Erin: Origins / TAKEN

As TAKEN's release date approaches (just barely a month now!), I'm answering the So what's your book about? question more and more often. (Thank goodness for one line pitches.) The ever-popular follow-up question--How did you come up with that idea?--is a bit harder for me to address.

Some stories are born from what if scenarios, while others are sparked by dreams. Some are retellings or re-imaginings of existing literature. And then there are the stories that just seem to fall from the sky, directly into your lap.

TAKEN was one of those stories.

To be honest, the story didn't fall into my lap so much as TAKEN's protagonist, Gray, did. One moment I was revising a separate manuscript, and the next this boy was wandering around my head, fearing his eighteenth birthday for reasons I didn't understand. (Not yet, at least.)

I kept trying to ignore him. I was supposed to be revising. I had a huge list of edits and absolutely no time for distractions. Especially not from a boy who wasn't exactly nice. He wasn't downright mean either, but he was stubborn and impulsive and he kept storming around my head, glaring.

I plowed on with my WIP. He kept lurking. Impatient, relentless. When I paused long enough to listen to him, I realized his harsh edges were the product of a pretty grim situation. He had a huge heart beneath the hostility. He loved his older brother and felt like the lesser of two men beside him because his brother was everything he was not--patient, kind, accommodating. Worse still, it was his brother's eighteenth birthday.

How's that a bad thing? I'd asked Gray.

He told me no boy in his town made it a day beyond eighteen. They all vanished. Gone in a burst brilliant light. The Heist.

Why? was my next question.

He told me he didn't know. But he wanted to find out.

Suddenly, I wanted the same.

I tried to fight it. Really, I did. I viewed setting aside my nearly complete manuscript to mess around with something new--no matter how tempting and shiny--as procrastination.

Against my better judgment, I opened a new document. After writing a single chapter, I knew I was a goner. Gray's story was my new project. Revisions would have to wait.

With TAKEN, I was incredibly lucky to have Gray walk into my head so fully formed. His voice was crystal clear, and seeing as the novel is written in first person and I'm (shocker) not a boy, this was tremendously helpful in nailing his narration. Gray showed me everything he knew about his world and then I filled in all the pieces he wondered about. We worked to pull back the mysteries surrounding his town together.

I fear I'm starting to sound like a crazy person, referring to Gray as though he's real. But that's the thing about crafting a novel: writers can't help but end up in these intense, intimate relationships with their characters. By the end of a draft our fictional creations feel incredibly realized. We have conversations with them as though they are sitting beside us. We know their deepest fears and greatest dreams. Sometimes I feel like I know Gray better than I know myself. (Which makes zero sense. We are nothing alike.)

Still, I'm glad he started talking to me. I'm even more glad I listened to what he had to say.

Above all, I'm incredibly excited for you to meet him next month. I'd say he's excited as well, but it's not really true. He's got a lot on his plate at the moment. And, well, you'll see...

Lisa: On Inspiration

Sometimes people ask me - what inspires you?

People are so curious about that when it comes to writers, aren't they?  Like we know the secrets of the universe and can share those secrets with anyone who asks. I'm sorry to say there isn't a magic key.

I think I believe inspiration is everywhere. Well, some days it is. And nowhere on other days. It just depends. Am I open to it? Am I looking for it?

But I've realized something lately, and I thought I would talk about my discovery here. What often inspires me - moves me to write - is when a song or book or movie or a scene in nature or any number of things causes me to feel something strongly. When I feel something deep in my soul, I then want to work at writing something that will cause someone else to feel those feelings while they read my work.

When I read The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo a few years ago, I felt like I'd visited a different land. Like I'd walked the streets of Baltese and visited the market square, just as Peter did. It left me longing to do something similar with my writing. As soon as I closed her book, I opened my idea journal, and thought - if I were to write a fairy tale story, what elements would I want to include in that story?  I wrote down a few things. A beautiful flower garden. A bird. A king and a queen. A girl.

