Sometime ago, I got an early read on the opening pages of a manuscript that has haunted me ever since. While I read, I was filled with a deep sense of foreboding about the story and its narrator, seventeen-year-old Mel. I was chilled, torn up by what going to happen, wanting to stop it, wanting … Continue reading »
Monthly Archives: April 2011
fantasies / novels / publishing / writing
In Which It Becomes Real
Do you need to see something in person—touch it, hold it in your hands and feel its weight—to believe it is in fact a real and actual thing? Sometimes I think I do. With the good things. Especially with those. So, though I’ve known Imaginary Girls—a novel I first began as a short story about … Continue reading »
confessions / first-drafting / memories / novels / other writers / publishing / writing
On Being Exposed
I’m feeling a little naked lately, with Imaginary Girls getting read by early readers and me stumbling over the things being said about it—sometimes when I mean to be looking (I have peeked), and even when I don’t mean to be looking at all. Imagine what it must have been like for authors before the … Continue reading »
Giveaway Winners Announced!
My giveaway to win my last (signed!) ARC of Imaginary Girls and twenty, yes 20!, Imaginary Girls bookmarks ended just before midnight last night. Anyone with a sister (half sisters and stepsisters included) got an extra entry. And this morning I woke up and used the randomizer to select the ONE grand-prize winner and the … Continue reading »
Quick Book Updates in SEVENS Because I Like the Number Seven
ONE My very last ARC and bookmark giveaway is still open. You can enter to win a signed ARC (advance reading copy) of Imaginary Girls—and I’m also giving away a bunch of bookmarks, too. Just leave a comment on this post and you’re entered, simple as that. And if you tell me you have a … Continue reading »
Two Months to IMAGINARY GIRLS? Time for a Bookmark & ARC Giveaway!
Imaginary Girls comes out in the US and Canada on June 14, exactly two months from today! Since this book means pretty much everything to me—and surely you’ve heard me talk about it often enough and you’re like yeah, yeah, yeah, is your book out already?—I wanted to celebrate getting that much closer to publication … Continue reading »
Fiery Hatred of Word Counts
I used to be very anti word count. I still am, in theory. I’ve never cared about the number of words written in a day—or a week or a month. It’s about the words themselves and the story formed out of them. Patting yourself on the back for writing an arbitrary amount of words in … Continue reading »
Imaginary Girls Crossing Oceans!
I have news to share. It’s about this… …traveling all the way over here… …and here! That’s right, savvy map-readers, Imaginary Girls is going to be published in Australia and New Zealand! This is my first foreign rights sale—ever, in my life—and I’m so thrilled. Pier 9, the fiction imprint of the indie publisher Murdoch … Continue reading »
Sometimes I Forget…
…that other people are reading this blog. I confess a lot of things here. Over the years I’ve revealed too much of myself, like how hard it’s been, and when things got better and I started getting more visitors I had to go through my archives and make a lot of posts private… for my … Continue reading »
When I Realized SOMETHING Must HAPPEN
This post is for the literary writers. The ones who fall in love with their sentences and can sometimes, you know, when a sentence is extra-pretty, forget that a world exists outside it. A world where THINGS HAPPEN. Yes, I am talking plot. Don’t run away! I’m scared of plot, too. But, wow, is it … Continue reading »
