Thought for the day:
“You
must write every single day of your life... You must lurk in libraries and
climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like
hats upon your crazy heads.”
~ Ray Bradbury
(We will miss you, Ray
Bradbury!!)
Some gifts for my
writer friends. The following are links I think are worth your time.
I probably mentioned this site a year ago or so, but it
bears repeating. Hope Clark offers the best free e-newsletters for writers
listing grants, contests, markets, publishers, agents, articles. To go to this
site click HERE and click on the Newsletters tab. Check it out.
I read a blog by Anne R. Allen about blogging recently and think it’s one of
the most rational approaches to blogging ever. Click HERE to read it.
The WINNER of the autographed copy of Runaround from my last posting is Helen – not Helen Hemphill the
author, but Helen the commenter. I will be sending that out to you right away,
Helen. Congratulations! If any of you missed the review of two of Helen the author's wonderful books, click HERE.
Now on to the main post. I read a terrific new YA last week.
It’s one of those books I carried everywhere with me – hoping for a long line
at the post office so I could read a few pages while doing my errands, hoping
to catch a red light now and then so I could finish another page or two, holing
up in my study and, WHEN I SHOULD BE WRITING MY OWN DAMN BOOK, I shut the door
and knocked off a couple of chapters before getting to work. The book is What She Left Behind by Tracy Bilen, and
this is a very impressive debut novel.
Sara has been waiting for her mom to come to her senses and
for the two of them to leave Sara’s father. He has become a total psycho since
Sara’s brother, Matt, killed himself. And now the day they will leave has finally arrived. Sara
packs her duffle and leaves it under the bed as her mother instructs her. She
goes off to school as if it is any other day, planning to meet her mother at
the Dairy Dream at lunch time. This just happens to also be the day that the
high school hottie, Alex, pays attention to Sara for the very first time. In
fact, more than paying attention, he seems downright interested in her. It’s
hard to respond well in these circumstances when you truly believe, as Sara
does, that she will never see Alex again.
Mom doesn’t show up. Sara misses the rest of her classes waiting –
something that is just not like her – and finally gives up and goes
home. She finds everything she had packed is unpacked and put back exactly
where it belongs. She tries over and over to call and text her mom, but gets no
response. When her father comes home, he tells Sara her mother has gone on a business
trip and will be gone a week. He continues to act as if everything is normal –
in his psycho kind of normal – which includes acting as if his dead son is
still around and late for dinner!
“My dad takes another puff of his
cigarette, then flips on the TV and doesn’t say another word – he just sits
there and smokes. I want to wave my hands in front of his face and make him
tell me more, but he would probably break my arm. So instead I back away.”
In a series of well-crafted flashbacks, we come to know how
controlling and abusive Sara’s father has been for a very long time, telling
her mother in front of her that she had better not ever even think of leaving –
or else. They can’t go to the police. Dad is an ex-cop and has the local cops
completely in his pocket. We discover how Sara didn’t only lose her brother,
but several friendships as well, leaving her without much of a support system. She
does, however, have one good friend, Zach, who is really always there for her. As
time goes along, Sara comes to believe something terrible has happened to her
mother. It’s up to her to find out. Oh, and all this time she continues to fall
in love with Alex.
 |
| Tracy Bilen |
There is a terrific mystery to be solved by Sara braided
tightly with a love story and the great back story of Sara’s family life. This
is all deftly handled by Tracy Bilen’s fine writing. This book is one you will
want to read. It’s rich and absolutely enthralling. You can win a copy! Just
keep on reading to the end to find out how. (Oh, heck. I’ll tell you. It’s the
usual way. See the last paragraph.)
Now I’m happy to report I was able to ask Tracy a few
questions about her book and her writing, so sit back, relax, and read what she
has to say.
I read on another blog (click HERE to read that blog) that you came to
this story from an image in your mind of a girl, a suitcase, and a field, and
you had to figure out what happened. How did you discover your fictional characters? Are they based on real
people?
Finding my characters has always been a slow process for me. I
find I start writing with the plot foremost in my mind and drag the characters
along for a bit. Then as I get further along, I go back and start adding
character details, until by the end of the whole process, the characters feel
like real people to me. The characters aren’t based on anyone…of course, as
you’re writing, you naturally tend to talk about things that you like and know
about, so like Sara, I used to play the shrunken clarinet and I like Ritz Bits,
but there are also lots of things about her that aren’t like me at all!
Your writing has such a great, natural
flow to it. Do you spend a lot of time planning your writing – outlining and
such – or is it a much more organic process for you?