It took me six months before I found my way into that story. But always, when I looked at that page, I was reminded of how I felt when I wrote those words. It wasn't so much the items themselves, but putting them together to try and create a magical story that would make a reader feel like he/she had been swept away to different time and place. A place where things are bleak, but a glimmer of hope seems to be around every corner. And a place where story elements are woven together in such a way that by the end, you look back at the journey you took with wonder and delight. I don't know if I accomplished all of those things. But I tried. Because of the story I'd read that inspired me, I really tried. I'm happy to say that the middle grade novel I ended up writing sold to Henry Holt recently (it's untitled at the moment).

Another example I can share. In January, 2010, I was watching the Grammy awards. It was a pretty good show, as far as the Grammy's are concerned. But then, something spectacular happened. The artist P!nk came out and gave one of the most beautiful performances I've ever seen as she sang her song, "Glitter in the Air." I was moved. Moved enough to download the song, which I'd never heard before. Over the next few days, I listened to it over and over again.

I want to write a book like this song, I thought.

I want to write a book that makes me feel the way this song makes me feel.

It was this line, specifically, that gave me goosebumps:

"Have you ever wanted... an endless night?
Lassoed the moon and pulled that rope tight?"

So, as writers like to do, I started asking myself, what if? What if two teens didn't want the day/the night to end? Why not? What was going on with them, and could I find enough of a story there to write a book?

I could. And I did, always going back to how that song made me feel, and trying to bring those emotions to the page.

Did I succeed? Some readers have told me, yes I did. Not all readers, of course. Ha, that's a dream world, where everyone gets what you were trying to do and loves it!

But I'm happy with how the story turned out. The book is called THE DAY BEFORE and I'm celebrating it's release today!

What about you? How do you answer that question - what inspires you?

Kim: Conference Expectations

Great! You registered for a writer’s conference. It might be your first, or your twenty-seventh. Maybe it’s a regional SCBWI event, like the one I’m helping to put together in Seattle next month, which explains why I’ve chosen to blog about conferences. My brain is filled to the brim with conference. I’m so distracted thinking about conference tasks, I just splashed my own face with coffee. For everybody’s safety, we'll just stick with conferences as our topic.

You’re signed up, you’re excited, you’re ready for the most part— but why are you going? Do you know?

I attended my first writer’s conference in 2005. I didn’t really have any purpose other than seeing what it was all about. The faculty intimidated me and I remember talking to only two attendees. One asked if I was published and turned away when I said no. The other pushed postcards of her illustrations into my hand. I learned things about craft and the publishing industry in the sessions, but I walked away uncertain if I would invest in a conference again.

Why did you sign up for a conference?

Really think about your expectations. Think about whether they’re realistic, and if they’ll help you to gain what you need from the experience. I know. We’re writers. It’s hard to be realistic. Our brains go off on “But, what if…” tangents that color everyday activities. If we’re preoccupied with an upcoming conference, there is the potential to come up with some doozies just short of glass slippers and winning lottery numbers. But, what if (you ponder) Editor X stops the proceedings to proclaim that your prose made her weep, she was writing up a contract, and could everyone just rise for a spontaneous standing ovation? Alas, that is something that would only happen in our overworked imaginations.

Even if the conference stars aligned for the perfect ingredients to give your career the boost it needs, your serendipity would probably be such a gossamer web of small events and lumps of knowledge, you may not even be able to recognize it even in hindsight.

I (well, you know, Sara) sold my debut middle grade novel last month. I strongly believe that would not have happened if I hadn’t attended the writing conferences that I did. Not even if I had kept plugging along with classes and craft books for years and years. I’ve gained a ton of knowledge at conferences that I haven’t found anywhere else about the craft of writing, as well as the market. I’ve been looking back at all the wonderful fortuity and opportunities that brought me to this place, and a great deal of it came from attending writing conferences.

