It's that time of year again. National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo is almost here. I've participated for the last two years and I have to admit I never made it to the 50K mark for either year. But I did log in to my NaNoWriMo account because I really do like getting those Pep Talk emails. Feel free to buddy me if you're participating, I'll be sure to cheer you on! I don't know yet if I'm "officially" participating since I'm in the midst of this revision and got most of my work done … [Read more...]
Articles about YA Audiences
October 29, 2009 Leave a Comment
I just got out of meeting at the day job, but before I delve into all things techy geeky, I wanted to drop a quick post about some interesting articles I've found about YA audiences. With the first article, I got the heads up from writer friend,Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, author of the forthcoming, Eight Grade SuperZero (which I can't wait to get my hands on). It comes from Publisher's Weekly, What Do Teens Want? Here's an excerpt: "Although it's impossible to completely break out … [Read more...]
Revision Update: Cutting Characters
October 28, 2009 Read Comments
I'm on Day 5 of my 25 scenes in 25 days. But I've also cut a scene. So much for my catchy phrase. I'm thinking it will be replaced but not sure. It may have to wait until the next revision round. I also cut a character. Alexis was a character in my draft who was supposed to help Grace, my protagonist, but she was only in one scene in Act 1 and didn't really do anything else---didn't even make another appearance until Act 3. So even though I do like this character, I decided Alexis would have … [Read more...]
First Impressions
October 27, 2009 Leave a Comment
After reading through Nathan Bransford's finalist entries to the First Paragraph Contest, I've been thinking a lot of about openings. It seems now more than ever with the tight competition, the first paragraph, the first page, and the first chapter really must get quickly to the heart of your story. Especially in YA because unlike some other types of fiction, this genre tends to gets right to the action. Probably one of the reasons that I love reading YA. And for those of you who are … [Read more...]
