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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.

WWTBWD? What would the Baby Whisperer do?

Posted on by Beth Hull

The Baby Whisperer has earned my eternal gratitude. It was her middle-of-the-road approach (i.e. not making the baby cry it out, but also not letting the baby sleep in my lap) that got Z into her bed, and it’s been mostly successful with Maverick.

Mostly.

The little stinker is DETERMINED to flip onto his stomach. It’s like his Life Goal as soon as I put him in the crib. Head over, swing the swaddled legs over, onto the side, then onto stomach. And then what? He snuffles and complains because he has a face-full of organic mattress. Yay, fun! Let’s do it again as soon as Mama puts me on my back.

What would the Baby Whisperer do? I borrowed her big book from the library: The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems, which is a pretty ambitious title until you read the parenthetical part: (By Teaching You How to Ask the Right Questions).

But I haven’t read it yet.

I do know she’s okay with putting babies on their sides to sleep.

Sorry, I’m far too paranoid, and too plagued by nightmares of SIDS, to try that. If Homes & I had our way, we’d be attaching Velcro to the sheets and to the back of Maverick’s swaddler. Duct tape has been another tempting solution.

What would the Baby Whisperer do? I don’t know, and I might never get around to reading this library book because I found 189 things I want to fix in my manuscript.

So I stand at the head of Maverick’s crib, patiently pushing him back into place. Sometimes I let him get all the way onto his stomach, because, I admit it, he looks kinda funny that way, like a lost slug or a baby mental patient in a straight jacket, and his snorts never cease to amuse me.

I don’t let him snort for long, though, before I flip him over again.

And again and again.

[Update: I wrote this on Sunday, then experimented with NOT swaddling him on Monday and Tuesday. Epicfail. He’d get so mad about losing his thumb/fist that he’d freak out even more. So, back to swaddling.]

How I Got My Agent, Part 1

Posted on by Beth Hull

Okay, so details (by popular demand. Okay, two friends asked me to do this. And they’re very popular).

Everything you ever wanted to know about my finding-an-agent story, and probably a few things you care nothing about. (I’m stretching it out because I love reading long “How I Got My Agent” posts. I could just live in ’em.)

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

First, this is not my first completed novel, nor my second. It is my third. And I half-heartedly queried the first two manuscripts. No, that’s not true. I zealously queried the first and suffered roughly ten rejections, all of which, if they said anything helpful at all, said, “This premise is overdone.” So I scrapped that book. The second manuscript garnered a couple of partial requests, and I started dreaming of how I’d want to look in my author cameo in the movie version of the book. (Especially in light of the fact that the advance from selling the book would be enough to hire ten personal trainers and I’d not only be twenty pounds lighter but also super-toned.)

Alas, no.

So it was with excitement, yes, but a heavy dose of cynicism that I started querying in December. At the urging of my (fabulous – she made me say that but it’s totally deserved) friend Kristen, I entered the Baker’s Dozen contest on Miss Snark’s First Victim’s blog. My excerpt received a full request, and a few other agents were interested, so that jump-started the query process (and smothered some of my cynicism). Two friends referred me to their agents as well. None of that panned out, and I was very sad, but I kept querying. I got a few more full & partial requests, but no takers.

I considered the very short nuggets of feedback a couple of agents gave me, especially in two areas: plot & pacing. I revised the first half of the second act of my book (eternal thanks to Katherine Longshore for the marathon brainstorming session), took out a subplot and a supporting character, then queried more. One agent gave me a reader’s report with revision suggestions, and I did those, too.

Brandi Bowles, with Foundry Literary + Media, was a cold query – I didn’t know much about her, other than an interview I read on Krista Van Dolzer’s blog two years ago. After reading that interview, I immediately added Brandi to my Giant Table o’ Agents. What I liked about her: she likes urban fantasy and literary fiction. In my head I’d been pitching my book as Earth Abides by George R. Stewart meets The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood meets witches. I love lyrical prose with a commercial appeal, and Brandi’s tastes reflected that. (And yes I know I’m flattering myself way more than is deserved with the Margaret Atwood connection, but she is my writer-idol, after all.)

Sample of my Giant Table o’ Agents – I’d highlight requests in bright blue, rejections in red. It took me awhile to decide on a color for the offer. Can’t go wrong with hot pink, though.

A month after querying Brandi, she requested the full. I went slightly nuts, but maybe not as crazy as I could’ve been, because I’d had a baby five days before. What was really cool: Maverick distracted me from worrying. I sort of forgot about querying and submissions in the haze of new-baby-ness.

So it was with great surprise that a month later, I received the email every writer dreams of, from a super-awesome agent who told me how much she loved my book, and offered me representation.

There was gasping. I couldn’t scream, because my one-month-old was sleeping in the next room, and nothing puts a damper on celebratory jigs like a cranky newborn. I am so glad I got Brandi’s email on Memorial Day, because Homes was home and I could share the news immediately.

The sunglass smiley is the cool icon you get when you record an “offer” on querytracker.net.

This post is already too long. So, next week…The Call.

