LDS Writer Blogfest: The Atonement Covers all Pain

Welcome to the second annual LDS Writers Blogfest!

This year, I and other LDS writers are sharing our favorite talk (think sermon) from our recent General Conference, a semiannual meeting where members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gather either in Salt Lake City in person (or in front of their computers/TVs) to listen to inspired words.

Watching Conference at Granna's house with our kids plus some cousins.

I chose Kent L. Richards' talk "The Atonement Covers All Pain", and I'd like to share my impressions on this talk and how the atonement has operated in my life.

Regarding his experiences as a surgeon, Elder Richards said:

I have pondered about the purpose of pain. None of us is immune from experiencing pain. I have seen people cope with it very differently. Some turn away from God in anger, and others allow their suffering to bring them closer to God.

Can suffering really bring us closer to God? Doesn't that sound a little perverse? Why can't He just be close to us without pain?

I think it's because we are prone to get stuck in the day-to-day, to focus on all of the things we have to do, instead of who we want to become. We get busy.

I'm not saying that God causes pain, but that He uses all the circumstances of our lives, good and bad, to reach out to us.

Our oldest son, Isaac, broke his leg when he was almost two--a spiral fracture of his femur that was extremely painful (When I write about the sound of bones grinding, I know what I'm talking about!) As I write this, eight years later, the memory of picking him up and laying him on the couch, calling my husband to come home from work, driving to the hospital while Nathan held our crying child in his arms still brings me to tears. There was nothing I could say to a two year old that would make him understand that this would end, that eventually he would heal. We cried with him. It passed. 

I don't say that that was an enjoyable experience, or one I want to repeat, but it has brought me to a deeper understanding of the Savior's love for us, because for the first time, I really got how deeply the Savior loves us to take our suffering upon himself.

Isaac has grown into a boy with a kind heart, one with enormous empathy for other's feelings, and I believe much of that empathy is a result of this and other experiences in his young childhood.

(Did I mention he was accident prone as a toddler? He broke his arm 5 days after getting the body cast off. Leg muscles had atrophied, so that wasn't entirely his fault. And there was the time he broke his collar bone by rolling off the bed to escape the Tickle Monster. He sure showed Daddy how fast he was.)

Would I ever wish for similar situations? No. But would I give back these traumas if it meant losing these sweet blessings, the tender heart that my son has developed, and my deeper understanding of the Atonement? No. I wouldn't.

Keep in mind, there are many sources of pain. Elder Richards said:

Much of our suffering is not necessarily our fault. Unexpected events, contradicting or disappointing circumstances, interrupting illness, and even death surround us and penetrate our mortal experience. Additionally, we may suffer afflictions because of the actions of others.

And if you're like me, and miss beloved relatives who have died, this account may be one of the most comforting parts of the Elder Richards' talk:

Thirteen-year-old Sherrie underwent a 14-hour operation for a tumor on her spinal cord. As she regained consciousness in the intensive care unit, she said: “Daddy, Aunt Cheryl is here, … and … Grandpa Norman … and Grandma Brown … are here. And Daddy, who is that standing beside you? … He looks like you, only taller. … He says he’s your brother, Jimmy.” Her uncle Jimmy had died at age 13 of cystic fibrosis.

“For nearly an hour, Sherrie … described her visitors, all deceased family members. Exhausted, she then fell asleep.”

Later she told her father, “Daddy, all of the children here in the intensive care unit have angels helping them.”

Perhaps some of you have had similar experiences. Death is not a one way street, it's more like stepping to the other side of a one-way mirror.

I am so grateful to the Savior for fulfilling Heavenly Father's beautiful plan of salvation and peace. Thank you for reading, and you're welcome to ask questions, etc. I'll do my best to answer. Please check out the other posts:

