The Chocolate--Random Thoughts Thursday

I haven't written a blog post here since July. I had a great summer, watched teens do great things, suffered writerly angst, and received the first edit letter for my second novel (due out September 2013). All of this passed without so much as a sentence about it on my blog. Blame it on summer laziness, summer busy-ness, or what have you, I didn't blog. At least not here. (I did however write one post for the Class of 2k12).

You might be wondering what life-shattering event could have possibly pulled me out of my blogging slump and caused me to re-visit my orphaned blog after two and a half months. Strangely enough it was a dream, so I'm dubbing this post "Random Thoughts Thursday."

Last night I dreamed I was out for a run and I saw a piece of really, really good chocolate sitting in front of me on the sidewalk. I don't remember exactly what kind it was, just that it was really good chocolate, that it was fully wrapped, and that I wanted it.
 
I picked it up and suddenly there were people all around me. I could see the question on their faces,

"Is she really going to eat that?"

I am not a germaphobe. I have been know to invoke the 3-second rule when it comes to something really delicious falling on my "not so pristine" floors. But honestly, I'm not sure if in real life I would pick up a piece of chocolate (even really really good chocolate) off the sidewalk and eat it.  

But what I remember about the dream was that I was okay eating the chocolate until I realized people were watching. Then I saw flaws in it, maybe the wrapper wasn't wrapped as tight as it should be, maybe it wasn't really all that great of chocolate, maybe it wasn't really safe. I woke up, not knowing if I was going to eat the chocolate or not. 

Today, during my morning run, (as I was scanning the sidewalk for a piece of really really good chocolate) I was thinking about the dream. I came up with a couple of analogies.

The first one was this: 

I just turned in my first round of revisions for my second novel to my editor. This has been a book that has made me crazy. I sold it on proposal with a sliver of an idea and it's taken a year for me to get it where I felt like I knew the story and I liked it.  (Compare that to 8-10 weeks for the first draft of BREAKING BEAUTIFUL). In less than a year (fingers crossed) my second baby will be out into the world and open for criticism. Even though I've been through it once (and maybe because I've been through it once) that scares me. In fact very few things in my life are as terrifying as people actually reading what I've written.

Any yet, I've wanted to be an author as long as I've known there were real people (and not magical fairies) that wrote books.

So back to my dream. If being an author is like the chocolate, something I really, really want, then why should it matter what everyone else around me thinks? Even if it isn't perfect and may even be dangerous (to my emotional security)?

I have another analogy that I will put forth in a later blog post, one that I've been thinking about for a long time, but for now I want you to think about that chocolate, (I know I have been) and ask yourself this question,

What dream are you holding back on because you're afraid of what other people will think?

I hope that question will help you come up with the motivation to move forward with something that you've held back on. (Then I'll feel like my random thought wasn't in vain.)

Or maybe you'll just come to the conclusion that Jennifer is so obsessed with chocolate that it has invaded her dreams. :)

TAKEN BY STORM--Interview with Author Angela Morrison

To continue the celebration of TAKEN BY STORM's 10-year anniversary I got the chance to ask Angela Morrison some questions about the TAKEN BY STORM series and what it's like to revisit a book and characters ten years after the concept was first conceived. 

This week you're celebrating the writing prompt that spawned TAKEN BY STORM and consequently, your writing career. Can you tell us about that writing prompt? 

It was the first free write I'd ever been challenged to. I was sitting in a circle with all my brand new MFA classmates at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and the graduate assistant leading the session gave us the prompt, "Remember a sound." I started writing, and Michael's voice flowed out on the page. That was July 20, 2002. Ten years ago today! You can see the actual free write on my blog.

I'm always curious about what happens to the characters that live in your head for so long as you create a story, ten years later, do you still hear Michael and Leesie's voices? Do you ever think about writing a new chapter in their story? 

When I finished CAYMAN SUMMER (Taken by Storm Book #3), I managed to coax a long epilogue from Michael and Leesie, but that was it. Their voices no longer haunt me. I miss them. I coaxed them out of hiding this week for online Q&A sessions. Michael was pretty grumpy about it. Leesie was, let's say, distracted. Readers have asked me to write more about them--another book or even a scene, but I can't.

The format of the book is unique because it's told in poetry, chats and dive logs. What was the hardest way to write the story?