Party Pooper

Posted on by Beth Hull

No, this isn’t about how Maverick’s diaper blew out all over my lap during the church baby shower. That’s probably a better story to go with the title.

Instead, this is a story about Z.

And a birthday party.

Imagine being almost-four-years-old. And you’re minding your own business (jumping on the couch or writing your name backwards on the chalkboard easel) when your mommy comes up to you and says, “Would you like to put on a fancy dress? We’re going to a birthday party!”

You give a happy squeal. This birthday party came out of nowhere! (In truth, your mommy wasn’t telling you about it because she has a little tiny baby and even at the last minute she wasn’t entirely sure she was going to get things enough together to go.) So you get Mommy’s help and put on an adorable dress. You make a card for the birthday girl, even getting out some special stickers to decorate it.

The whole family piles into the car. “This party isn’t at the old house our friends lived in,” Mommy says. “They moved, so we’re going to a new house in a nearby city. Don’t worry though, it’ll only take about half an hour.”

Before you know it, your baby brother is asleep, and so are you.

You sleep and sleep and sleep.

When you wake up, though, you aren’t at your friend’s birthday party.

No. You’re on your own street. Where you live.

Daddy says, “We have bad news.”

You lift your sleepy head from the side of your carseat.

Mommy says, “We couldn’t find the party.”

You start crying. Mommy starts crying.

They looked and looked and looked, they say. They followed the directions, but the directions didn’t work. They called your friend’s mommy, but she was busy with the other guests, and didn’t hear her phone. They explored. They drove around for a long, long time and could not find the party.

You cry and cry.

“Let’s get a cake,” Mommy and Daddy say. “And we’ll celebrate on our own.” Mommy also promises to call your friend’s mommy and arrange a playdate.

You and Daddy go to buy a cake. You con him into the biggest, the fanciest, the most expensive cake there is. And you even get your name on it.

I know it’s not the same as going to the birthday party, but, historically, especially within your immediate family (i.e. your mommy), cake can help heal wounds.

NiFtY Author Oksana Marafioti

Posted on by Beth Hull

Today’s a special weekend post, an interview with Oksana Marafioti, author of the recently-released memoir, American Gypsy. I met Oksana through my awesome, brand-new literary agent, Brandi Bowles, because Brandi also represents Oksana. Oksana’s book sounds so good,  I had to introduce her here. First, though, a description from the book, cribbed off Amazon (there’s more, so click the link for a full description):

Fifteen-year-old Oksana Marafioti is a Gypsy. This means touring with the family band from the Mongolian deserts to the Siberian tundra. It means getting your hair cut in “the Lioness.” It also means enduring sneering racism from every segment of Soviet society. Her father is determined that his girls lead a better, freer life. In America! Also, he wants to play guitar with B. B. King. And cure cancer with his personal magnetism. All of this he confides to the woman at the American embassy, who inexplicably allows the family entry. Soon they are living on the sketchier side of Hollywood. 

BH: What is it about your book that you think will grab readers most?

OM: I think, maybe, the promise of the Romani culture revealed. Despite a Gypsy’s popularity in literature and media, most know very little about us, and what they do know is often distorted by stereotypes.

BH: Which parts of your book gave you the most joy to write?
OM: All the funny parts. It’s liberating to examine your life with a sense of humor. I also loved writing the romantic bits. When I wrote about meeting Cruz, the boy I fell for in high school, I relived that moment as if we were standing there, our eyes locked. Gave me that fizzy feeling all over again.
BH: You originally queried our agent with a fiction project, is that right? What made you decide to write your memoir, and was it easier or harder for you than writing fiction?
OM: I always toyed with the idea of writing about my family, but I didn’t seriously consider it until meeting Brandi. Her interest and enthusiasm was contagious, and I soon found myself writing for hours, researching multiple generations, quite unexpectedly fascinated with a story I thought I knew so well. For me, a memoir was easier because I was so close to the characters. And I knew the ending, so it was much easier to plot the story and see how it should develop.

BH: Is there any feeling or message you’d like readers to take away from your story?

OM: My most earnest message is that family is important, no matter who you are and where you come from. Family is the fountain of youth, the holy grail, the ultimate wonder of the world. We are all bruised by our pasts, but anger and cynicism are poisons passed on, by example, to our children. If we, as children, suffered abuse, we, as adults, have a chance to save another from it. Our culture may dictate rules and traditions, but never who’s worthy of love. And weather we admit it or not, every one of us yearns for one thing, and one thing only: To be accepted. So when we look into the eyes of a stranger who may not speak our language or know our way of life, before we make a judgment against them, we must always remember to see in those same eyes a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, sons and daughters, loved ones. Family and tolerance are the essential ingredients of happiness.

BH: What’s the most helpful writing advice you’ve received?

OM: Figure out the ending, first! If you have it, your characters will gravitate to it and your story will unravel.

Thank you, Oksana, for telling us about your book and your writing! I’m eager to get my hands on American Gypsy!
For more Oksana, you can follow her on Twitter here, and visit her website here.