Annette Lyon: “Desire”
Annie Cechini: “The Spirit of Revelation”
Ben Spendlove: “The Atonement Covers All Pain”
Chantele Sedgwick: “LDS Women Are Incredible!”
Charity Bradford: “LDS Women Are Incredible!”
Jackee Alston: “The Eternal Blessings of Marriage”
Jenilyn Tolley: “What Manner of Men and Women Ought Ye to Be?”
Jennifer McFadden: “Establishing a Christ-Centered Home”
Jessie Oliveros: “Establishing a Christ-Centered Home”
Jolene Perry: “It’s Conference Once Again”
Jordan McCollum: “What Manner of Men and Women Ought Ye to Be?”
Kasey Tross: “Guided by the Holy Spirit”
Kayeleen Hamblin: “Become as a Little Child”
Kelly Bryson: “The Atonement Covers All Pain”
Krista Van Dolzer: “Opportunities to Do Good”
Melanie Stanford: “What Manner of Men and Women Ought Ye to Be?”
Michelle Merrill: “The Eternal Blessings of Marriage”
Myrna Foster: “Opportunities to Do Good”
Nisa Swineford: “Desire”
Sallee Mathews: “The Eternal Blessings of Marriage”
Sierra Gardner: “The Atonement Covers All Pain”
Tamara Hart Heiner: “Waiting on the Road to Damascus”
The Writing Lair: “Waiting on the Road to Damascus”

Glutton for Punishment?

Query Revision in One Word via freelance editor Cassandra Marshall

In February, I contacted Cassandra Marshall about reading a partial of "Ways To Fall" and helping me figure out where my query was going wrong. I didn't have a referral, but I'd read her blog some and seen her tweets etc., so when I decided to seek professional help, I emailed her. We did two rounds of query revision.

Here's round one, with Cassandra's notes highlighted (and with her permission!). See if you can pick out the magic word!

Dear *agent*,

*I am querying you because of your interview /client/professed love for blahablah* and hope you will be intrigued by my paranormal romance, WAYS TO FALL, complete at 105,000 words.

Lara, an empath, and her emotionally damaged (How are they damaged?)“sisters” were kidnapped by Mother from their Outsider families and given the gift of immortality. Lara never questions Mother’s policy of suppressing their memories until one sister recalls her life Outside and despairs (Why?). Mother curses the young woman with eternal Sleep, insisting there is no other way to protect Lara from absorbing the girl’s feelings. Lara hopes that if she can understand how Outsiders survive their terrible experiences, she can find a way to truly heal her sisters and save their fragile, Edenic world.

Defying Mother, Lara enters the sacred caves and is transported to a sinkhole-turned-crime-scene, where she is arrested by the FBI (You might want to mention the transition into the “real world” or the “other dimension” or whatever you’re using to signify the different worlds. Without it, the premise sounds like “Mother” is nothing more than a brainwashing kidnapper, like the old guy who kept his daughter and her kids in the basement for all those years. Clearly mark her world as not the same as ours.)as a suspected kidnapper. Agent David Hatton, an emotionally detached (Why?) behavior specialist, is fascinated by the way Lara’s skin changes colors in reaction to his volatile partner’s emotions.

He fears Lara will die (Why?) if he can’t isolate her, so with FBI approval he fakes a rescue from the field office (He what? Rescues Lara? Does she need rescuing of the FBI is okay with it?) and orders the squad to keep out of Lara’s perception range. Lara and Agent Hatton hike through the quiet woods of North Florida, and their tenuous friendship develops into a soul-deep attraction. When Lara must choose (Why must she choose? What happens to force this choice? Why is Hatton’s life in danger? Why is being in “mother’s grace” so important?) between freeing her sisters and saving Agent Hatton’s life, she discovers the cost of falling, both from Mother’s grace and into love.

I am a member of the Online Writer's Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror and hold a B.S. in psychology from the University of Florida (Does this relate to your book somehow? If not, nix it.)

Per your guidelines, I've included _#_ sample pages [and a synopsis] below.

Thank you,

Name

Address

Phone

Website/blog/twitter

So, I got that back and was like, where's my miracle? (Yep. I'm impatient that way.) I was hoping for some kind of brilliant insight about what I needed to emphasize to grab an agent's attention. Is it the geroth fruit? Should I focus more on the romance? Should I bring out that Mother is Lilith? What do I include?

Answer: Details. WHY? WHY? WHY?

Which is basically motivation. What is pushing the story? For the characters personally and through their relationship to their world. Brilliant! Even if I didn't realize it at first.

I opened up a new document, pasted in the query and revisions, and answered her questions. It was a page and a half when I was done. Then I started at the top and condensed. I eliminated some sentences, sentences I'd thought necessary, but maybe weren't as important as I thought. It was hard.

I got it down to a page, and Cassandra said, "Oooh, much more clear, well done!" She suggested just a few changes: breaking it up into smaller paragraphs (harder to skim over those, she said.) and put Mother's secret identity at the top. Done. Here's the end result:

Dear *Agent,*

Thank you for your interest in my paranormal romance, WAYS TO FALL, complete at 105,000 words.

