Erin: The grass is always greener

This is a post that I originally published on my own blog a few days ago. I sat down to write for the Crowe's Nest yesterday and couldn't get any words out because the thoughts discussed in that personal post are still the things I feel most adamantly in this moment. And so I'm sharing that very honest post again, here. Let's get to it:

I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately.

While drafting book two, all I wanted to do was get my copy edits for book one. Book two wasn’t necessarily being problematic, but gosh, this writing this was hard. I’d forgotten how scary the blank page can be. How you are typing the words for the first time and they are often wrong and messy and awkward and in desperate need of polishing. Even though I’d initially been thrilled to start work on TAKEN’s sequel, I suddenly wanted to dive into something less rough. I wanted to refine. I wanted my copy edits so that I could polish book one instead of slogging my way through a messy first draft of book two.

Then my copy edits arrived.

An hour into them, after reading through notes and queries in the margins, approving comma edits and tweaking word choices, I instantly wanted to go back to drafting. When I was writing book two, everything was up to ME. I was in complete control — over the story, the characters, the words, everything. Copy edits were making my brain hurt. They were making me hate every word I originally wrote in book one.

And then I realized…

Only a writer would have this sort of dilemma.

When you are querying, you just want an agent. When you get an agent, you just want a book deal. Once you have the book deal, you want your editorial letter. You’re anxious to move into revisions, and line edits, and copy edits, and cover art, and ARCs, and marketing, and tours, and reviews, and seeing your book on a store shelf. And then you want to sell the next novel, and the next, and repeat the process all over again.

It’s this endless cycle where you’re always looking ahead, to the upcoming milestone. You pine for it. Long for it. Want to speed up time so that you can complete the current phase faster and get to the next one ASAP.

The next step always looks better, shinier, happier. The grass is always greener.

I’ve come to the conclusion that all steps in this process are full of green grass and I just need to stop staring at the lawn ahead of me and look at the lawn right under my feet. Otherwise I’m going to lose my balance and fall flat on my face.

This journey comes with a lot of firsts. I will only do copy edits on TAKEN for the first time once. I will only draft book two in the trilogy once. I will only go through revisions, and a cover design process, and a marketing phase for each book once.

Every single manuscript is unique, therefore making its journey unique from the manuscripts before. Each and every story only happens once.

I think it’s natural to be excited for the upcoming phases of publication because this is all so new and, well…exciting! I’m always over the moon to enter a new step of this process. But I’m also so anxious to move forward, that I wonder if I’m sometimes missing the beauty of the step I’m in.

So I’m trying to slow down. To enjoy my copy edits even when I’m pulling my hair out over comma placements. To appreciate the quiet down time between phases when I’m waiting to hear back from my editor. To be patient while drafting book two, especially when my main character decides to be difficult, when he refuses to tell me what should happen next or how he’d like to react to a given situation. It will come. It always does. The solutions always materialize. The next step always arrives. The clock keeps ticking and the calendar keeps flipping its pages.

The grass is green here and there.

I’m trying to see that. I’m trying to breathe, and pause, and reflect. I’m trying to savor each moment.

Because when I bend down and examine the ground, really, really closely, it’s impossible to ignore the truth: This is pretty freaking awesome. The blades of grass beneath my feet are nothing but the most brilliant shade of lime green: fresh and new. Like Spring and growth and amazing things to come.

I am more grateful than words can accurately express.

Originally posted here.

Megan: Publishing for Reluctant Readers

I had an English professor who used to say, “There are two types of people in the world, those who divide the world into two, and those who don’t.” Usually I tend to think that making either or distinctions doesn’t adequately capture a situation, but for the sake of this post, I’m going to succumb to the temptation. I am going to break teen readers into two camps: voracious and reluctant readers.

I think we all know voracious readers. Chances are many of the readers of this blog would consider themselves to be part of this camp. At the high school where I am a librarian, I am fortunate to have many voracious readers. They check out books ten at a time, and come back to me with full reviews, asking for more. These also tend to be students whose families will take them to Borders to buy books, so they have healthy home libraries as well.

Reluctant readers are trickier to define, and to serve. I took a great class with Jenine Lillian, and she presented it this way: if you ask a reluctant reader to make a list of his or her ten favorite things to do, reading isn’t on it. These are not poor readers, or poor students. Reading just isn’t at the top of their To Do list. Many of my students fall into this camp. They come to me not because they want a book, but because they have to have one for independent reading. Some tell me that they don’t like to read, but I can’t help but wonder if there were more books that they liked, would they like to read more?

What I’ve noticed is that there is a difference between what the voracious and reluctant readers choose to read. Most of my students want real life stories, be they gritty tales like those from Ellen Hopkins, more romantic Sarah Dessen-fare. I have boys who reminisce fondly about Holes --arguing with an English teacher about its literary merit -- but have yet to find a group of characters as relatable as the boys at Camp Green Lake. I have a student who has dutifully renewed An Abundance of Katherines at least four times, slowly making his way through it during our school’s SSR time. Another gives me updates on his progress through Fat Kid Rules the World. When these students read books, they want books about kids like them. Kids who play basketball or skateboard; kids who get crushes. Their life, only magnified: wittier, more intense, more real.

Of course there are many books that my reluctant readers enjoy, and I work very hard to match kids with books. When I succeed, the feeling is amazing. What I want is more, more, more. The word I hear through the author grapevine is that publishers want this kind of book, too, but say it won’t sell. And I guess to a certain extent that’s true. I mean, it only makes sense to meet the desires of the bibliophiles who will read -- and buy -- dozens of books each year, rather than the kid who keeps one book in his backpack for months on end. But here’s the other way of looking at it: If you build it, they will come. If more books are published appeal to reluctant readers, maybe those readers won’t be so reluctant.

In the end what a librarian hopes to build -- a lifelong reader -- will serve the publishing business well in the end. Because when a kid finds one book that speaks to them, they are more willing to try another.