I signed up for manuscript consultations that offered critiques and constructive feedback. Sometimes editors and/or agents request to see more of your manuscript after a consultation, and sometimes they don’t. It’s a great confidence boost (and what writer doesn’t need that?), but the editors who asked me to send them the whole thing weren’t the one who wound up with the manuscript. And I’ve had critiques with authors that were just as, if not more, helpful.

I got to know my critique partners at conferences, and some of my best friends. Writing is lonely! Most of the time, I don’t mind. I’m an introvert at heart. People never believe me because I spend a lot of time up at the podium at our conference, and running around chatting at the others I attend. But, I am indeed an introvert. I hid under my bed at my own birthday party. It was my fifth birthday, but still. I wanted to hide under my bed at a few of my grown up birthday parties, too. But something about being around a bunch of people that get jazzed about books for kids the same way I do…that charges my batteries.

Let’s operate under the assumption that you are going to get published, if you haven’t been already. Congratulations! The market is not a place you will want to be in isolation when your book goes out of print, or your option isn’t picked up, or your cover gets whitewashed. When you’re stuck and discouraged? You need your writer friends. Who can help workshop ideas? Writer friends. Our non-writer friends are supportive, but they don’t really get it.

I considered quitting writing altogether last December. The thought hurt my heart, so I don’t think I would have gone through with it. I was just stuck on a revision and feeling frustrated. I went to the annual SCBWI Winter Conference in New York that January and really listened to the keynotes. I went back home inspired and wanting to write again.

So, what is your primary reason for shelling out the registration fee and signing up for a conference? Is it a book deal? Save your scratch and stay home. If it’s inspiration, community, or honing your craft that you are after, you are on the right track. And if you just want to be surrounded by a bunch of likeminded book loving neurotics with big dreams and weird ideas, you will be in the right place!

Make a note and remind yourself while you’re there what makes it worth it to you. Don’t waste an opportunity like I did my first time.

The important thing is being there and being open to all of the lovely (realistic) possibilities. And be careful with the coffee.

Libby: What does it take to succeed as a novelist?

Over at Blue Rose Girls there was a post about the role talent plays in getting published. That got me thinking about what it takes to have a successful career as a writer -- specifically, a writer of novels. Meghan was talking about it from an artist's point of view -- but I think that's different. For one thing, it's easier to get editors to look at picture books!

What do you think it takes to succeed as a novelist -- not just to get that first contract, but to build a career? In order of importance, here's what I think:

1. Talent -- without this spark, without inspiration, you won't get anywhere. Hard work will make you better, but without SOME talent, I don't think you can write novels anyone will want to read.

2. Hard work/discipline -- that talent does have to be supported, consistently supported, by what Jane Yolen calls BIC (butt-in-chair).

3. Good judgement -- about yourself, your talent, the business: knowing where to put your energy. Some people don't need this -- what they're best at and most interested in writing and the marketplace all align nicely; but (I think) many of us face hard decisions....and even those fortunate few need to decide whether, say, promoting their books is a good or bad use of their energy and time.

4. An editor who really loves and GETS your work.

5. The fortitude to conquer your demons or the good luck to not have any.

6. SOME luck -- at the beginning, to get a good agent (thank you stars and Sara!) and maybe even to get your novel read and published? Later, if you aspire to making it big, luck will definitely be needed for that. The linked essay by isn't about making it big, but the story of how his first book became a bestseller is a good (and unusually frank) example. I'm not saying that all it takes it make it big is luck -- the book needs to appeal to lots of people, too! -- but which of the good books published each year become blockbusters does depend as much upon luck and timing as merit and promotion, particularly if the author is unknown.

7. The support (if financial, so much the better!) of family or friends or both.

8. If you want your work to last: something to say. By "something to say" I don't mean a simple lesson, but the sum of what your novel says/means -- something only you could have said in that way. I put this last not because I think it is the least important but because I think it's quite possible to be published, and even build a successful career, without it. But the books that people are still reading a hundred years later all have it -- and maybe many we AREN'T reading a hundred years later have it too. Luck again?