A Much-Needed Update and Looking Ahead to 2012

Hello readers! It has been a long ass time since I updated the ole blog. Much has happened, and I have updates to share. I hate that so much time has lapsed between entries. But as I've said before, working on my writing must come before blogging for me. Still, one of my resolutions for 2012 is to get back to blogging more regularly -- even if it's once a week. Even if it's just a weekly check-in and not book- or YA-related.

Belated news item #1 - I finished my first draft! I actually finished it on December 4th. It took me 4 months to complete, which was a little longer than I wanted, but still an acceptable amount of time. And it's done! But now comes the hard part, the part that separates the real writers from the wannabes: revisions. I've had a problem in the past with starting projects, completing first and second drafts, and then abandoning them. I refuse to let that happen with this manuscript.

Belated news item #2 - I'm working on a new project for this month only, a script. It fell into my lap unexpectedly. I can't reveal too much, but said project needs to be completed by the New Year. I'm writing the script now. It's amazing to think I only heard a vague idea for this project after Thanksgiving, and now I'm banging out a first draft. I usually never work that fast, and I'm proud of myself for hitting all previous deadlines thus far.

Writing Year in Review
A problem I keep having is when I look back, I see I've written a lot, but I have no material to show for it. 2011 had that same problem. The first half of the year was spent working on a second draft of a WIP that I soon aborted. I was trying to write something to get published rather than write something I loved. Also, my revision process was staggered and ultimately ill-conceived. I was having my writers group read 1-2 chapters/month, per our guidelines. Get critiqued in piecemeal did not work.

I decided to break one of my rules, succumb to Sexy New Idea syndrome, and look into starting a new WIP that I was passionate about, that I believed could show off my voice. And so far, so good. I began brainstorming the idea in late-May/June, worked on an outline in June/July, and began writing in August. I believe in this project, and unlike the others, I want to see it through to the end.

This year, I also started my blog and twitter feed (@FillupSeagull), and despite some gaps, I have kept it going and met lots of kind, supportive, talented writers.

So, at the end of 2011, I don't have a polished manuscript or screenplay to show around, but I remain optimistic for 2012. And this time, I'm learning from my mistakes.

2012 Resolutions

#1 - See It Through: I want to see through every WIP I start, specifically my new book. No more ditching projects after draft 1 or 2. I want a finished product. I will see this book through. I'm already taking action. After critiquing the beginning chapters by piecemeal for a few months, I'm having my writer's group read the entire novel over the holidays, and they are coming back with notes in mid-January. I won't have to sit idly and wait months for them to read the whole thing. I can take their feedback and get started on draft 2. I am limiting the number of writing projects to attempt this year down to two: this novel and a screenplay idea. In years past, I resolved to finished four different projects, and that never happened. I will focus on these two and see them through to finished products.

#2 - Get My Work Out There: For all the writing I've done over the years, I've barely shown my work to others. I kept telling myself that it wasn't good enough yet, that I needed to do another draft to get it to professional quality. I was holding myself back, paralyzed by fear, by so many articles telling aspiring writers to get their work absolutely 100% perfect before sending it out. Those articles were correct -- your work should be as good as you can make it -- but you shouldn't fixate so much that you never send anything out. I gave my writer's group a first draft to read, something I never would have done before! In the past, I would've held back, claiming that I'll complete a second draft -- work out all the major kinks -- before submitting to group. But who knows how long that would've taken, and frankly, who knows if I would've even completed draft 2?

I have also never queried an agent. Again, I kept telling myself that my work wasn't ready yet. And maybe it wasn't. But I should let other people tell me that sometimes. Rejection is part of the writing life, and it should be embraced. And who knows -- an agent may even like my work.

Besides completing the book, I want to get back to writing screenplays. I miss it. I stopped writing scripts once I moved to Chicago, convinced that a screenplay is impossible to sell when you don't live in LA. It is nearly impossible, but there are lots of contests I can enter. I've already found a few contests, including one right here in Chicago, where I can submit my as-yet-unwritten script. And again, who knows where this could lead. Writers must always be cautiously optimistic.

