Like-Minded Individuals

Clearly I've been a lazy blogger.

Bad. Bad Jilly. Shame on you.

But as usual, I have an excuse, and as less-usual, it's a pretty good one: I've been busy finding my people!

Last year at a writing retreat, I met the fantastic Kim Savage, who told me about a group she was in, the Sweet 16s. It was a group of writers, all of whom were having their first YA or middle grade novel debut in...you guessed it, 2016.

Clearly, the minute I heard about The Swanky 17s I raised my hand as high as it would go and started shaking in my seat, hoping they'd pick me.

They did--hooray!

In the last two weeks we've been kicking it into seriously high gear, getting the website up and running (thank you infinitely, Sara Biren!), the twitter account active, and all our ducks lined up so we can start welcoming our fellow 17ers.

A couple of the things people tell you about this process that's impossible to believe before it happens to you are 1) how slowly publishing schedules move, and 2) how much of your work as an author is about finding interesting ways to get your books to readers.

Thankfully, the Swankies are helping me manage both of those. I can't imagine a better way to spend the 18+ months between now and my book actually existing than connecting with other authors (with books that I can't wait to read), promoting our work together, and--let's be honest--knowing who to turn to when the headaches and the nerves and the frustration and the elation start coming fast and thick.

Of course I've also been working to get the 2016 comedy debut lined up and ready to go...

...but that's another story.

Fantastic Reading with Elephant Rock Books

Just got back from Storrs, Connecticut, and I'm still glowing about the fabulous Roar Reading that Elephant Rock Books put on there tonight!

Mary Collins and Emily Lyon both read fantastic, funny, moving pieces, and the room was full--no small feat for a Monday night reading series in a smallish town!

How Many Stories Do We Have?

There's a theory that most writers have probably heard, and some readers would probably agree with in an ego-cripplingly short amount of time:

Every writer, great, good, or otherwise, really only has one story to write, and s/he keeps on writing it over and over.

Or, in the case of Harper Lee, just the once, then mic drop.

And that's how you kill a mockingbird. Bitches. 

The Liebster Award Blog Hop

One of the best reasons to go to writing conferences: you meet AWESOME people there, people like the truly spectacular Julie Artz. I'm excited to say she nominated me for a sort of "writer's chain letter" blog tour where we get to learn about how we all work (or fail to). With no further ado, let me tell YOU about ME...and the people that come out of my head: 

Can you share one example of how you came up with the idea for a story? 
Well usually I come up with just the tiniest hint of a character. All my stories spin from characters.

One book (that's in a drawer right now) started with "what about a really dorky social misfit who's actually quietly picking off the people she got too obsessed with and who failed to live up to her idea of their 'friendship?'" Teasing out the two girls who wound up as the central characters in the story, and what they loved and hated, and how they got along, and what was actually going to HAPPEN was much more involved, but the story IDEA sort of came to me like a character logline.

Sometimes. Other times I go through something funny or sad or awful in life and I say "some day, when I'm ready, THIS is becoming a book."

"So Have You Published Anything?"

You've heard this one before, right?

You tell someone you're a writer, and almost the first words out of his mouth are "oh, so do you have a book published, then?"

And yet...no, it's not in there.

Unless, of course, it's "I have some really interesting things that have happened to me--I should write a book," as though the two are even REMOTELY related to one another (okay, they're a little related, but not much, certainly not as much as, or in the way that, people seem to think).

So...Communism?

After a weekend writing retreat, I'm always left feeling the effects for several days afterwards.

Not from the drinking (though yes, also from the drinking--writers love to party, okay?)--from the "living the dream" aspect of it all, a feeling that's in stark contrast to ordinary-life-upon-return.

So...why can't we live that dream all the time?

You know the one, where we all buy a massive house together somewhere stunningly remote, and live in a community of writers, and work and talk craft and get inspired all day, and unwind with loads of cocktails every night.

The view from last weekend's cabin. Picture: Julie Kingsley

Probably someone would need to learn how to chop wood, too. And someone else would want to know a few things about pickling and canning. Just to complete the whole ethos.

The "What's Your Writing Process" Blog Tour!

I was chatting with my writing partner and my agent last week (confession: I set up this sentence just so I could say "my agent," which still feels magical and almost illicit, like saying "my boyfriend" after months of does-he-like-me, or "my pony" if you're the kid whose dream actually came true), and she brought up the idea of blog tours as an additional way to promote a book.

I promptly admitted I had basically no understanding of blog tours. I've seen them, of course, but I have no idea how one sets such a thing up. Do you just call up the blog and offer to stop in and read from your...no, that's wrong. No one has given their phone number to a stranger on the internet since the early days of AOL chat rooms (and then only because you were the person who was ACTUALLY 11 and were really, really stupid, even for 11).

Which of course meant that less than 24 hours later, my awesome writer friend Julie Artz--author of amazing MG adventures and a great lady to grab a cocktail with--asked me if I'd be interested in doing one. Thanks, karma! I must be helping all the old ladies these days!

Anyway, Julie's tour is about writing process, something I mostly don't have. Without further ado...