The hardest part was discovering that format. TAKEN BY STORM started life as he said/she said dual first-person narrators. Michael's experience was so much more intense than Leesie's that his voice dominated. When I let Leesie narrate through her poems, she began to match his intensity level. I love writing free verse poetry and the compression you get with narrative poems, but they were the hardest the write.

You grew up in Tekoa, the town where this story is set, are any of the scenes in the book based on real-life experiences?

It was great to set the story in a place I knew so well. The places are as realistic as I could paint them. All the people are fiction. But I did saddle Leesie with an awful groping incident on the school bus that happened to me. The cool thing about using your worst high school days in a novel is you can send your heroine a hero--like Michael. I just scurried off the bus in defeat. I gave Leesie a champion. 

Michael and Leesie's story came from a writing prompt, where else do you find writing ideas?

Everywhere and in everything. Michael actually was inspired by an accident my husband and I heard about when we were scuba diving off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico. A hurricane in Belize. I asked myself, "What if a guy on that boat survived but his parents didn't? What would he do? Where would he go? Who would love him?" The answers became TAKEN BY STORM. 

What have you changed or added for the new release of this book?

We changed the cover! YAY! I love this new one. We also reformatted the text so it would be a readable ebook. The original ebook Penguin produced didn't use scalable fonts for the dive log headings or the chats. It was unreadable unless you read it on a big computer screen. We fixed that. I also added an extra bonus scene, "Airport Good-bye," that comes between the end of STORM and the beginning of UNBROKEN CONNECTION. 

You have been one of my greatest mentors and your advice to me through the years has been invaluable. In that vein, what advice do you have for other writers just starting out? For writers who have been at this for awhile.

Keep reading. Keep writing. Find opportunities to learn from professional writers, agents and editors. Sign up for SCBWI conferences and online writing classes. Find a good critique group. It never gets easier. Even when you've broken through and got a contract and books on the shelf, it's still the hardest but the best thing you'll ever do. If you think publishing a book is going to make you millions, find another scheme. Writing is for the driven, crazy people who absolutely must do it to stay happy and sane. Don't sell yourself short, though. If you are driven to write, you are a writer. Own it. Stand tall. Work hard. Be professional.

Thank you Angela!

To learn more about TAKEN BY STORM and check out the rest of the celebration, go to Angela's Cayman Summer blog.
 http://caymansummer.blogspot.com/2012/07/10-years-from-today-michael-swam-out-of.html

TAKEN BY STORM

Ten Year Anniversary

 Hi all! This week I'm helping my biggest writing mentor, Angela Morrison, celebrate a milestone anniversary and the birth of a fabulous story. Ten years ago this week, Taken by Storm's scuba-diving hero, Michael, swam out of award-winning YA author, Angela Morrison's brain and onto her page. You can join the anniversary celebration and win your own copy of the brand new paperback!  Snag Taken by Storm's Kindle ebook for only $ .99! Unbroken Connection (Book 2) and Cayman Summer (Book 3) are free on Kindle! Hurry. The promotion ends Friday, July 20th. Don't own a Kindle? Download free Kindle apps for your laptop, tablet, iTouch, or phone.

Here's a little bit about the book.

In Taken by Storm, Mormon girl Leesie has life figured out until devastated Michael lands in her small town high school. He needs her like no one has before. A rare journey into a faithful LDS teen’s intimate struggle. 

from Taken by Storm . . .

I’m lost to his firm chest,

his slender fingertips, his long wavy hair,
his mouth sucking my bottom lip—
The world spins, the stars shift,
and I can’t see anything except his smoky
gray eyes gazing into mine.

You scare me, whispers
from my mouth across his.

Good, he breathes into me.
I need you to save me.

"[Morrison] handles the topics of religion and premarital sex gracefully without passing judgment. The message has less to do with religion than learning to respect and cherish others while staying true to one’s own beliefs.”  – Publisher’s Weekly, starred review

Brand new paperback and reformatted ebook with fully scalable fonts. Includes bonus, never-before-published scene, "Airport Good-bye!"

Angela Morrison is the award-winning YA author of Taken by Storm (Books 1-3) and Sing me to Sleep. She grew up in Eastern Washington on the wheat farm where Taken by Storm is set. She's an advanced NAUI, Nitrox certified scuba diver. The hurricane that kills Michael's parents was inspired by a real-life diving accident. She wrote Cayman Summer, book three of Michael and Leesie's saga, with fan input, at http://caymansummer.blogspot.com. 

