Writing

Gearing Up to Get An Agent Blog Hop

Posted on by Beth Hull

This is for the blog hop through Deana Barnhart’s Gearing Up to Get an Agent contest. For those of you who have no clue what I’m talking about, you can find details on the contest here. If you’re querying or getting ready to query agents, this contest is for YOU.

Hi! I’m Beth, and I’m one of the 1st round judges for the agent contest. I live in northern California with my husband (code name: Homes), two kids (daughter Z, age 4, and son Maverick, age 4 months), and cat. I write YA and am represented by Brandi Bowles of Foundry Literary + Media. I like to draw silly pictures with Paint, like the one below. (Okay, I was just looking for an excuse to reuse this drawing. I love it so. The goats!)

Where do you write?
Everywhere. I’ve got a little baby, so usually on the couch. Before he came along, I’d work in the Love Shack, part of our garage that we converted into a guest room/writing studio.
Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see?
First thing to the left in the Love Shack is the windowed door, looking out to the back yard.
Favorite time to write?
Mornings, afternoons, night…anytime I can find. Ideally I’d do all drafting in the mornings after a quiet half-hour for morning pages, then revise in the afternoons. But in addition to the baby, I have a four-year-old. So that hasn’t happened in about…four years.
Drink of choice while writing?
Water, if anything. Tea when it’s cold outside. But then I get distracted, wanting to drink the tea before it gets tepid, which totally grosses me out, and then I’m worried more about my tea than the crazy-making plot holes.

The tall iced decaf caramel macchiato I was sipping while I checked my email on that fateful day.

When writing , do you listen to music or do you need complete silence?
Complete silence! I’m talking to YOU, YAPPY DOGS NEXT DOOR.
What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it?
The one going out on submission soon was inspired by a dream. The last one I wrote was inspired by Karen Russell’s wacky premises in St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. It was meant to be a short story (like hers) but kept going.
What’s your most valuable writing tip?
If you love it, never stop. Forget about publication. Seriously. Forget about it. Just write, and love it, love it even when you’re tearing your hair out because that plot hole just won’t fill.

Click here to join in, and find other participants on the linky list at Deana Barnhart’s blog.

Superbook

Posted on by Beth Hull

It’s a good time to think about what makes me love a book. This week I’ve been outlining Books 2 and 3. And rather than flounder around with a weak story and later have to mold it into something respectable, I’d rather create a solid outline, with a solid, surprising, wonderful story. Then when I revise, all I’ll have to tackle are line edits.

Because it’s that easy!

Okay, not really. But I’d like it to be slightly easier, so I’m working on a wish list of what I’d like to see in these books. As I outline, I refer to the wish list. Some parts of the wish list are specific: “A. worried that R. loves someone else.” Others are less specific: “Major supporting character dies here in valiant act.” And others are even less specific (that is, general): “Need cool setting.”

But, just in working with the general, here’s what I like to see in books (with select YA titles as examples):

  • humor (The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, Flash Burnout by L. K. Madigan,Wisdom’s Kiss by Catherine Gilbert Murdock)
  • gorgeous prose (The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan, Gilt by Katherine Longshore, If I Stay by Gayle Forman)
  • strong voice (Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher, Blood Red Road by Moira Young, Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly)
  • tension (The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams, Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey, Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins)
  • intriguing premise (The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi, Beauty Queens by Libba Bray)
  • unique setting (Feed by M. T. Anderson, Cinder by Marissa Meyer, Incarceron by Catherine Fisher)

How about I just buy extra copies of all those books, tear out the pages, turn the ceiling fan on really really high, then collect the pages and staple them together into a new book?

Because it’s that easy!

Allegory of the Revision Cave*

Posted on by Beth Hull

You know it’s bad when you’re dreaming about revisions. Here’s the dream I had the other night, in comic format – although there was nothing comic about it. Har har.

Nothing comic about that, either.

Okay, the dream already:

Yeah, kind of a bummer.

The good news is that my agent didn’t hate my revisions. No, she wasn’t thrilled with the new ending, but that’s fixable. Hardly throwing the whole thing in the garbage.

Some days this week I was like this:

On those days I felt pretty good, type-type-typing away. (Actually, for all this, substitute “days” for “nights” because I’m momming it during the day and revising at night, often taking breaks to flip over my little stomach-sleeper.) I tackled new ideas, brainstormed, wasted spent a lot of time doing the Scrivener tutorial (LOVE Scrivener), and generally felt like a winner.

But there were a couple of days that looked like this:

I think the drawing says enough.

*Plato did not endorse this blog post. He wants absolutely nothing to do with it. He scoffs at my amateur drawings.

The Revision Cave

Posted on by Beth Hull

*is a lonely place, but not entirely lonely

*more than one writer friend is ALWAYS in a neighboring cave

*flickers of self-doubt

*outright paranoia

*thank heavens for good friends who respond to emails within minutes

When I came out of the Revision Cave I looked like this:

So then I painted my toenails a happy teal color, the color I would’ve been proud to wear on a baggy t-shirt in 1986. I would post a photo because honestly my feet are my only body parts that don’t disgust me these days and aren’t covered in a fine, barely-wiped-away layer of baby spit-up. Although he did get my slipper the other day.

TEAL

My computer is going to Tune-Up Land this weekend, and I’m not sure when she’ll be back, so I’ll use this as an opportunity to do another Internet Blackout / Reprioritizing of Internet Usage over the coming week. Same deal as last time: check email Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with a 30-minute limit on those days. (No worries, I won’t be completely without internet access. Homes has a bright shiny new laptop I can use. If I arm-wrestle him for it. Nope, that won’t work. He’s definitely stronger than I am. Which isn’t saying a lot, as the heaviest thing I’ve lifted in the past thirteen weeks is Maverick, and he’s only about twelve pounds. I think I’ll stop now.)

Last thing – Attention Blogger Friends: If you use images on your blogs that you find online, you may want to check out this post on Pub Rants. I’m currently going through & removing everything I didn’t create myself.