Mother, a charismatic immortal once called Lilith, rescued Lara and her “sisters” from abusive families in the Outside World. In their secluded world, the girls nurture the emotionally-fed geroth trees whose fruit grants them all eternal life. Lara never questions Mother’s policy of suppressing their memories of the Outside World until one sister recalls her horrible past. Rather than live with the memories of the terror she endured in the Outside World, made ever more vivid by the geroth fruit, the sister chooses eternal Sleep.

Losing a sister devastates Lara, but Mother is comfortable with attrition, provided enough spiritually pure girls remain to nurture the geroth fruit. Mother can always return to Outside to find more girls to harvest the fruit, after all.

Determined to find a way to heal her sisters, Lara defies Mother and enters the sacred caves. She is transported by a mystical light to the modern world, where FBI agent David Hatton arrests her as a suspected kidnapper. Hatton is fascinated by the way Lara’s chameleon-like skin responds to others’ emotions until his partner’s anger nearly stops Lara’s heart.

He recognizes that Lara’s empathic abilities make her vulnerable, so, with FBI approval, he fakes a rescue from the field office and isolates Lara in the quiet woods of North Florida. Hatton answers Lara’s questions about Outsiders, and as he’d hoped, she offers information about Mother. Lara and Hatton’s tenuous friendship develops into a soul-deep attraction.

When the FBI gets in a bloody turf war with the DIA—a rival agency intent on conducting inhumane experiments—Hatton promises Lara he’ll return her to her world even if it costs him his life. Lara fears that if she returns home, Mother will perceive her untamed emotions as a threat to the geroth trees and force her into Sleep, or worse, make her forget how beautiful love between a man and a woman can be. Caught between the two worlds, Lara discovers the cost of falling, both from Mother’s grace and into love.

I am a member of the Online Writer's Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror and the Atlanta Writer’s Club.

Per your guidelines, I've included [#] sample pages [and a synopsis] below.

Thank you,

Kelly Bryson
(contact info)

I'm very pleased with the end product and I'll let you know what the results are!
It was great working with Cassandra, although now it's killing me not to know which agency she interns for.
Gah! Secrets!

And can I say how ready I am to put this novel to bed? Not *under* my bed- in somebody else's bed. There just aren't enough hours in the day. Speaking of which- thanks for hanging out with me even after I've been so distant:) We're moving into our house, and I have a bazillion projects going on. I've painted and unpacked enough that I expect to be able to return to once a week posting.

Any thoughts? Do you have a query break-through to share?

Happy Writing!
Glutton for Punishment?

What Emotions Are You Inciting?

I've been trying to figure out why a story reaches some people but not others. Why you and I could both read the same story but one loves it and the other says, "Meh. It was okay."

Reading a book forces you into another character's head, and they in turn are in our heads, asking us the same questions we ask them. WHY do you believe that? Why would you do that? What on earth are you thinking?

Trying on these characters changes us, and that's part of the pleasure of reading. It's safe. I can follow along with Frodo as he approaches Mount Doom, trying on his courage and determination to do what is right without actually wrestling Gollum for the ring.

Sometimes we'll recognize a character as a kindred spirit. Other characters are more...challenging. Anne Shirley is both to me. When she's yelling at Rachel Cuthbert or climbing a roof to walk the ridgepole, I shrink back into myself. But when she's walking with Matthew in the field or laughing with Gilbert, I'm there, 100%. Why couldn't she just realize she loved Gilbert? Seriously!

I read "Twenties Girl" by Sophie Kinsella a few months back, and it was awful! The MC did the craziest things-like walking into a business meeting and asking a strange man out on a date simply because her Grandmother's flapper ghost wouldn't leave her alone. I was mortified with her! It was brilliant!

I think this is why it's so important to read widely, especially in genre writing. We have to know what emotions readers are looking for. Do they want to be thrilled? Do they want to fall in love? Do they want to live in another world for a while, experience another culture? Do they want to be uncomfortable?

Who would want to be uncomfortable? Lots of people. My hubby and I started watching The Office recently, and cringe through every episode. Steve Carrell gets most of his laughs by making the audience glad not to be him.

Where will your characters go? Will they drag your readers along or entice them?
Glutton for Punishment?

Allen Wold's Workshop- Creating a Barbed Hook

Stellar Con part 1- the Allen Wold workshop.

Allen Wold assigned the workshop members to take ten minutes and write a hundred word hook to a story.  I arrived late and Allen took me out in the hall to explain that they'd already started and he didn't allow people who weren't participating to sit in. Did I understand?

