. 15th and no later than Monday, Nov 17th.

Good luck and happy titling,

Cynthea and Snoop!

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Wanna learn more about my agent Jennifer Rofe from the Andrea Brown Literary Agency? Check out our interview at kidlitcentralnews.com. See the woman herself, sans shoes, and learn about her interesting penny-collecting habit, among other things.

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Saundra Mitchell

This week we have the stupendous Saundra Mitchell! A screenwriter and author, Saundra penned the screenplays for the Fresh Films and Girls in the Director’s Chair short film series. Her short story “Ready to Wear” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her first feature film, Revenge Ends, debuted on the festival circuit in 2008. SHADOWED SUMMER, her debut novel, launches in February of 2009, and has been chosen as a Junior Library Guild Selection. In her free time, she enjoys ghost hunting, papermaking, and spending time with her husband and her two children in Indianapolis.

And here’s the scoop on her debut novel SHADOWED SUMMER…

SHADOWED SUMMER

Nothing ever happened in Ondine, Louisiana, not even the summer Elijah Landry disappeared. His mother knew he ascended to heaven, the police believed he ran away, and his girlfriend thought he was murdered. Decades later, certain she saw his ghost in the town cemetery, fourteen-year-old Iris Rhame is determined to find out the truth behind “The Incident with the Landry Boy.” Enlisting the help of her best friend Collette, and forced to endure the company of Collette’s latest crush, Ben, Iris spends a summer digging into the past and stirring old ghosts, in search of a boy she never knew. What she doesn’t realize is that in a town as small as Ondine, every secret is a family secret.

(Woah. Snoop just got chills)

Now let’s start the interview, Saundra. When you received your offer, what happened?

I cried; I called my best friend at work- she thought someone had died. Then I called my mother- she likewise thought someone had died. By the time someone got the message to my husband to call home, I had pulled myself together a bit, so I got to celebrate with him without stopping to explain there was nothing wrong!

So now that you have a contract, what’s it like to be on the other side–on the verge of publication? What does it feel like to be official?

It’s so exciting! I love watching my book appear on Amazons all over the Internet- finding my book Amazon Japan and Amazon Saudi Arabia blew my mind!

Tell us a little bit about your path to publication.

Oh man, all right! Well, I wrote SHADOWED SUMMER about five years ago. I submitted it to the Delacorte Press prize, then miraculously got an agent while I was waiting to hear. I didn’t win the prize (I didn’t even place), so my agent and I revised. And revised. And revised, until my 75,000 word book had become a 45,000 word book. For serious! That agent and I eventually parted company, and I signed with Sara Crowe, who managed to sell SHADOWED SUMMER in the first six months of our relationship… to Delacorte Press!

And here’s our favorite question. How many rejections did you receive IN GENERAL (not just for these books) before you landed your first major publishing contract?

• 0-10
• 11-25
• 26-50
• 51-100
• 100+

Tell us about one of your most heart-breaking rejections and about one of your best. 

I have two bad rejection stories. The first, a terribly hip editor of a literary magazine rejected my story with a note that suggested I should break my fingers before I attempted to put words to paper again. His magazine folded, and I’m still going, so there’s a certain measure of smug vengeance in that. The second rejection story was getting this >< close to a production deal with HBO on a pilot cop show my partner and I had written, only to be dropped at the last minute when another crime writer pitched a show they liked better. That show? “The Wire.” It’s hard to stay mad when you get passed up for a show that amazing!

How long did it take to sell your books, from putting the first words on the page to receiving an offer? Here are your choices.

• 0-3 months
• 3-6 months
• 6 months to 1 year
• 1 year - 2 years
• 2 years - 3 years
• 3 years+
• The manuscript has been around longer than I have.

Prior to selling your books, you were …

Working a full-time job in the writing industry.

I’m a screenwriter- for 10 years, I was the sole screenwriter for Fresh Films, Girls in the Director’s Chair, and several other teen filmmaking programs. In 2008, we launched the Fresh Films Emerging Screenwriters program- now I instruct teen screenwriters, and teach them to ready their scripts for production by the Fresh Films teen film crews!

Now that you’ve sold some books, you plan to …

Not change a thing.

I write fan fiction for fun; I write screenplays for a living; I write books for love. I’m not changing a thing!

What are some of the new things you worry about now that you have a contract?

I worry about earning out my advance; I also worry about getting another contract! It would break my heart to get on the publication train, only to get dumped from it on the next stop!

Any advice for aspiring authors?

Read. Read, read, read. Also, read. I don’t think you can be the best writer you can be, if you don’t read voraciously.

Any inspiring quotes you live by?

My best friend Wendi says- “Everything will work out in the end. If things aren’t working out, it’s not the end.” While I can’t do blind optimism, this totally works for me.

What is one of the biggest myths in children’s book publishing that you wish aspiring writers would just forget about?

I loathe the myth that writing for teens means you’re required to preach- I think YA authors can talk about the big issues without whipping out a sermon in every text; I also think YA authors are allowed to simply entertain. Some fiction is aspirational, some fiction is inspirational- and some fiction is reflectional. That’s what I want when I write- to tell even one teen out there that they are not alone.

Aside from WRITING FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS<—shameless plug, are there any other books on craft you recommend?

I really enjoyed Stephen King’s On Writing and Rita Mae Brown’s Starting from Scratch. However, both books are useful in halves- King’s philosophy on writing is worthwhile, but his bizarre ideas about acceptable word count should be ignored entirely. Likewise for Brown- love her philosophy on writing, but no, y’all- seriously. You do not have to buy the 13-volume Oxford English Dictionary to be a real writer. Little things like that- required word counts, learning Greek and Latin- those are personal quirks that may make these authors better authors, but they’re not required. And I think a lot of time, these eccentricities presented as requirements, make novice writers self-conscious. Look, really- the only thing you need to be a writer is the ability to read, the desire to write, and the dedication to put your butt in the chair and actually write!

(Snoop says, AMEN! And by the way, if you read his book, you only requests that you send him virtual carrot tops afterward. Now there’s a great writer who knows what he’s doing!)

Finally, Snoop wants to know: what do you love best about becoming a published YA novelist?

Meeting other writers and getting to read their books before they come out. I think I’m addicted to ARCs now- what a rush!

This concludes our interview with our latest sensational author, Saundra Mitchell. We wish Saundra much success with her debut novel SHADOWED SUMMER.

To see what Saundra’s up to these days, visit her website at http://www.shadowedsummer.com or her blog at http://www.saundramitchell.com/blog.