Yeah, this kind of caught up, except not for a girl.  I get kind of obsessed about things, and these are what I’m currently obsessing over:

1.  Women

• I helped out at a VDAY Vagina Monologues production that a friend of mine spearheaded.  It was kickass and it was another reminder of the important message the Vagina Monologues promotes: ending violence against women and girls.  Of course, throwing in a little humor, sexual education and female empowerment is just a perk.
• Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar–which is at turns both shameful and insanely exciting!  How on earth did we last this long without a woman winning the category?
• I love that Sandra Bullock won an award after she “came into her own” as an actor and producer; I LOVE that Kathryn Bigelow gracefully stuck it to her ex by beating him at what was previously considered his game.

2.  Theft

• Bungled Crimes
• Diamond Heists
• and Art Heists!
• Oh, and White Collar.  Naturally.

3.  Gypsies.

• Any more and this would give away my next novel idea.  That isn’t 100% solid yet.

BUT ITS FUN!

Okay, I’m still here, despite a faulty sense of blogging lately.  Thing is, I’ve gotten so caught up!  Since signing with aforementioned wonder agent, I’ve been doing some revisions on SCARLET that started teeny and built up to be a little more substantial, and I’ve been in a Panera blackout land for the past several days.  Straight.  WHOO!

And I have to say, I LOVE MY LIFE!!

Haha.  Though revisions certainly aren’t the most organic and thrilling part of the creative process, it’s been feeling really amazing to WORK as a writer.  I’ve never really had an issue with discipline (when it comes to writing, at least), but this feels more like it’s building to something greater–this work is actually helping the book move toward (dare I even think it after all this time?) a publishing contract.  (KNOCK ON SOME SERIOUS WOOD!).

One way or another, I’m a happy bunny, and March has the potential to be a pretty intense month.  Not only am I slated to start hearing about some jobs and fellowships, etc, for next year, but I’m going on the Vermont College Writing Retreat (and I’m on the writing track this time, so I’m so excited to have some time to devote to the Next Project–once I decide what that actually is) and have a whole month of crazy family stuff to boot.  WHOO!

Hey, you know what, after months of feeling like my life was grinding to a halt, I’m pretty excited to ride the coasters again.

BRING IT ON!

So I think everything is finalized and announcement ready:  I have an agent.

YES!!!!  YES!!!!  I finally have an agent, something I’ve been passionately and continually submitting for (and getting supported and rejected) for YEARS.  Three years, continuously.  I dabbled before that, submitting and then hermiting myself and then coming back.  Since I graduated from a Masters program in Creative Writing, I’ve been constantly submitting to agents with three different novels. First was the high fantasy novel that I worked on during grad school; the novel was well received but had no significant interest.  Second was DIARY OF A TEENAGE MURDERESS, which was really well received; one agent was willing to undergo revisions with me, two more were really really interested, and two were actually still considering it.

Then came SCARLET, this strange little book that I wrote in three months like something was grabbing onto me.  I did some very basic grammatical line edits to it, but nothing major.   I started sending it out, and within three weeks, I had an agent.

That’s compared to the 14 months I spent shopping DIARY around, and the two years or so that I spent with the high fantasy.

YEAH.  What’s that about?

I mean, SCARLET is different; it felt easy and fast to write, and everything just flowed; trusting my instincts or what have you.  So in that sense, I think the manuscript is my best yet, so on the one hand, it makes sense for it to be snapped up so quickly.  But to me, this all seems pretty magical right now.

Especially since my agent, Minju Chang of Bookstop Literary Agency (I’m sorry, did I just say I have an AGENT?!?!) was one of EIGHT agents that were considering the full manuscript.  When she asked to represent me, it was just so incredibly exciting because it really feels like I’ve found an agent with the same amount of passion and enthusiasm (and happy-dancing) that I have for these books and this career.

Which all around is kind of…..WHOOOOOO!!!!!!

WHOO WHOO WHOOO WHOOOOOO!!!!

::off to happy dance some more::

I’m not really in the mood to post much lately–so much so that I’ve considered pausing the blog for a while or something.  However, I’ve got some liiinks today in lieu of me posting something!

Most gorgeous wedding ever (and creative, and local to me!)

Part Deux of the “10x Shorter and 100x More Honest” rip on the Twilight Series.