Me (all paraphrased, of course)- Absolutely. I'm so sorry for interrupting.

Allen Wold- The assignment is to write a hundred words introducing a character, a conflict, a setting and a hook. We can't have spectators, only those participating can be in room.

Me- Yep. *hangs head, feels mopey for missing out*

Allen Wold- So do you think you can do that?

Me- Wha-at? You mean I can write...in there? In the workshop?

Allen Wold- Um, yeah.

We shake hands and I thank him, then ask him to repeat the four parts, explaining that I didn't realize he was letting me stay.

Allen Wold's thoughts (purely conjecture)- Why else do you think I was explaining the assignment to you!?

So, I got a seat on the edge of the room behind a very awkwardly placed column- awkardly placed as in near the center of the room, so in a way, everyone had a seat behind the column. Then we all listened as workshoppers read their pieces and the panel (Allen Wold, Danny Birt, Barbara Friend Ish, Debra Killeen, and Darcy Wold.) commented after each reading.

Here's my first draft-

The needle presses into my finger as I force it through the canvas. I sway with the waves and pull the material tighter, knowing that however neat my stitches, the saltwater wil rot the canvas, same as it rots the lines on our ship.

A cannonball at my father's feet will pull his body down to the ocean floor, same as it had my mother's two years before. The sharks will feed, but I keep my needle moving.

A hundred words in ten minutes is about ten words a minute- not a big deal, right? I was able to string together 60. It was harder than I expected to write on real paper, plus I was all jazzed up from walking in late and feeling embarrassed. But I though it was okay.

The feedback-

My apologies for not including name tags, but I was listening too hard to take notes on who said what, so if I remember, I've included it, but they were pretty much in agreement.

-present tense, REALLY? Never ever use present tense unless it's completely necessary.

-nice detail with the rotting lines.

-Danny Birt commented that he thought the needle pressing into the flesh was going a different direction (like self-mutilation) at first.

-Allen asked me if I'd ever been on a boat, emphasized how important it is to write what you know. Not, he said, that anything was wrong with my details, just to be careful. He also asked if I'd been shipwreked. Yes to boating- I grew up fishing in the Gulf and Keys on my dad's boat (so, for instance, I know how to disembowel a Florida lobster using his own antennae. It's as gross in real life as you're thinking it sounds.), but no to being shipwrecked.

-Someone else commented that perhaps crabs would be more likely than sharks to eat a dead body on the ocean floor. I think I could support sharks- they are scavengers and sharks are found with rotting body parts in them all the time, and I was thinking that once the canvas bag rots, the body would float (I think it takes six weeks for a body to decompose enough to become buoyant. Or is it six days?) Anyway, I agree that crabs sound more likely.

-Several people commented on the fact that there is no larger plot, nowhere to go. It's a vignette, not an intro to a larger story. True.

The revision- (about 200 words)

The needle presses into my flesh as I force it through the canvas. I sway with the waves and pull the material tighter, knowing that however neat my stitches, the saltwater will rot the canvas same as it rots the lines on our ship. No, it’s not our ship anymore. It was never really mine. 

This crew won’t straighten their backs and pause, waiting for my nod. I don’t have my father’s steely gaze, his iron arms. Excepting me and this mutinous bucket, all he’s left is his blade, too heavy for my thin arms to wield.

I tuck a cannonball gently between my father’s cold feet, though it matters little whether I am rough or not. When they slide him down the board and he lies down with the crabs, he'll feel nothing. I pull the stitches tight, then tie off. The cabin will go to the next captain, so I poke around for a keepsake to take with me. 

There's an old hatbox in the cabinet, and, opening it, I discover letters my mother wrote and other personal affects. I blow my long, tangled hair out of my face. No one nags me anymore to present myself better than a night siren.

My heart doesn't believe that he's gone.

My head believes that crabs must eat, too.

My heart tells me to be gentle with this canvas bundle.

My head tells me to load my mother’s gun.

Allen Wold explained that there's a difference between a hook and a barbed hook. A hook catches the reader's attention and makes them want to read on. A barb turns everything you thought you knew upside down and compels you to continue. It's a flip in perspective, a flip in meaning.

That's what I've tried to do here. The girl is mourning. She's preparing her father's body for burial at sea. She's vulnerable. She's weak.

But she has a gun.

