Signed copies of WORST CASE OF PASKETTI-ITIS

Need an extra Christmas or Holiday gift? Let me know, and I'll personalize a copy of WORST CASE OF PASKETTI-ITIS. Cost: $11.00. I'll ship it for an additional $1.50.

It's classified as a picture book, but it's the shape and size of an early reader, so it would be perfect for a child who's ready to start reading herself. I've been told picky eaters relate to it! 

DM me on twitter or leave your email address in the comments.

Happy Holiday! Merry Christmas!

Things I learned from NaNoWriMo 2013

I won my first NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). My "official count" was something like 50,004, so basically, I limped across the finish line and fainted in the middle of the road.

But I did it.

Here's what I learned.

1. I can do it. You *CAN* do it. Really. If *I* can do it, anyone can do it. You just need the proper motivation. You need to figure that out for yourself.
2. It doesn't have to consume your life for the month. My strategy was to get up at 5:30, make coffee, and pound out between 1000 and 1500 words. Somedays I had time to do more later in the day. A couple of times, I sprinted and put out 3000 or more.
3. It's okay if the words are crappy.
4. It's okay if the POV changes tense.
5. It's okay if some of the words are backstory or your characters "talking" to you.
6. If you get stuck, walk away. Call a friend, go for a walk. Ask your characters what they want. Ask them what they need from you.
7. Did I mention, it's okay if the words are crappy?

I once heard Cynthia Leitich Smith speak at a conference. One highlight I remember very clearly is hearing her talk about her first draft. She writes the first draft and then hits delete. HITS DELETE. There was an audible inhale of breath from the crowd as we all imagined hitting delete.

But here's the thing, I get it now.

Don't panic, I'm not going to delete my NaNo book, but I am going to rewrite the whole thing. There's not one thing that won't get revised/rewritten. I understand what Cynthia was talking about now. This is the warm up. This is the clay from which I will sculpt. This is *not* the book. This is the crappy first draft.

And I love it. I'm *never* not writing a book this way. It was brilliant. I love fast drafting. It took me four years to write a passable first draft of my first novel. And then the revision started. It took me one month to write this first draft. I'm much less attached to the crappy words. Much more willing to make the hard choices and hard changes that revision requires.

Because revision *does* require hard choices. Now, I'm going back to the revision cave. How did you all do at NaNo this year?

ANYWAY YOU SLICE IT

So happy to make the official announcement this morning...as it's posted on Publisher's Marketplace.

Kristine Carlson Asselin's ANY WAY YOU SLICE IT, pitched as MYSTIC PIZZA meets THE CUTTING EDGE, in which the pizza business is all a fifteen-year-old knows until a chance meeting with a hockey player and a lucky shot opens her up to a new world on the ice, far away from the responsibilities and pressures of the family restaurant, to Meredith Rich of Bloomsbury Spark, by Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. 

I'm thrilled to be working with Meredith Rich on this project. I can't wait for you all to read about my hockey girl!

Revision: A Guest Post by Anna Staniszewski

Thanks to Anna Staniszewski, the author of the MY VERY UNFAIRYTALE LIFE series, for being here today to talk about her revision process. Anna's final book in the UNFAIRYTALE LIFE series, MY SORT OF FAIRYTALE ENDING, comes out from Sourcebooks in early November 2014.

Here's Anna!

 

Confession time: I used to hate revision. I was in love with every word I put on the page and thought I knew what I was doing from the first sentence. Then I got serious about writing and realized I had a lot to learn about the process of creating a novel.

Now I can honestly say I love revision. I think of it as solving a puzzle. I have all these separate pieces that need to fit together neatly by the end.

Once I have a draft, the first step for me is outlining what I have. (I write a synopsis of the story before I start drafting, but that usually changes as I write.) I list what happens in every scene, along with chapter length, setting, etc. This gives me a larger picture of the story and it helps me figure out if there’s anything missing.

Then I start reading through with an eye for character development, plot holes, etc. I can’t help fixing wording and grammar issues as I go, even though there’s a big chance I’ll be cutting some of those sentences later. And yes, during this process, I cut A LOT. Nothing on the page is sacred.

When I’ve gone through the manuscript several times and am happy with it (or, more likely, sick of looking at it) I hand it over to my husband who is always my first reader. Based on his feedback, I do a round of revision. Then I send the manuscript to a critique partner and revise based on her comments. I keep going like this until I’m finally ready to send the manuscript to my agent and then to my editor. The process is long and tedious, but it’s worth it.

When I think back to that young writer who was tied to every word on the page, I have to smile. She was in love with telling the story. I’m in love with getting the story right.

 Anna's Bio:

Born in Poland and raised in the United States, Anna Stanszewski grew up loving stories in both Polish and English. She was named the 2006-2007 Writer-in-Residence at the Boston Public Library and a winner of the 2009 PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award. Currently, Anna lives outside of Boston with her husband and their black Labrador, Emma.

When she’s not writing, Anna spends her time teaching, reading, and challenging unicorns to games of hopscotch. She is the author of My Very UnFairy Tale Life and its sequels, My Epic Fairy Tale Fail and My Sort of Fairy Tale Ending, all published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky. Look for the first book in Anna’s next tween series, The Dirt Diary, in January 2014, and visit her at www.annastan.com.

She even has a cool trailer: