Category Archives: writing

Let’s Talk about Blurbs

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Image credit: Publishing Perspectives | Click image to read their article on blurbs!

Image credit: Publishing Perspectives | Click image to read their article on blurbs!

Blurbs.  You know, the endorsements you see on the front and back of book covers where another author tells you how spectacular the book in yours hands is.

I recently purchased and read a book only because it was blurbed by one of my all-time favorite authors.  The premise of the book, a debut novel, was not of interest to me, but because So-and-So said it was funny and clever and good, I bit the bullet and bought the book. (Oooh, nice alliteration.)

I read it.  It was not really funny or clever or good.  I was really disappointed. It made me wonder just how difficult it was to get a blurb from that particular author.  The novel that was endorsed was nothing like the novel that the blurb-writer writes.

Do you pay attention to blurbs?
Have you ever read a book only because it was endorsed by a favorite author?
If you could have anyone write a blurb for your book, whom would it be?

I choose … John Green, Melina Marchetta, Markus Zusak, Jandy Nelson, and Rainbow Rowell. #InMyDreams

Code Name Verity: just whoa.

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code name verityYou guys.

YOU. GUYS.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein.  Have you read it yet?

I gobbled this one up, and it. was. delicious.

It tells the story of two female friends during World War II.  It’s hard to say much about the book because I don’t want to give anything away.  So, instead, I will tell you what I loved about the writing.

* The characters are deep, layered, fun, and so sweet.  All the characters, not just the main ones.
* The writing is full of historical details without ever weighing down the narrative.
* Readers are expected to keep up; the writing does zero dumbing down.
* It’s beautifully written.
* There are surprises.
* The book will not just tug your heartstrings– it will yank.  Be prepared.

I absolutely loved it.  In case you couldn’t tell. 🙂

P.S. I highly recommend the audiobook so that you can listen to all the beautiful accents (British, French, German, and Scottish!)!  Delightful!

Have you read it yet?  What did you think?  No spoilers in the comments please!

Favorite Books in Contemporary YA

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Contemporary YA is my jam.  Here are my favorites.

Top ten contemporary contemporaries:

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Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta | Territory wars, the most perfectly flawed main character, a hot cadet, gorgeous writing, mystery: this book has everything you could ever want.

Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta | Friendship, romance, and depression in a perfect stew of awesomeness.

The Piper’s Son by Melina Marchetta | Catching up with the Saving Francesca crew five years down the road is like Christmas, your birthday, and free concert tickets all at once.

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson | Grief, sisterhood, a boy whose smiles will change your life, writing that’s both funny and poetic.

The Fault in our Stars by John Green | There’s a reason everyone loves this book.  Now it’s your turn.

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Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell | If you’re a writer, watch out: you will be envious of this book. (Also, it still counts as contemporary even though it’s set in the 80s, right?)

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli | There’s really no book quite like it out there.

Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay | One of my favorite debuts of last year!

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan | The characters will suck you in!

Everyday by David Levithan | I’m counting this as a contemp with a little realistic magic twist. This one will make you think and love.

Bonus oldies-but-goodies:

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Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson | I’m not sure if it’s fair to call this YA– might lean toward MG– but it’s essentially perfect.

Ordinary People by Judith Guest | A book that has stuck with me since high school!

The Pigman by Paul Zindel | Another must-read from my childhood.

Do you like contemporary YA? Which of these have you read?  Which ones do you want to read? (Correct answer is ALL.)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme at The Broke & the Bookish.

Where I Get My [Literary] News

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I thought some of you literary-type folks might be interested to know how I [attempt to] keep my finger on the pulse of the reading, writing, and publishing world.

book necklaceI subscribe to the following e-newsletters:
Publisher’s Weekly Daily Newsletter
Publisher’s Weekly Children’s Bookshelf
Publisher’s Weekly Tip Sheet
Shelf Awareness Pro
Shelf Awareness for Readers
Goodreads YA Newsletter*
Goodreads Newsletter*
* Sign up in your Goodreads email preferences

I use Google Alerts for my favorite authors as well as topics like “YA publishing.”

I follow 98 different blogs (including over 70 related to reading and writing) and manage to do so through Bloglovin.

I follow authors, editors, agents, and reviewers on Twitter.

I also subscribe to Writer’s Digest, though I’m not always the best at sitting down and going through the magazine.  An issue arrived in the mail today, though, and I sat down and scoured it thoroughly.  It had a great feature about literary magazines and what their editors are looking for.

