[caption id="attachment_1637" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Photo from trekearth.com"]
[/caption]Well, hello there, friends. Long time no blog. I hope everyone had a wonderful end of the summer and you're all ready for back-to-school for the parents, back-to-work for the teachers, or back-to-working-every-week if you're like the rest of us working stiffs.And yes, I include myself as someone who worked. "But what of your 'break?'" you ask. Well, it wasn't really a break. It was a chance to try (and fail) to catch up on the queries in my inbox (I'm almost through June as of this posting... I know, I'd hoped to do better), spend some time relaxing like in the scene pictured above (you can't see me in the picture—I'm in the water on the other side of the boat about to be struck in the head by the oar), and read, read, read (Who read MOCKINGJAY? OMG text me K?). There may have been a mojito and some golf and some softball mixed in, but trust me, not much.So what else happened this summer? I was lucky enough to see my client Jacqueline West's THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE: THE SHADOWS hit the New York Times Bestseller List. It's a terrific achievement for anyone, but especially a debut writer. THE SHADOWS also garnered two starred reviews, the first of which I wrote about here, and the second which just came from The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, who predict "this will be a hit with young fantasists ready for a measured helping of menace." If all this isn't enough to get you to check out the book, then I don't know what will!The summer also kicked off with the release of Shaun David Hutchinson's THE DEATHDAY LETTER, an occasion Shaun celebrated by jumping out of a freaking plane. While he was up there watching the ground come up to meet him, VOYA was writing that main character "Ollie’s unabashed self-acceptance of his foibles makes him both a hilarious and a heartbreaking character," and Booklist said "the reader is pulled along in Ollie’s grip, wrestling with the big questions of life (and afterlife) at a punishing pace.... This first novel will appeal to male readers who care more about sex than philosophy." I think they served donuts on the ground, too, which is pretty cool.At the end of the summer came Matt Myklusch's JACK BLANK AND THE IMAGINE NATION. What did the critics think? School Library Journal said JACK BLANK had "just the right amount of plasma blasts, fusion cannons, and major explosions" and that the "especially careful plotting that leads to an exciting and thought-provoking conclusion." Publishers Weekly called it an "ambitious, no-holds-barred adventure" and that "the exuberance and anything-goes whimsy of this story—enhanced by a light, comic book sensibility along with questions it raises about fate, corporate power, and heroism—make this a concept with potential." Kirkus got in on the fun, saying Pull quote: "[Myklusch] creates a beguiling, sequel-worthy scenario." It's a good thing a second JACK BLANK book is on the way next summer!These three books should give readers and writers a clear sense of my taste, although other recent sales of some YA projects will tell you even more when those books are available. Stay tuned!Finally, I was busy this summer booking conferences for the fall. For a list of where I'll be appearing in the upcoming months, head to the appropriately titled "Where We'll Be" section of the Upstart Crow website. If you're at any of the conferences in North Carolina, Virginia/D.C., St. Louis, or New Jersey, be sure to say hello. So I'm looking forward to a terrific fall and winter full of friendly people in cities I've never visited, good news for my clients, and perhaps some great stories sent in by writers just like you!
Kurt Cyrus's fabulous Big Rig Bugs was published this past spring. It's a near-perfect model of how to do a lot with a little: In seventy-six words, it tells the story of a bunch of bugs clearing away some litter from a construction site. And, because that's not near enough, it also a slew of great parallels between how some construction devices mimic what bugs do in the natural world. Kurt is a poet and an artist, and he excels in both realms here—this book is a crackerjack read-aloud that should please the youngest fans of big rigs or bugs.But that's not what this post is about. No, this post is merely to present this nifty book trailer Kurt made for the picture book, just as a side project while he finishes up something else. For all the bug-obsessed kids out there, no matter their age.
My complaint is a simple one.Look at the picture there on the right.See the stack of books to the right? See the stack of books on the iPad? Which one reminds you of the stories still to be read, the books you want to reread; which one literally occupies a space in your conscience (as well as on your bookshelf)?But in my experience, when I look at my iPad, I don't see books. I see an iPad. On the device is Middlemarch, a Jonathan Ames novel, a Charlie Huston mystery, a couple of P.G. Wodehouse books, and a half-dozen nonfiction books I thought I wanted to read once upon a time.This could just be a sad side effect of the way I consume books: Some people buy and read books on a strictly one-at-a-time basis. Me, I tend to buy three at a time and leave them on the bedside shelf so that I have an array of choices when I finish one book and move to the next. Today I'll put up Mockingjay and then go back into the final hundred-and-fifty pages of Dumas' The Three Musketeers. And then I'll browse my shelf to see what matches my mood, and that's what I'll read next.But I don't "see" anything to read when I glance at the iPad. And when I open the iPad, I am distracted by the many other applications available on it. So instead of making reading more of a presence in my life, it has the opposite effect: It makes reading just one more media application. Provided I even remember the dozen or so books I have downloaded on the device.I love e-readers—honest, I do. Before I had the iPad, I read on a first-generation Kindle, which comically ugly and poorly designed, was still a damn sight better than carrying around a satchel full of books and manuscripts. And the iPad's reader is pretty spiff, as are the other reading apps—GoodReader and Nook—but the iPad (and before it, the Kindle) don't fit into my head and consciousness in the same way.Am I alone in this? Or is anyone out there finding that these e-readers make books out of sight and out of mind?