I get what the panel said about present tense being so hard to pull off and usually unnecessary, but I don't know that I'm going to do anything else with this story, and I didn't want to bother. Is that sad? I did try to switch the POV to third person past, and that POV didn't work- the emphasis on "our" was too involved to translate into third, so I left it.

And check out Teresa Frohock's piece from this workshop- it gives me chills! She was asking for anyone else who participated to send her a link, so there may be more on her blog from other participants.

Any thought on hooks vs barbed hooks? What's the best hook you ever read?

PS- I'm sure you're all just as upset as I am about the earthquake in Japan and the tsunamis. If you are looking for a way to help, consider making a donation to LDS Humanitarian Aid. Because they are staffed by missionaries and the church provides buildings and warehouses, 100% of the donations reaches those affected in a disaster. Supplies are distributed to all in need, regardless of religious affilitaion and usually in conjunction with the Red Cross and other secular and government organizations.

The cool thing about LDS humanitarian aid is that they preposistion caches of food, water, and medical supplies all over the world, so wherever a disaster strikes, relief isn't far away (which allowed them to be first responders after Hurricane Katrina and after the Haiti earthquake, among others.) Plus they use Paypal! You can set up a monthly donation in any amount if you want. That's all. End of message;)

Happy Writing!
Glutton for Punishment?

StellarCon...con...con

Teresa Frohock and I at StellarCon35. Look at our awesome name badges! This was the first time I've met somebody in real life that I knew from the computer, and it was easier than I expected. It took my brain a few minutes to get it, but I was able to connect all of the openess I have with my email buddy to the real person standing in front of me. We had a blast, but we did not get thrown out of any workshops for snickering too much, as I'd hoped.

I attended the Sat. session, including the workshop with Allen Wold (except for the half hour I missed bc I was late! A.W. was terribly nice about it and let me join in), a Quickwrite panel where teams of writers were given prompts and passed a notebook around, a workshop on making compelling bad guys, and *most* of a character development discussion.

I'll post a little about each class every day this week. But for now, know that I had a great time and thought the convention atmosphere was way more relaxed than the writer's conferences I've been to. And cheaper. Way cheaper. ($30 for a weekend of writing classes beats the heck out of what the SCWW charges for their conference. StellarCon didn't have agents, but if you're just looking to connect with writers and attend some classes on craft, it was great.) If you write fantasy or Sci fi, it might be the way to go.

Plus the people watching is out of this world. And mail-clad. And leather-girtled. 

Happy Writing!

Glutton for Punishment?

Stepping Out, a Plug for Miserere, StellarCon, Query Stats

This is a week's worth of blog posts in one...
I spend a lot of time at the library because it saves a TON of gas to hang out there until preschool is over. Plus I actually write at the library instead of blogging, etc. Despite this, I don't know the librarians very well. I'm all business on writing days, and when I go in with my kids, we're such a circus show that I don't talk to the librarins except to alert them to the pages that the kids have pulled loose, flaps they've torn, etc. So today I decided to change that. (Have I mentioned that I'm an introvert? This was really busting out for me.)

I told Dee the librarian that I'm a writer, and if she thought there was any interest, I would be happy to volunteer to teach a class on getting started. Basically to direct people to some of the resources that have helped me & answer questions on the basics. I also gave her a few chapters so she could judge for herself if I have anything to offer. I wrote, picked up Jojo from preschool, and we went home.

I had an email from Dee waiting for me asking to read the rest. So we'll see. Maybe they'll take me seriously and we'll do a small class. Not sure why, but teaching is a lot of fun to me, in a way that chit-chatting has never been, and I'd like to give back a little.

Also, I'm so excited to be going to StellarCon in High Points NC this weekend, where I'll finally get to hang out with my good friend, Teresa Frohock. Her book is available for preorder on Amazon. Check out my review.

Pretty cool cover art, isn't it?

And in other news, I've contacted an editor, who is going over my first couple of chapters. Hopefully this will alert me to any issues I need to fix throughout my manuscript, such as my love for variations of "seemingly." We're also looking at the query, since I didn't get the response I was hoping for this round of querying.

What's that? Sure. Here're my query stats:
30 queries sent.
12 rejections

4 partial requests
2 partial rejects

1 full request
1 full reject

Which leaves me with 1 partial out there, and 1 partial I haven't sent yet. And one query to resend because the agent usually responds to every one, and she's well past my query date according to the comments left on Query Tracker.

Anybody else getting crazy ideas out there? Any costume ideas for my first con experience?