I attend writing conferences when I’m able.

I have a Ticketmaster account with my “favorites” listed, so that I’ll get an email if they are coming to town.  I also get an e-newsletter from the local theatre venues in the Twin Cities so that I’m aware if any of my favorite writers are scheduled to speak or read in Minneapolis or St. Paul.

Does this seem wildly unmanageable?  It’s actually not (most days)– and yet it helps me stay in touch with my literary world!  Hope this helps!

Image credit: Peg and Awl on Etsy

The State of the Blogger

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My admissions team just hosted 200 high school students for an overnight visit event.  It’s a wonderful event, and the students have a great time.  It’s probably our most fun event of the year: games and worship and chapel and classes and tours and lots of good food!

But for an introvert, it’s a type of annihilation.

I spent most of today sleeping.  My battery was on less than empty, and I needed today to recharge.

So tonight I had a bowl of Lucky Charms, took a hot shower, slapped on some Valor essential oil, and prayed.  Lately, I feel a sense of being held together only when I am in prayer or writing a letter to my future, calmer, more-accomplished self through FutureMe.org.

I’m reading Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, and it’s so amazing that it makes me feel like I write drivel.

My to-be-read list is out of control.

What should I read next???

What should I read next???

I chose to watch the final episode of season 3 of Downton Abbey tonight.  No spoilers, but UGH.

My next draft is due March 24th, and I need to find a rhythm.  I made myself a three-step to-do list tonight, which sounds easy enough, but each step is flabbergastingly huge and one is nearly inconceivable.  Writing is so hard.

I wish I could just push pause on life for a few months– to catch up on sleep, to catch up on reading, to learn to be a better writer.  But I am trying to have faith: I will find a rhythm, butt-in-seat will mean a better manuscript a month from now, and God will not abandon me or our book.

I think I need some chocolate milk.  That’s step zero.  Then I dive back in.

All In: Ideas & Writing

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I try to take this quote of Annie Dillard’s deeply to heart as I write fiction:

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

If I have a great idea, and if it fits into the story I’m working on, I don’t hold back, don’t reserve it for another time.  Remember when I plotted out that giant multi-storyline monster (and then subsequently abandoned it)?  In my current WIP, I am using some of the ideas from this story, even though they “fit” better with this whole plotted-out beast.  Who is to say if those other projects will ever see the light of day?  Better to spend my currency now before I’m in a country where it’s no longer acceptable payment.

For me, it’s about faith.  Faith that if I use my best ideas now, new ideas will come later.  It’s about having a generous spirit, about rejecting any parsimonious parts of my writer-heart, knowing that that sort of frugality reflects fear.  I want to write out of faith instead of fear.  Always.

all in2

 

Image credit: original from inc.com, edited by Jackie Lea Sommers.

Obsessing vs. Brainstorming

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I’ve had a very, very active brain for pretty much my entire life.  I’m the girl people always described as “the one who thinks too much.”  I have thoughts and ideas rush me like little hurricanes, and this is just as true after ERP therapy as it was before.

But there’s a huge difference too: productivity.

Before ERP, my thoughts were often OCD-induced intrusive thoughts that led me down dark avenues over and over again.  My thinking was circular, and I could re-visit the same ideas an uncountable number of times each day.  I was a hamster on a treadmill or a dog chasing its tail– that is, expending a lot of energy but going nowhere.

After ERP, my thoughts are much more welcome to me.  I can choose to focus on the ones I want.  I may still be lying awake at night, but it’s productive, and I end up jotting tons of notes and ideas down in my phone.  I start in one place, but an hour later, I’ve traveled some distance and often have huge realizations about my fictional characters and storylines.

Believe me, the latter is much more fulfilling.

 

For more about the ERP therapy that set me free, go to jackieleasommers.com/OCD.

I'm SO over this.

I’m SO over this.

An Author is not an Island

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As regular blog readers know, I just recently signed my first book contract with HarperCollins Publishers!  I have a few people I need to thank for getting me there:

My writing group: Anna, Carra, Jaidyn, Addie, Rachel L, and Rachel R.  These ladies amaze me with their talent for writing and critiquing.

My beta readers: Melody, Brienna, Mary, Elyse, Stacey, Ashley, Cindy*, and Kristin L**, Megs, Tracy, Kristin R.

My cheerleaders: Des, Eir, and so many others.

* Cindy was also my go-to girl for basically every deep conversation I need to have regarding my characters, their actions, and their struggles.