September—ah, September! The hot haze of summer has blown away, and along with it our laid-back summer ways. The publishing industry, which has been snoozing away these last few weeks, is back from its vacation, and editors are at their desks and ever-anxious to discover that One. Perfect. Novel.There’s something so energizing about back to school time. It always makes me think of getting organized, setting new goals, and accomplishing them. And is there a better time than back-to-school to refresh your commitment to your craft, your creativity, and your goals as a writer? I think not.With that in mind, I’ve cobbled together a list of advice about the act of writing. You’ve heard some of it before, no doubt, but if you try doing just one of the things on this list, you'll see an improvement in your productivity—and your writing. [Find the list after the break.]1. Write often. Blogging doesn’t count. Texting your friends doesn’t count. Tweeting that you’re thinking about writing doesn’t count. Facebooking that you have writer’s block doesn’t count. Unplug yourself from the white noise of social networking babble and write.2. Finish what you started. You know how it happens—you wake up in the middle of the night with an idea for a novel that’s so brilliant, so amazing, that you simply have to get out of bed and write it down because you’re convinced you’re about to become the next J.K. Rowling. You work on it feverishly for awhile, then you start to feel kinda lost about where you’re going with the story, and before you know it, you’ve forsaken your novel for surfing the internet. It’s still there, languishing on your hard drive. You think of it fondly, but just haven’t found the time to get back to it. Guess what? Now is as good a time as any. So whether you join one of those crazy nanowrimo thingies or set your own goals, commit to finishing a project.3. Read well. US Weekly does not count. Sh*t My Dad Says (though hilarious) does not count. Sports blogs do not count. For your pleasure reading, choose something well-written (and maybe something—gasp!—out of your comfort zone) that will help you think about craft and inspire your own writing. Personally, I always seem to return to the classics. I re-read The Great Gatsby over the summer, and enjoyed it so thoroughly that upon finishing, I had to fight the urge to go back to the beginning and read it all over again.4. Get out of your own head. Writing is quite the solitary journey, but just because you write by yourself doesn’t mean your work in progress should remain under lock and key until you’ve lovingly typed that final page. The best way to improve your writing (other than writing consistently), is to find inspired, like-minded individuals whom you trust to read and critique your work. So if you haven’t already, join a crit group, and if possible, make plans to attend writer’s conferences (either locally or nationally), where you can attend workshops, meet other writers, and get the chance to put your work in front of editors and agents.5. Carry a notebook. Keep a notebook in your purse (or your man-purse or messenger bag or whatever guys are calling their purses these days). Use it to jot down sudden ideas, titles, thoughts, and impressions of what you see and experience. By jotting down things that touch you, impress you, strike you as beautiful or funny or odd, you’re giving yourself permission to take a break from the rush of daily life and reconnect with the world around you. It’s good for the soul—and for your fiction.6. Set a weekly goal. Too often, I see writers tweeting away about being waaaay shy of their daily word count goal for their WIP (gee, maybe that’s b/c they’re tweeting instead of writing). Well, rather than set a lofty daily goal for yourself, why not try a more reasonable goal? With life being so busy, it’s entirely understandable that you won’t be able to write every day. So try setting a weekly goal rather than a daily one—maybe strive to write for an hour a day, 5 days a week, and see how that works for you.7. Learn something new. The more you read and learn about the world, the more your writing and your characters will benefit from it. Read a book on a period of history that interests you, or on a subject that you’ve always been interested in that you didn’t know much about (llama farming, scuba diving, cheese making in France, whatever.). Stay curious about the world around you, and all of that good stuff will make its way into your writing.Remember: Have fun with whatever you’re working on, and always seek out things in life that inspire you.What about you? What books do you read for inspiration? Do you have any goals you’re working toward this fall? Do you have any tips for creativity and inspiration that you’d like to share?
Well, Labor Day is past and so we here at the Crow hope you all are settling down to some serious work. We certainly are.
Among the many helps we've found during our off time is this memo from the mighty David Mamet—the profane, too-often-too-thinky, shamelessly wordy (and so close to my heart) playwright, director, and essayist. His sage advice keeps us focused, our eyes on the prize and our noses to the grindstone and our shoulders to every cliché within shouting distance.On the off chance his admonitions might help you, you can find them here. This is a note he sent to the writers of the now-defunct television show The Unit, which, despite its unfortunate name, has at least given us this kick in the ass.Okay, summer's over! Now put your butt in your chair and get to work!
We preach patience so often in this business, but I've been foaming at the mouth for months in anticipation of the release of Matt Myklusch's JACK BLANK AND THE IMAGINE NATION with Aladdin Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. Is it rabies, you ask? Probably not (although I have been petting wild raccoons lately). It's because this book is full of twists, turns, laughs, and big surprises, and I've been dying for everyone to read it. And now you can!JACK BLANK AND THE IMAGINE NATION is the story of an orphan boy who, after fighting off a robot zombie straight out of one of his comic books, is whisked away to a secret island where all the fantastic things in our world originate, including him. It's got ninjas, super heroes, the aforementioned robot zombies, spaceships, sword-wielding kids, and a terrific mixture of action and humor that will appeal to even the most reluctant of boy readers.