This movie is coming out soon (WHEE!)

And I’m feeling more than a little excited about THIS.  It’s motivated me to find some way to make more money to afford it, in fact.

And that’s it.

kisskiss

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a prayer I know is pretty common–it’s also the prayer for AA, I believe–but I first heard it as a kid in a Catholic school.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

The courage to change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Things I can’t change (or hurry, or effect):

• Whether, or when, I get published
• Whether, or when, I get a job
• Whatever my path is going to be

Things I can change (or more specifically, control):

• My eating, exercising, and lifestyle
• My writing
• ….and that’s about it.

I’ve been having trouble lately, with the whole weight loss/lapband thing, and it feels incredibly important that I get over this issue.  I’ve had success, I’m bumping up against failure again, and I’ve got to find a way to succeed on my own.  It also feels like, when I’m not successful with the weight loss, everything starts grinding in my life, like the universe is making the way harder than it has to be.  When I’m successful with it, everything starts flowing like I’m going with the universe instead of against it. Good things come my way like those snaps you get at fourth of july parades.

I just need to find a way to get my head on straight.  Because I think–and have always thought–that this is the sincere problem with my life.  Once I figure this out, the rest will come.  I hope.  God I hope.

Fingers crossed.

xx

I’m a white girl.  I’m from a white neighborhood that’s overwhelmingly Irish catholic, and I believe the first African American I ever met was a boy my brother knew when I was in sixth grade.  He had a long commute to come to our school.  For these reasons, I feel like I’m both overwhelmingly unqualified to write this post, and also part of the problem itself.

White washed covers concern me, an issue that’s been addressed all around the web lately first because of Justine Larbalestier’s LIAR, and more recently (and all the more shamefully because it was from the SAME publisher) Jaclyn Dolamore’s MAGIC UNDER GLASS.  (Check out Pub Rants, Editorial Anonymous for more and better info)

But my question and quandry is a much more personal and less PC one.  As a student in a creative writing Master’s degree, I got into a lively discussion with my Australian teacher, who felt like a burden had been placed on her to write about Australia’s aboriginal peoples, and yet for her to write it was seen as judgmental, hypocritical, and implying that those aboriginal peoples (of which she was not one) couldn’t write their own story.

I was also taught to write what you know, and it was something I didn’t agree with.  My idea is more to write what captures you, to write about emotions and actions instead of scenes and tableaux.

So where does this all leave me?  I don’t really feel like I have anything meaningful to contribute to multicultural literature, so should I just not be concerned with it?  In my books so far I’ve written about people without describing their race or much of their looks; all I’ll describe, most often, is their hair, because I think it’s very expressive.  So on the one hand, that doesn’t exclude anyone of any race, but it also doesn’t INCLUDE anyone either.

What is my responsibility here?  As I start a new project, should I be more concerned with exploring and representing cultural issues and more importantly, culturally specific characters (no matter what they’re specific to)?

Honestly,  I don’t know.  It doesn’t seem like it’s authentic, but at the same time, it feels like it’s something that’s incredibly important to be not only concerned with, but acutely aware of.  Honestly, I don’t know what the right answer is.  Honestly, I don’t know what my responsibility is, or if its a total case of hubris to think I have some responsibility, or negligence that I don’t already know what it is.

Any input?

You know, as I’m searching for my next project and thinking about how to develop as a writer, I realize that I have mental rules.  Wanna hear them?

1.  Make sure the girl kicks ass.

Hey, I’m pretty serious about this one.  It doesn’t have to be physical ass kicking, but she has to be able to be vulnerable, strong, questioning and sure, because that’s what makes a woman kick ass.  And that’s what I’m pretty adamant of passing on to the next generation.

2.  Get some kissing in.

I write YA, so rarely does it go beyond kissing, but come on, romance is what makes everything a little more gut wrenchingly fun, right?? Hook it up for the good of mankind.

3.  Never, ever end with a marriage.

It used to kill me that authors ended stories with a marriage.  As far as a reader is concerned, the story is the character’s life.  I mean, I want to feel like their life started before it and ends after it, but their conflict is over.  Nothing in their life will be as difficult or as interesting as what has happened in the novel, so…wouldn’t that kind of suck for the marriage?  And for a child of divorce, it makes the marriage seem too neat, too concrete, and too Disney–more girls need to think that they need to work at a marriage, that it will be the best part and the hardest part, not the other way around.