Have a great week!
Glutton for Punishment?

#askagent Conversation Compilation

Checkout this Q&A with writer and agent at D4EO Mandy Hubbard. Lots of other stuff was discussed yesterday under the #askagent hashtag on Twitter yesterday, but I picked out a few threads about crossover, new adult, and what writing YA means. (I reordered the tweets and grouped them- more time-consuming than it sounds!)

Conversation #1

Kelly (that's me!) says @abenning re new adult- I've got the same question. I didn't see a response in #askagent

Mandy says @Kelly_Bryson @abenning what was your Q regarding New Adult? #askagent



Kelly says @MandyHubbard with MC slightly older than YA, do you jump to adult? Do agents believe in new adult concept or can I call it crossover?

Mandy says @Kelly_Bryson If your MC is NOT a teen, it's probably best t call it adult OR age char down-- comes down to voice.

Mandy says @Kelly_Bryson New adult isn't a genre, just a marketing concept by ONE publisher. So that crevice btwn YA/Adult is tough.

Kelly says @MandyHubbard Thanks! That helps. I think my confusion comes in bc I'm paran rom, but the romance stays at a YA level.

Mandy says @Kelly_Bryson ??? What does that even mean-- romance at "YA level"? There's no limitations on romance in YA.

Kelly says @MandyHubbard I thought of that once I sent the tweet;) I've read Perfect chemistry etc.- just meant that it's not Sookie.

Mandy says @Kelly_Bryson oh, haha. Yeah, YA romance can go all the way, just not be super-duper explicit/erotic, so to speak.

Kelly says @MandyHubbard Whew! I thought I was in trouble there for a minute! Thanks for your clarification:)


Conversation #2

Ashley says- @MandyHubbard @Kelly_Bryson Sorry for late response. ? was if MC starts at 17 but is mid-20s when book/series ends,query as YA or New Adult?

Mandy says @abenning that's really really tough. YA series simply dont go to mid-20s. I would rework it, or call it adult if the voice works.

Mandy says @abenning New Adult is NOT a genre, its is a marketing point for adult books by a single publisher.

Ashley says-@MandyHubbard Thanks for the reply. That's exactly what I needed to hear


Conversation #3

Hannahrhooton says @Valerie_Norris @MandyHubbard Just missed #askagent too (not so hot on time differences). Have burning question. Mandy would u be so kind?


Mandy says @hannahrhooton Sure, go ahead and ask! I didn't quite make it to chat by 6AM either. ;-) #askagent

Hannahrhooton says @MandyHubbard Thank you! I write womens comm fic (agent pitching it likewise) but getting popular online reviews from teens. Should I be ...

Hannahrhooton says @MandyHubbard ...concerned that I've written for wrong market? (I'm 30 and it appeals to me!) Thanks again! #askagent

Mandy says @hannahrhooton HA, i went through the same thing. First thing I had agented was women's fiction featuring 20-something characters #askagent

Mandy says @hannahrhooton thing is, its a fine line, and your char's do need to be TEENS for it to be YA. it could just hve crossover appeal #askagent

Conversation #4

Angela asks@MandyHubbard if you have a MC in the college age, 19-20, does that jump into adult or can it stay in YA, like L.A Candy? #askagent

Angela says@MandyHubbard...i'm guessing it comes down to voice? #askagent

Mandy says@angela_francis well, even voice isn't enough if char is 21+. LA candy is a celeb book, pubbed as YA because LCs fans are YA in reply to angela_francis

Angela says@MandyHubbard That's what I thought too, thanks!

Mandy says @angela_francis FEW YA books set in college sell... both to pubs and readers. Just very hard to pull off.

***

 
I guess this explains why there are so many YA books set in boarding schools, even in the US, where going to boarding school is pretty unusual! And come to think of it, I can't recall a book set in college. Hmmm. Time to rethink age/setting of my WIP...
 
I'm officially pro-Twitter. Although I'm not a Twitter pro*wink*, I've now passed the 100 tweet marks and am a lot more comfortable than I was even a month ago. Isn't it cool to be able to sit down on the computer and get a some confusion cleared up? A few years ago, the only way I would have approached an agent was if I was at a conference, and then there would have been a room full of people with their own questions, and I probably would have just listened. Twitter is awesome. Mandy Hubbard is awesome- she probably saved me thirty hours of rewrites by clearing this up early in my new WIP. 
 
Was anybody else enlightened by this?
 
Happy Writing! 
Glutton for Punishment?