Writer Quiz

Posted on by Beth Hull

Dreamer? Wisher? Hoper? Player? [A Friday Free-for-All Entry]

1. Do you have at least seven titles but no salable manuscript?

2. Have you spent over two hours finessing your writing space (on purpose–not just cumulatively over the years)?

3. Is your Acknowledgments page already drafted (if even in your head)?

4. Do you read five or more different writer blogs?

5. Can you hear your friends groaning when you ask them to read your manuscript (again)? Even if you’re asking in an email?

6. How many times have you checked the query success pie charts on an authors website like authoradvance.com?

7. Have you ever used your blog as an excuse to put off revising your manuscript?

8. Have you ever used dirty dishes as an excuse to put off revising your manuscript?

9. Is your manuscript…
a) halfway through the first draft
b) finished after only a few months
c) halfway through a rewrite after it was supposedly finished?

10. If someone asked you to describe your writing routine, would your answer be among the following?
a) when inspiration hits
b) when my child takes her nap
c) when the moon is full and I’ve just finished a Laurell K. Hamilton book for inspiration

11. How many drinks does it take for you to think your writing is “really great?” Is it the same number it takes to make you think you’re speaking fluently in a foreign language?

12. Do you indulge in fantasies where Stephenie Meyer greets you with the words, “Dang, I wish I had thought of that idea”?

13. Do you indulge in fantasies where Seth Green bites your neck (as he did Stephenie Meyer’s) at the premier of your book-made-into-a-film? Have you lost 15 pounds in said fantasy?

14. Do you feel just a tad bit queasy posting this blog entry, knowing that it’s sort of a confession but put into the form of a survey?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, wow. Get thee to a writer’s conference.

Yes, yes. I’m going. Tomorrow.

Reno, bay-bee!

The Unsung Clarkie Underfoot

Posted on by Beth Hull

A Wednesday Momming Around Entry

Clarkie

Don’t sit down. Especially with a blanket and a book or notebook. This cat has Couch Radar and she knows when your lap is easy game. Even the dinner table and the desk are fair hunting grounds for her. Your lap is her prey and she is a skilled huntress.

Clarkie (Clark) is my other baby, and she will never allow herself to be forgotten (you’ll feel the prick of her paw on your face in the morning, or trip over her as you prepare breakfast). Since Z made her screaming way into our lives, though, Clarkie has been shuffled off to the side in a classic case of Forgotten Older Sibling. Has anyone read Socks by Beverly Cleary? Because that’s what I think of sometimes with Clark, and it makes me very sad.

We feel bad for her, especially now that Z is on the move. It used to be that we’d drag a toy mouse on a stick over the bed for her to chase, or toss paper balls around the house. Now Z runs after Clark, an old paper ball held in her sticky, outstretched hand. Screaming. And Clarkie just trots in the other direction. Quickly. I can see a martyred expression on Clark’s face. I think she’s grateful that she is unable to have children, and a little resentful that we did.

Everything Zen in the Tibetan Singing Bowl

Now that Z takes one long nap instead of three excruciatingly short ones, Clark has found my lap again. As I type this she’s tucked into  my sweatshirt, twitching her ear occasionally, but I can tell she’s happy. Ah yes, there’s a purr.

And yeah, she’s obnoxious sometimes. When it was especially difficult to get Z down for her nap for awhile, Clark would wander into Z’s room, meowing loudly. It was like she had Spidey (Kitty) Sense that Z’s eyes were closing, and she just had to foil my hard work. Punishment for spawning. I could read the vengeance in Clarkie’s eyes.

Clarkie is infuriating in some ways, and we have to be, you know, responsible for her, and clean up her poop and make sure she’s fed. But she’s soft, and cute, and so full of love and joy, and she makes us laugh. So really, she isn’t that different from Z.

*   *   *

Writing update:
No longer rushing to finish revisions. These things take time, and I don’t want to ruin chances with this Dream Agent by sending anything less than my very very best.

Not Now, Babykins

Posted on by Beth Hull

“Up!”

“Not now, Babykins.”

“Read please.”

“Not now, Babykins.”

“Sit…down!”

“Not now, Babykins.”

“Play!”

“Not now, Babykins.”

“Go bye-bye?”

“Not now, Babykins.”

“Hello song.”

“Not now, Babykins.”

If I’m making myself sound like a heartless jerk, well, sometimes I feel that way. The above is not exactly how a day-in-the-life goes, but sometimes it feels close. Why is it such a struggle to do these three things: 1) interact with my daughter (i.e. entertain her), 2) accomplish day-to-day chores and errands, and 3) try to rescue that weakening hold on some semblance of my old, not-mom identity?

This isn’t a unique or original concern; I’m certain millions of parents wonder the same thing every day. My usual compromise is to run errands, because Z loves getting out, and if the car ride is long enough I can usually get inside my own head for a little while to just think. Then we get something done, and if I’m lucky I can think on the way home with the “Hello Song” blasting.