Thank you! When I wrote What She Left Behind I didn’t outline the first draft, I just wrote. Of course,
I kept a few things in my mind as far as where I wanted the story to go. After
I finished the first draft I wrote down a list of everything that happened in
order (so I guess most people would call that an outline!) Then as I revised, I
used the “list” to help me reorder events and add to them. I used this same
process for the first two “practice” (i.e. unpublished) novels that I wrote.
Now as I am beginning to work on new projects I find myself “outlining” a lot
sooner (after the first 30 pages or so) – actually coming up with the specific
plot details before I write them (imagine that!)
Writing can be a lonely business. Do you
work with critique groups or critique partners?
My critique partners have played a huge role in my success. I had
tried a couple of “open to anyone” critique groups at bookstores / libraries,
but didn’t find the right fit that way. Then at SCBWI (Society for Children’s
Book Writers and Illustrators) conferences I met some great friends, a couple
of whom I exchange manuscripts with via e-mail, and a couple of others with
whom I meet with on a regular basis. This feedback, from people writing for the
same age group and with similar professional goals, has really made a
difference for me.
How was your journey to publication? Long, short, how many rejections? Did you have an
agent represent the book or did you sell it on your own? If you had an agent, how
did you go about finding an agent?
While it took me writing a few books before I got to the one that
would sell, the actual query process for What
She Left Behind was in some respects, rather fun. I used querytracker.net
to keep track of my submissions (it’s free). I sent out about 50 e-mail queries
(sent out in batches of 5 or 6) and received partial or full requests from
about a fifth of them. The whole process took about eight months. I say that
the process was in some ways fun, because although there was plenty of
rejection, there were also the partial and full requests to keep my spirits up.
It was always an adventure reading e-mail during that period!
Your main character, Sara, loves to read
horror novels. What were your favorite books when you were growing up? Did those
books inspire you to write?
My absolute favorites when I was quite young were Trixie Beldon
mysteries (discovered in my grandmother’s adventure filled attic) and Anne of Green Gables. Trixie Beldon gave
me my love of mysteries (while I consider What
She Left Behind to be more of a thriller, it does have mystery elements). Anne of Green Gables was inspiring
because Anne is a struggling author herself and I adored her eventual love,
Gilbert (just like I adore Alex, the guy Sara falls in love with!) When I was a
teen, I loved books by Lois Duncan and Caroline Cooney. Sara’s love of horror
was inspired by the movie version of Stephen King’s Cujo which I saw when I was way too young, and his Misery which my mom MADE me read when I
was in high school. I don’t think I’ve forgiven her yet!
What is the last book you read?
Right now I’m reading Slide by fellow Apocalypsie Jill
Hathaway. It’s about a girl who “slides” into the bodies of others. It’s
awesome!
What’s next for you?
I’m currently working on another YA thriller.
What advice would you pass along to
those of us who haven’t gotten that first book published?
Try to stop
writing. (I know, you’re ready to kill me now – how is that inspiring??!). But
I’m serious, in a way. Throughout my writing journey, I tried to stop (why did
I want to publish a book anyway?) But I couldn’t stop. I always came back to
it. So if you try and stop and you just can’t, you’ll know that you were meant
to do it (and that your mind won’t give you any peace if you don’t). So then,
go with it. Keep writing. Keep querying. Write something new while you’re
querying (I wrote What She Left Behind
while I was querying a book that didn’t sell). Join the professional
organizations for your genre. Find a critique group with people who write in
the same genre or for the same age-group. And don’t give up. Think back to when
you were looking for your first (serious) job. It may have seemed impossible at
first. You kept trying different things until you hit upon something that
worked. And now when you look back on in, it doesn’t seem that bad. The
publishing process is probably going to take you way longer than it took you to
find that first job. But it’s worth it. And you can do it!
Thank you for so generously sharing your
time and thoughts. Is there anything I didn’t ask about that you’d like to tell
us?
If you would like to receive a gently-read, autographed copy
of What She Left Behind, I have good
news. Tracy was kind enough to send one to me to read and then give away. Just
leave a comment on this post, and I will put your name in a drawing. If you
would like to have your name in the hat more than once, post a link on Facebook
or on your blog, and let me know. I will put your name in once for each. But please
leave a comment no matter what. I’d love to hear from you. Remember, if you
have trouble leaving a comment, click on the title of the post and it will give
you just this post with a comments section on the bottom. Also, if you haven’t
signed up by email, please do. Just look in the upper right-hand corner of this
page, pop your email address in, and you will receive an email each time I put
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