All in all, 2011 was a good year for me. I rekindled my passion for writing, and I'm excited about my goals for next year. By this time next year, I want to have queried/submitted a finished book/script while maintaining a normal schedule for my blog. I think that sounds reasonable. Do you, loyal readers?

YOUNG ADULT the movie review

Last night,  I got to see a sneak preview of Young Adult, the new Charlize Theron comedy from the writer-director team behind Juno. There's been some buzz in the kidlitosphere, worry that Young Adult will portray people in our profession in a negative light - that we're writing about teens because we're immature, can't grow up. And that Charlize's character will grow up in the end, and choose to write adult novels to symbolize her maturity. NONE OF THAT HAPPENS.

Young Adult was a great movie. It's not what you expect. It's a dark comedy-drama, and it stays that way until the credits. Charlize Theron plays Mavis Gary, a rude, depressed thirty-something ghostwriter of a young adult series who decides to return to her hometown to win back her high school sweetheart Buddy (Patrick Wilson) - who happens to be married and a dad. When she isn't trying to seduce Buddy, she spends her time getting drunk with Matt, a high school classmate she never paid attention to. Her life peaked in high school, and she refuses to move on and grow up. She's an unlikable character, borderline pitiful, and she doesn't become a good person in the end. She does have an epiphany, but it's not what you expect, which I found refreshing. Mavis acted that way we wish we could act sometimes but never would. That may turn people off, but I appreciated that the filmmakers stuck to their guns and never veered into sentimental territory.

Through all this, I found the character fascinating to watch - a credit to the acting, writing, and directing. Charlize Theron is so good at playing bad, a trend she'll continue with Snow White and the Huntsman. The script was a step up from writer Diablo Cody's first film Juno. Unlike Juno, the characters were less verbose and witty, more natural sounding. She also used voiceover in a clever way. Director Jason Reitman gave the film a lived-in, unpolished feeling down to the omnipresence of chain stores, and he managed to wring humor from twisted characters and setups. He is now 4-for-4 with his films. If you haven't seen his first three films - Thank You For Smoking, Juno, and Up in the Air - netflix them now.

Young Adult does not discredit or disrespect young adult writers. It's not a commentary on authors or the genre - just Mavis, and she is an extreme example. She lives and acts like a teenager still, down to a messy room and drinking coke from the bottle first thing in the morning. Her young adult writing is a device the movie uses to explore the theme of growing up. She is stuck in the past, which is why she can't write about adults. Her YA series, which is getting canceled, is about catty girls at a prep school, very mid-2000s. Think The A-List, Private, Gossip Girl. The movie never makes the assumption that all YA writers are like this. It's only focusing on her arrested development.

Film and TV writers will identify more with Mavis than will YA authors. Most of them have left their small hometowns to make it big in NY/LA. They've gone on to try and be rich and famous while those they left behind got married, had kids, and live "boring" lives. However, the majority of YA authors I've read about and interact with are married with kids and live in the suburbs. Really, Young Adult is a semi-autobiographical movie about the screenwriter, Diablo Cody. Like Mavis Gary, Diablo lived in Minnesota, writes under a pseudonym (real name: Brooke Busey), moved to a big city (LA), made it big as a writer (hello, Oscar!), worked in the YA genre (she was hired to script a movie version of Sweet Valley High), is thirtysomething, was divorced, and was childless and unmarried until recently. (congrats on both!) She may have felt like a hotshot writer, but when she returned home and found her old classmates had less glamorous lives with a family in the burbs, did she have a pang of jealousy? The young adult publishing industry really seems like a cover for Hollywood, while allowing Cody to ruminate on growing up and not letting the past define you forever. And like I said, Mavis does not write adult novels in the end.

Overall, I loved Young Adult, and it's a shame movies like this are so rare. It has a strong shot of being nominated at the Golden Globes for Best Comedy and Best Actress - Comedy. Its box office prospects are decent. This is not a mainstream movie, so word-of-mouth may not reflect how the critics feel.

Young Adult opens December 16. Are you planning to see it?