On Begining Again

I have a confession to make, I love Mondays. There's something about the first day of the week (okay, I know technically Sunday is the first day of the week) that gets me motivated to start over and do better. Monday is a great day to re-start that diet, that exercise program (yes, I am writing this from my treadmill) or to dive in to a new project. It's almost like every Monday can be a new January 1st.

So, today I'm blogging again. I haven't blogged since the day BREAKING BEAUTIFUL released. I feel bad for that, but I also feel like I needed the break.

I firmly believe there is something called "post-par-tum book depression." When you release a book, just like when you have a baby, you have all of this anticipation that you have built up for months, years, even a lifetime. And then it happens. And maybe nobody cares about it as much as you do. And maybe your baby isn't as well-received in the outside world as you thought it would be. And maybe there's still a lot of work ahead.

Baby, or book, all of these things are true. (I've been through both.) Granted, my book didn't need to be fed every two hours all night long like my four babies did, but it has kept me up at night. On the other hand, no one will ever publicly post a one star review of any of my children (at least I hope not).

It's hard to come to the end of a journey. It's hard to release something you have worked on for so many months or years out into the world. Even if everything happens according to your expectations (and it never does) there is still a feeling of being let down. All this build-up for this?

In the middle of enjoying, agonizing, and coming to grips with all the realities of my first "child of paper"  shelves, I was writing my second book, so I was also experiencing "second book syndrome" angst.
Book two was way harder for me to write than book one. Maybe because I was writing it based on a proposal and on deadline. Maybe because I was afraid it would never live up to my first book. Maybe because I was afraid that this second book would expose me as a fraud. One book, sure, but two? Who does she think she's kidding?

Boy, it really sounds like I'm complaining. I'm not. I woke up this morning to a quiet house, (one of the benefits of summer with older kids) a beautiful summer day, and a head filled with new ideas to write about. For the first time in a while, the blank computer screen doesn't scare me. I'm excited to write. I'm excited to begin again.

Not that I didn't enjoy writing my second book. I love my second child of paper (as hard as it was to bring to this point) as much as I love my first. I'm excited to get edit notes and make it better.

But today, I'm excited to move forward. I'm excited to begin again.   

Launch Day--BEST DAY EVER

Signing books surrounded by donations for SafePlace

The cake I didn't get to try. It was red velvet!

Brooklyn, my lovely trailer actress.

My fellow Washington Author Peeps: Marissa Meyer, me, Daniel  Marks, Megan Bostic, Kiki Hamilton and J. Anderson Coats.

Fabulous books donated for the raffle.

I have had a lot of really great days in my life; high school graduation, my wedding, the birth of each of my four kids, but I have to say, today ranked among the best days of my life. Today I celebrated the launch of BREAKING BEAUTIFUL at Fireside Bookstore in Olympia. I was surrounded by my husband, my kids, my baby brother and his family and many many of my friends and fellow writers.

Thomasina talking about SafePlace

The store completely SOLD OUT of my books. There was food and cake and I got to talk about my book and sign and sign and sign. It was all kind of surreal and amazing.

I also collected donations and money for a wonderful local women's shelter, SafePlace. Thank you to Thomasina for coming in to talk about the shelter and thank you to SafePlace for all the work they do. Thank you to my publisher, Walker/Bloomsbury and my agency, Nelson Literary, for providing books for the raffle for SafePlace.

My happy teen helpers!

I only had a few regrets 1) I didn't get to talk to anyone very long. 2) I was so busy signing books that I didn't get to try the beautiful cake I got from Wagner's Bakery. (Apparently my sixteen-year-old son took the last piece. 3) I didn't get any pictures with my husband, my kids, my brother or many of my friends who were there. 4) I wish I had brought some kind of sign-in book so I would always remember who was there.

Overall though, it was truly one of the best days of my life. A dream I have had for so long finally came true.

Thank you to all who helped with my launch party; my husband David, my kids David the Younger, Sabrina, Zach and Daniel, special helpers Elizabeth, Chelsie, Monica, Ashlyn, Dallin, Jennifer and so many others. A huge thank you to Jane at Fireside Bookstore and her husband Ed for making this such a lovely night. I am truly blessed!

My fabulous red shoes and Daniel Marks, um, lovely red shoelaces.