4.  When it comes to girls, hair can give you some drama.

Seriously, nothing stuck in my mind more as a kid than the visions of girls shaking out their hair as part of a dramatic reveal, or fighting with their hair flying out around them, cutting off their hair to make themselves look like a boy or finally doing a fancy updo to reveal their inherent femininity.  To this day I still wear my hair in buns with the hope of one day doing a dramatic shake out.

5.  The more thieves, the better.

Honestly not even I can explain this one.  I am hopelessly obsessed with thieves.  I am so going to end up with a prison inmate one day because it is my genuine weakness, and no where do i love it more than fiction.  The cockier and less morally minded the better, but fresh and original always take the cake, like Megan Whalen Turner’s unbelievable thief Eugenides.  BEST EVER.

6.  Don’t hold things back just for the sake of, uh, holding things back.

Not that I didn’t do this myself as a novice writer, and not that I can’t appreciate the sense of suspense, but as a reader, it’s swearworthy when the narrator is just like “oh, no, i’m THINKING about that, but I can’t TELL YOU because that would…er….well it would completely resolve the conflict, so i’m going to mysteriously allude to it and forget about it.”  No.  No, No No!  No means no!

7.  Don’t ever rest on your laurels.

Okay, not that I actually have any laurels yet, or ever did, but writing is a path, or a really deep pool for a swimmer with good breath.  it’s something to be traveled, discovered, and plumbed.  It’s not your favorite restaurant where you order the same thing every time because, well, you know what you like.  Keep moving, experimenting, trying, and playing.  Your body of work is your own personal competition, a gauntlet thrown down, a challenge to meet.  Rock it!  Don’t rest.

8.  All that aside, make sure you get the gut.

I have a master’s degree in creative writing.  I know what good writing looks like, aside from any subjectivity, and I know what cheap and tawdry prose is.  But the thing about repetitive, cliched drivel like romance novels is that they still know how to tell a good story because they go for the cheap thrills.  Cheap or well earned, I want to feel a visceral reaction at some point during a novel.  A squirm, a gasp, a tear, a heart wrench, or, my very favorite, that twisty stomach drop when all your character’s worst insecurities are confirmed and confronted and you feel it. It’s the greatest, most physical kind of human connection that fiction can offer.

I think that’s it.  I probably have more that I don’t know about yet, but that’s it for now.

Well, first, I’m pretty pissed that MA elected Scott Brown.  Really?  Really?  REALLY!

And I’m pretty psyched that Scarlet is rising so fast on Authonomy; of course, it still has a looong way to go before it ends up on the “editor’s desk”, but the support is pretty morale boosting at the moment.

In other thoughts, however, I’m feeling restless because I don’t know what i want my next project to be.  Loose hasn’t called me back to it, and Shalia is this siren song for me–I want it, I always want it because, like Tarian, there’s a deep and unraveling story that’s been written several times throughout my adolescence, so it’s a story with deep personal meaning to me, but something’s not right.  I think it’s that, after Arianna and Scarlet, my head needs a modern girl.

And, also, a boy.  Sacrilegious as it may seem, I really want to write a story with a boy’s point of view, or a very strong male character that’s not necessarily a love interest.  For that matter, after Arianna (where the whole story revolves around her marriage and love life–and personal development, but that’s just a side note) I’m really much more interested in writing a story about strong and quirky friendships…that may have a kiss or two.  What’s a novel without a smooch?

I just don’t know.  Typically I revisit all my hundreds of notebooks to inspire a new story, but i don’t have anything modern in my old books.  I could always update one of my hopeless fantasy novels into something modern, but i don’t know.

I guess I’m just waiting to be struck.

Not by a bus.  By inspiration.

Ok, my brain is feeling very scattered and, for the first time in months, there are like seven things I want to blog about at once.

1.  Authonomy

So Scarlet’s up on Authonomy, and if nothing else, it’s been very gratifying for me because the community is very vocal and very supportive, and Scarlet has hit top five for all three genres I listed it in (Romance, Young Adult, and Historical Fiction) and it’s jumped over 4000 slots in the first day it was on the site.  So for me, personally, it’s been a big morale boost.  I really don’t expect to either land across the editor’s desk or be snatched up in a three figure book deal from this, but it’s motivating.