[I’m going to pretend she didn’t just now hurl a bowl of Cheerios across the basement floor. Which is carpeted in Cheerio-colored shag.]

[Oh lovely, now she’s picking them up and handing them to me, because she knows our floors aren’t clean enough to eat off of.]

It’s time for breakfast, anyway. Our internet connection has been fritzy the past couple of days, so I wanted to seize this rare moment of functional internet to write. The spastic internet is probably a point in Z’s favor, since it forces us out of the basement office and up to the play room, or the back yard, or the library, or the plant nursery. And maybe on the way to or from those places, I can get some me-time in.

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Posted on by Beth Hull

A reviewer on the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest compared aspects of my submission to Shiver, which is unfair because I didn’t read the book until last weekend, and my manuscript was submitted two months ago. This is just one of the many gross injustices in the writing world. You have an idea, and, hey, so did someone else…and most likely she wrote it better than you did.

Stiefvater’s story, however, is quite different from my own. The similarities are generally found in the heroine’s parents and in the existence of werewolves. Thankfully the similarities stop there, although Grace’s parents (and my main character’s, I guess) are unique enough to make me cringe: both sets are flighty, artist types. Grace’s mom is a painter; Phoebe’s dad is a sculptor. Grace’s dad and Phoebe’s mom are emotionally unavailable, although he is a never-at-home businessman and she is a never-outside-of-her-head stay-at-home mom. (Speaking of bad parenting, here’s an interesting essay from The New York Times discussing the trend of bad parents in YA lit.)

Other than these elements, I would be flattered to have my book compared to Stiefvater’s. Her writing is smooth and poetic without sounding so literary that you lose the story. Beautiful lines everywhere. Example: “‘I know,’ I replied, frowning at the multicolored sweaters and scarves trailing into the school, evidence of winter’s approach” (161). It’s such a beautiful image!And there are so many more. I think a werewolf novel has to be laden with more sensory details than a regular novel. It’s a rule.

The romance is another one of those too-good-to-be-true Twilight love-at-first-sight deals, but very few popular romances aren’t, these days. Grace and Sam have been in love for six years and have never spoken to one another because most of their googly-eyes are made while Sam is in wolf form. Which is sort of sick if you think about it outside the scope of the book, but doesn’t bother me in the actual story. (That’s how good the writing is! Googly-eyes at a four-legged mammal isn’t gross!)

The story isn’t fast-paced, but leisurely for the most part, giving the characters and their new (finally) human romance time to develop before plunging us into the crisis. The beauty of the ending was that I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t know whether or not it would happen. I won’t say anymore and spoil it, though.

For more information of Maggie Stiefvater and her writing, you can visit her very entertaining blog.

My manuscript is out of the running for the ABNA contest, sadly, and I felt sorry for myself for about a week until I, well, got over it and figured out my revision plans. Happily, my friend Seven N. Blue’s entry made the cut. Click here for the excerpt–this is exciting stuff!

29

Posted on by Beth Hull

In my ongoing quest to flatter Sarah Dessen by copying her, I’m going to list 29 things I am thankful for on my birthday.

1) a healthy, happy, supportive and perfect-for-me family

2) my funny, loyal, smart, and all-around fabulous friends

3) little sprouts of tomatoes, reaching for the sun

4) ice cream in all its flavors and textures

5) SPRINGTIME!

6) the silent moments when Z is asleep

7) sunshine streaming through stained glass windows

8 ) dreams that bring ideas or allow me to work through old hurts

9) fresh, clear water

10) the Sacramento Public Library

11) Clark the cat, who so often gets overlooked now that we have a human baby

12) nifty words like “dilatory,” “numismatist,” “campanology,” “ebullient,” and “lackadaisical”

13) books, and the ever-growing YA market

14) Paper Mate felt-tip pens in many beautiful colors

15) flamingos

16) Radiohead’s “Exit Music (For a Film)” which got me through a year of teaching high school in Vallejo even though I have no idea what the song is about

17) those moments when I’m kind of bored with whatever section of story I’m writing, and some idea just comes out of nowhere and I go with it and it feels fantastic

18) the Columbine flower in the front yard that came out of nowhere, too

19) lasagne

20) my feet

21) hope

22) the night sky

23) my mistakes and disappointments

24) quiet moments spent gardening, even if I’m just pulling weeds

25) an empty kitchen sink!

26) the years of piano lessons my parents paid for

27) cursive handwriting

28) our house, which is creaky and weird, with truly ugly drapes in the front rooms, but lovable just the same

29) the slow-dawning realization over the past year: that I would survive motherhood

Around #19 I thought I had run out of ideas, but now I don’t want to stop! I’ll save them for next year.