Happy Birthday to My Child of Paper

It is now 12:01 am PST. April 24, 2012; a day I have looked forward to for a very long time. The counter I've kept my eye on for so long has zeroed out to "Now Available" and my first child of paper has been set out in the world.

 In case you don't get what I'm talking about I'll scream it out loud: BREAKING BEAUTIFUL, MY DEBUT NOVEL, RELEASES TODAY!!! (Friends on the East Coast did you hear that???)

Do you have any idea how cool that is? Do you have any idea how much that FREAKS. ME. OUT. My first child of paper is available to anyone who is willing to pay money for it, or who checks it out from the library, or who borrows it from a friend, or a relative or some stranger on the street. My hard-fought, long-poured-over words, and they don't even need my permission to read it. YIKES!

Like any other mom/author, I'm worried about how my child will be accepted by the big, bad, outside world. Yes, the ARCs have been out for months, it has been available on NetGalley, and I have already seen both positive and negative reviews, but until now I felt like me and/or my publisher had some control over who got to see my baby. And now we don't.

Total strangers will be reading it, and that scares me, but here's the REALLY scary part, people I know will read it to. In fact, I'm having a launch party tonight, and all these wonderful, supportive friends who have listened to me talk about my book and who have followed me on my journey to this point will be able to own some of my words, actually own A LOT of my words, and maybe even a little piece of me.

And what if they don't like it?

There are just about hundred million unknowns in this business of this (I know, I stayed up counting them all last night). One of them is that everyone's taste, experience, and opinions are different. Thank God for that, but that also means someone could love me and hate my story, and that has to be okay.

I'd probably prefer that they don't tell me how much they hated it AND I'd probably prefer that they don't tell me what I should have done differently, (at least not right up front) and I'd probably prefer that they don't mention such and such typo/mistake/continuity error on page such and such, but I have to be okay with that too. Because in the end, it's just a story. (And yes it was painful for me to write that last sentence. AND yes my brain is screaming "No, it's not just a story it's MY STORY.)

I think everyone gets that this is hard for me, but at some point I know I'll have to let my child of paper go. It was out of my hands months ago, I wrote and re-wrote, plotted and revised, and re-read it so many times that I almost have it memorized so yes, it's still with me. Just today, driving home from the store I thought of something I should have done differently. I had one of those slap myself in the forehead, "why didn't I think of that earlier?" moments. Since a number of copies have already been printed and shipped I don't think my publisher would be happy with me if I asked them to change/add that thing I thought of today. I have to let it go. (Okay, but I'm thinking that maybe I can have a "deleted scenes" or a "what-if" section on my website and then I can add that piece that came to me today. I can, right? Right? I know, I know, let it go.)

In the book "THE ARTIST'S WAY by Julia Cameron, she says something like, "A book is never finished, it just ends in an interesting place." I know that's true. I also know that a book never really starts from the beginning, it just picks up in an interesting place.

I think life is a lot like that. I can remember the day that I sat down and began BREAKING BEAUTIFUL with just the thread of an idea, but it didn't really start then, any more than it's starting now with an official launch date. The ideas, experiences, and stories that I used to build my story have been around for a long time (probably even longer than I have). The same goes for anything else I write. As I think about today, I realize that it is neither an ending or a beginning it's just an interesting place to be.

And as scary as that is, I think I like it.

Trailer Debut

I'm so excited to share the book trailer for BREAKING BEAUTIFUL. Because I was a broadcasting major and because creating videos has been one of my hobbies, I had the trailer for this book in mind before I ever finished writing it. When the time finally came to do the trailer, I wrote a script and was ready to move forward, but then my husband got his diagnosis of MS. It took some time for us to get back to real life after that. I had to scale everything back and focus on the really important things.

When I finally had the time and energy to think about it again, I knew I had to do something more simple than what I had originally planned. It all worked out fo the best. Scaled back or not I'm so happy with the way it came out.

I'm so grateful to everyone who helped, my husband who did the videography, my lovely actress Brooklyn who endured every crazy thing I asked her to do, Steve, the North Thurston high school librarian who helped me get in to "shoot" the locker scene and my extras, David, Chelsie, Melissa, Jennifer, Josh, Ben, Jesse, and "best creepy voice ever" Tristan. Thank you!

So without further self-gushing, I present my book trailer for BREAKING BEAUTIFUL which releases in LESS THAN ONE WEEK!!!