10k Writing Challenge: Volume III

Here we go again!

Sarah at Empty White Pages and I are doing another 10k writing challenge this weekend - our third in three months! I know I need it. I've fallen woefully behind with my WIP. Work has been kicking my butt lately, and I have been too lazy haven't had the time to catch up on writing. In the month since my last 10k challenge, I've only knocked out a few thousand words - not awful, but not up to snuff for me, either. It's time for me to rev my engine.

If anyone's fallen behind with NaNoWriMo, this is a great opportunity to catch up!

I will be tracking my progress on twitter, as always. @FillupSeagull

How is everything doing with NaNoWriMo? Since I'm already in the middle of my WIP, I'm using NaNo as the impetus to finish my first draft. NaNoFinishMo?

Team Buffy or Team Bella?

(In case the print is too small, under Bella it says: Edward, you watch me sleep at night, you treat me like a child, and you think about eating me for dinner. Under Buffy, it says: No guy is worth your life. Not ever.)

I have never read or seen either, so I don't have a dog in this fight. However, the infographic above is the main gripe I hear about Bella.

Thoughts?

Now get back to writing, NaNoers! :)

Does YA Give You Body Dysmorphia

I recently finished a YA contemporary novel, a well-written coming-of-age story about a girl standing up for what she believes in and finding out who she is. I enjoyed the book, but the part that bugged me was her love interest: the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, preppy, built, cute boy. The most generic 'boy' stereotype across all media. And the girl protagonists in these stories usually believe they're dull-looking, yet still manage to attract the attention of the cute boy.

Why are these characters always so good-looking?

Our culture has a serious body image problem with no cure in sight. TV, movies, and magazines inundate us with impossible standards for male and female beauty: blonde, skinny, six packs, big boobs, long legs, no body hair, chiseled chin, etc. Women have it 100X worse than guys. In Hollywood, guys like Seth Rogen, Kevin James, and Woody Allen wind up with women like Katherine Heigl, Amber Valetta, and Diane Keaton. Guys can be schlubs, but women must always be stunning. Men have it rough, too. Every female-targeted romcom has the women ending up with some lockjawed, ripped dude. This has been going on forever. I know that. But why are books, especially YA novels, embracing these stereotypes, too?

TV and movies are visual media. They use hot actors to attract paying customers. Books don't need to use that trick. Readers don't pick up a book (with the exception of romance novels) because it's about attractive people. And if they start reading the book and find the main character isn't gorgeous, they don't automatically put it down. Teenagers are particularly insecure about their looks. I spent way too much time on my hair in high school; no wonder half of it's fallen out! Teens are bombarded all day by images of supposedly ideal body types. Why do we perpetuate those body types in YA books? Not all girls are attracted to the hot/dreamy guy, and not all guys are into the Heidi Montag look. If that were the case, then only supermodels would date. People have different ideas of what they find attractive. We should strive to write characters that have physical quirks to them - like actual teens. Let's not try to recreate a CW show. I'm sure readers will love your book even if the boy of your MC's dreams has unruly hair or a bony chest. And guy readers won't throw a book across the room if the girl love interest has blemishes or love handles. Don't save all odd body features for your side characters. I worry that many female protagonists in YA novels suffer from Laney Boggs syndrome: they think they're so ugly when it's glaringly obvious to the reader/whole world that they are total knockouts.

 
In Tina Fey's book Bossypants, she said that most successful shows centered around normal-looking, even slightly unattractive, casts. Friends was the exception. The casts of Cheers, The Office, Seinfeld, 30 Rock, and CSI among others are not filled with models. Whereas how many series with sexy casts got canceled?  *cough*Coupling*cough*

Believe it or not, there have been successful books with protagonists who don't fit the beauty mold. Skeeter Phelan of The Help was tall, lanky, flat-chested, and had embarrassingly frizzy hair. Katniss Everdeen had few discernible female features. She was kind of described as looking like Sandra Bullock in the first half of Miss Congeniality. Even down to the hairy legs. I know that readers love pining after the same guy/girl as the MC; that's part of the fun of reading a book. But you don't have to make them generically attractive. Create your own form of sexy. Leave the generic body types to Hollywood.