** I credit Kristin with saving Truest twice.  She was the one who spotted the plot’s earliest flaws and helped me to fix them.  She also helped me figure out the conclusion when I was too deep in the story’s darkness to see any light.

Ben Barnhart helped me with both high-level, conceptual edits as well as line edits.  His suggestions added depth, nuance, and conflict to my story, and I’m terribly grateful.

The Big Sur Writing Workshop was an amazing experience where I read and revised Truest as well as interacted with authors, editors, and literary agents all in the children’s and YA literature industry.  I absolutely recommend it to serious YA authors who have a late-stage manuscript they’d like additional help with.

Steven Chudney, my agent, challenged me with some of the hardest revisions I have ever undertaken– and I was delighted with the results.

And now, Jill and Laurel from Katherine Tegen Books are taking me to the next level!

RevisionsAs you can see, I am the author, but I don’t work alone.  Iron truly sharpens iron, and if people end up enjoying Truest, it will be because of so many men and women who would never let me settle with mediocrity.

This, friends– this is why it shocks me when I hear young writers say that they either a) don’t feel comfortable showing other people their work or b) that they don’t think they can learn to be a better writer.  If you want to be a writer, you have to write.  If you want to be a great writer, you need help.

Or at least I do. 🙂

 

More Thoughts on Profanity [& how ERP therapy changed my writing]

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profanityAs you may have read before, I have a strange and evolving relationship with profanity.  Having grown up in a home that outlawed even pseudo-swearing (we couldn’t say gosh or shut up, among other things) paired with growing up with a mental illness elicited in me a dreadful fear of curse words– more than was ever healthy, even for a child.  For many years, my intrusive thoughts centered around illicit words, which developed in me a deep sense of guilt.

In my ERP therapy, I had to learn to think those words, even say them.  In doing so, I was stealing back power from my OCD, putting it more and more under my heel.  It was during ERP and in the year that followed that I realized a couple things:

1) Words are just words.  That said, “just words” still pack as much power as a nuke.

2) You can harm with words that are not profanity– worse than with profanity, in some cases.  A hard-hitting insult or an insincere comment can sting far worse than the word shit.

3) Shit does not equal poop.  Ass does not equal butt.  Damn does not equal darn.  They just really, really don’t.  They are completely different words.  As a writer, it’s my job to choose the best word in every line I write.  Just the same way that valor and courage both mean bravery, but those two words are not the same word.  I have to select each word with extreme care.

4) The fearsome qualities one assigns to the dreaded f-bomb are terribly reduced when you’re forced to listen to it for 80 minutes a day (again, ERP).

5) In ERP, I learned to separate myself from my OCD.  I learned to assign my intrusive thoughts to my disorder, instead of to myself.  To say, “OCD wants me to think X.”  This view, I see, has carried over into my view of my characters.  Even though I am the author, if my character John or Paul or Suzie wants to say a curse word, I don’t feel guilty.  Characters have their own histories, their own choice of words.  (Maybe you think this is strange … passing off my responsibility to characters that I’ve created.  If you do, then you’re probably not a writer.  As a writer, I have far less control over my characters than you might ever imagine.)

6) I write realistic contemporaries.  A teenager who has grown up lawlessly is going to swear.  You know that’s true.

7) In my personal life, I refuse to let OCD enslave me again.  One way it did so was by a huge and unwarranted fear of profanity.  I damn well won’t let it take control of me in that way again.

8) Personally– again, this is just for me– profanity is a small way for me to ward off the legalism that used to bind me.

9) “Let nothing unwholesome come out your mouth”: I guess I have to admit that I don’t really find curse words terribly unwholesome anymore.  I’m finding a lot of it to be based on social constructs that I don’t value enough to hold to.  I find it far more unwholesome for me to open my mouth and speak lies or to tear my fellows down.

10) This quote from Maggie Stiefvater:

Occasionally a reader will tell me that I don’t need to use swearing. They will follow this up with this well-worn phrase “you have a good enough vocabulary that you don’t need to use THOSE words.” Yes, I do. I do indeed. Since I don’t need to use them, that means I’m choosing to use them. If you trust me to be using non-swear words in a skillful way, please assume that I’m wielding my fucks and damns with the same contemplation.

As should all of you other writers out there. They’re just words. Handle them with care.

So, those are my thoughts.  I’m not terribly interested in getting into a debate, but do feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!

See more of my thoughts on profanity here:
Profanity in Literature
Profanity

Image credit: found this all over the internet, couldn’t find original.