Also, it’s giving me a lot of sympathy for what editors go through.  It’s called the “Virtual Slush Pile”, and without getting down on my fellow writers, some of it is so hack and dismal.  That being said, I don’t judge; I had my hack period as well.  I think a certain amount of copying someone else’s ideas is necessary to find your true voice, but that being said, don’t publish your hack piece.

2.  ALA Awards

So, one of my favorite authors ever for her A Great and Terrible Beauty series, Libba Bray, was the recipient of the prestigious Printz award for YA fiction.  Talk about ultimate dream/accomplishment!  She won it for GOING BOVINE, which I haven’t read yet, but I definitely have to get on that stat.  Also, a book I hadn’t even heard of, WHEN YOU REACH ME, won the Newbery Medal….and now I want to read that too! Oh, and FLASH BURNOUT by newbie author LK Madigan won the Morris Award (for newbie writers).

3.  Arianna

Well, I think I finished Arianna again, and I did it by reversing two of my personal writing maxims.  One is not forcing the writing; when it doesn’t want to come, it won’t come.  This I powered through because I felt like all the elements were there, I just wasn’t trusting my own instincts and going with the real ending over the ending I always envisioned.  Writing is funny like that.  Once I pushed past that, though, the writing came, so I’m not sure if it totally invalidated my beliefs.

But the second, much more seriously, is that I ended the novel (spoiler) with a marriage.  Something that I’ve always been against because I don’t believe that your story should end with a wedding.  I think that’s the myth of happily ever after that teaches girls to gloss over the hard part–making marriage work as part of your life.  But it just FIT.  This was what made sense for Arianna.  I don’t think I can carry it further, because the marriage was the result of her standing up for herself and figuring out who she was and what she wanted, which resolved the conflict, and I’m not a fan of neatly wrapped up endings just for endings sake.  I don’t know.  I’ll take another look at it, but I think Arianna’s making me trust my instincts, whatever the results.  Bitch.

4.  In other news…

• Weight loss has ground to a dead halt post-holidays, so starting today I’m back on the straight, hopefully resulting in the narrow.
• Job search is looking a little bleak, so for this week at least I’m trying to nose-to-the-grindstone it and go back to Demand Studios.  I may hate the work, but at least I can make my own hours and about fifteen dollars per hour.  Not bad.
• I have no idea what to do for my next project.  I think once I’m really done with Arianna (which will be shelved while I shop Scarlet) I’ll have a better idea.

Sigh.  What are you up to today?

Okay, so for all of those people who don’t really get to read my work and would like to (especially to my facebook friends!) SCARLET, my newest novel, is up on Authonomy, a “virtual slush pile” run by Harper Collins–essentially it’s a popularity contest that could lead to an editor’s desk.  Now, I’ve entered these sorts of things before and while I’m not too cocky about my ability to land on the editor’s desk, it is a chance to give other people a look at Scarlet.  So I hope you like it, I’m madly in love with this quirky little novel.

Enjoy (description below), leave comments and tell your friends; who knows, maybe I’m popular enough!

xx

Scarlet

AC Gaughen

History forgot that Will Scarlet, Robin Hood’s famous thief, is a girl. And that’s not the only secret she’s hiding.

Scarlet is a retelling of the Robin Hood legend from the point of view of Scarlet, a young thief from London that Robin’s brought into his small band of fighters. Her friends know the truth, but most of the townspeople don’t want to see that Scarlet isn’t the Will Scarlet that history will come to remember, but just Scarlet, a girl with scars and strange eyes that tries to stay as invisible as possible.

But Guy of Gisbourne, the thief taker from London that know’s Scarlet’s secrets, won’t let her stay invisible as he begins targeting the people of Nottinghamshire, trying to get to Robin Hood, the thief he’s been hired to hang. Scarlet has to decide how much the people of Nottinghamshire mean to her–not to mention how she feels about John Little, the brawny blacksmith that lost his family to the Sheriff’s cruelty, or Robin himself, a legend even in his own time.

It’s young adult novel of 55,000 words told in first person, offering a personal and completely unique perspective on one of history’s favorite stories.