Matt was the second author I signed back when I started agenting. I first read his query and sample pages when I was an intern, and even then I knew I'd found something special. Here was a take on a classic story--orphaned boy comes to learn he's special--but told in a really fantastic and fresh way. And when I came to know Matt, I realized he was driven, professional, down to earth, and an eternal optimist. At each stage on the road to publication he's believed in this story and these characters, and it's so wonderful to see the book finally on shelves.If you're hungry for a great summer read or want something to give to the reluctant readers in your life, go out and snag your own copy of JACK BLANK AND THE IMAGINE NATION.Bonus material!
It's award season and the results are finally in!No, no, not those awards, which remind us that the people who create children's books are artists as well as craftspeople.No, I'm talking about the Bulwer-Lytton Awards for worst opening sentence. It is Edward George Bulwer-Lytton whose 1830 masterpiece Paul Clifford begins:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
In his honor, each year hundreds of writers compete to write similarly overwrought and overextended sentences, and they are always a riot. Mere badness isn't enough; these entries are all hilariously awful. Check them out at the link above!
There are two sorts of people in the world: Those who write in and mark up books; and those who view those of us who do write in books as sacrilegious pigs.Okay, okay—maybe there are a few other sorts of people. (I've never been a fan of that whole "There are two kinds of people" routine, except where it is inarguable: women/men; living/dead; rational people/fans of Glenn Beck.)Myself, I've gone from treating every book as a sancrosanct object (as a boy) to routinely scribbling in books (as an adult). Some I so love that I want to puzzle out how they work, and I buy multiple copies and mark them up (Moore, Munro, Cheever, Konigsburg, others). Some books I find so maddening that I have to immediately vent my hooting disdain (among them recent award-winners and bestsellers—don't ask). Years later I'll be flipping through an old copy of something and find an expletive in a margin and think, "Really? Was it that bad?"But my marginalia is as nothing compared to the marginalia of the greats.There is a wonderful little piece by Ian Frazier in this week's New Yorker about the marginalia in books owned by famous writers, among them Nabokov, Coleridge, and Twain—who probably wrote the most entertaining marginalia: "At the end of an unusually exasperating chapter, [he wrote,] 'A cat could do better literature than this.'"So writing in books: Bad? Good? A necessary evil? A perversion that must be stamped out? Do you write in your books?
Although I typically blog about my authors’ books, today I am actually writing about my own.
On June 8th, my second novel for teens, Crash Test Love, was released. I truly believe that having the firsthand experience of publishing a novel—finishing that elusive first draft, going through rounds of revision with a skilled editor, worrying about the cover, reviews, and all that jazz—only makes me a more insightful and skilled agent, and I am incredibly proud to share this novel with all of you.I am happy to invite any Upstart Crow blog readers who live on Long Island to a reading I will be doing at the Barnes and Noble in Carle Place tonight at 7pm.More details here: http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/67004Enjoy!
Today I'm doubly excited to announce the release of not only two fantastic projects from Upstart Crow Literary, but also the first two books I personally sold long, long ago.No longer do I have to tell editors, conference attendees, friends, and family that the books I've sold will come out "soon." Now when someone asks what I do and I try to explain my job, I'll have actual books I can direct them toward. So, as you can probably imagine, I'm super excited for two very talented authors.
First up is Jacqueline West's amazing BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE, VOL I: THE SHADOWS, out today with Dial Books for Young Readers. Jacqueline was the first client I ever signed, and her debut surely doesn't feel like one. Before writing for children, Jacqueline's poetry and short fiction were published widely in literary journals. I could tell the first time I read sample pages in her initial query that Jacqueline was a seriously talented writer, and I'm ecstatic that the public will soon get to read her fantastic work themselves!To learn more about the book, which is the first in a new series, head to the official website, check out Jacqueline's author profile on the Penguin website or read what Publisher's Weekly had to say about the project in their starred review.
If you follow me on Twitter, you've likely heard me raving about Shaun David Hutchinson's THE DEATHDAY LETTER, which also comes out today from Simon Pulse. THE DEATHDAY LETTER, or DDL, as Shaun and I have been referring to it for nearly two years, is a hilarious, poignant story unlike anything many readers have experienced before. This was another story that grabbed me right from the query because the concept of a boy who receives a letter informing him he has 24 hours to live was so, well, whacked out and awesome.Read more about Shaun on his blog, check out his page on the Simon and Schuster website, and go out and grab yourself a copy of this hilarious book!I couldn't be more excited for these amazing books. They represent two different aspects of my taste--in THE SHADOWS, a classic middle grade that could have been published 50 years ago and not felt much different, and in THE DEATHDAY LETTER a hilarious high-concept story that will delight teen readers.Congratulations to both Shaun and Jacqueline, and I hope for much future success down the road!