What do you think, readers? Is there a body image problem in YA?

Social Media Overload

Recently, Google+ opened the floodgates officially and now everyone can join yet another social media site. For months, I've seen other bloggers talking about Google+, putting the link in their sidebar, etc. A co-worker tried to sign me up for Google+ over the summer. I asked her why should I sign up for G+ over Facebook. "G+ is awesome. You can put people in circles." That wasn't reason enough for me. I told her plain and simple that I would only sign up for G+ if all of my friends left Facebook and joined. I'm such a trailblazer! I have nothing against G+, but I don't have the time or energy to join ANOTHER social media site. I'm already on Facebook and Twitter, and that feels like more than enough.

Agents love talking about platforms and social media presence. The quality of your writing is first and foremost, but online prowess is not far behind. I worry about this because I have limited mental bandwidth for the internet. I'm on Facebook and Twitter, but I don't use them religiously. I have a blog and blog friends, and try to post and comment regularly. To add Google+ to this list is daunting to me. What can G+ bring to the table that those other sites can't? I don't want to be overconnected. I can't be everywhere. I just have to admit to myself that I'll never be a social media maven. Will that make me less desirable to agents and publishers?


For all the authors who have a strong web presence like John Green and Brent Hartinger, there are plenty who don't who've sold lots of books. YA authors need to be online in some capacity, I think, since that's where their audience is. What do you think is the bare minimum of social media that authors should utilize?

Didn't You Know - All Professional Writers NaNoWriMo

Hello readers! I hope you had a great week! Last weekend, Sarah at Empty White Pages and I did another weekend writing challenge - Columbus Day edition, this time for 10k words. And we both did it! I was completely drained by Monday night, but I'm now 2/3 the way to my writing goal. I may actually hit that mark by Halloween, which a month ago I never would've thought possible. This was the second weekend writing challenge I completed in as many months, and something tells me it won't be the last.

But of course, the writing challenge that all writers are eagerly awaiting is NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. Bloggers are already buzzing about the event, preparing their outlines, resting their hands. This year, I won't be participating since I'm knee deep in my current WIP, though I may crash some write-ins.

Many writers view NaNo as a fun exercise, a once-a-year excuse to write like a maniac. However, NaNo is more applicable to being a professional writer than they realize. Produced/published writers need to write fast. They must follow the golden rule of NaNo: always hit your deadline.

The best example of this are TV writers. They are constantly writing because they have X number of episodes that will air. It doesn't matter if they fall behind or get writer's block. Something HAS to air in that timeslot. You need to feed the beast. Last Sunday, I watched this special called South Park: 6 Days to Air. It went behind the scenes of making an episode of South Park. The staff had 6 days until their episode was set to air, and they had no idea what the show would be. It didn't matter. They had to meet that deadline. No excuses. So in 6 days, the writers brainstormed an idea, plotted it out, wrote the script, animated it, voiced it, revised, and combined it all together into a 30-minute episode.

 

Writers on sitcoms and dramas also must churn out scripts in a few weeks. When I worked in a writer's office for an hourlong drama years ago, the writers had fallen behind with their writing schedule. They'd hit plot roadblocks that took up more time solving than they anticipated. Could they push back the airdates of the episodes? NO. By the end, they were writing 60-page scripts in days. And you thought having a month to write wasn't enough time?

Screenwriters for movies have more time to write, but if studios are waiting for a draft, then they have to write. It's been said that John Hughes wrote Weird Science in two days and The Breakfast Club in three days. Joe Eszterhas wrote Basic Instinct in three days. Kevin Williamson churned out the script for Scream in less than a week. Lots of screenwriters have the luxury to take months or years to write their script, but they are usually not getting paid for it. They write their scripts on spec, and then hope to sell it, just like authors.

And just like authors, once somebody is paying you for your work, they will always impose deadlines. Publisher, movie studio, TV network. Publishers won't wait forever for revisions. As a first-time author, you want to impress them by meeting your deadline. Even for writers who self-publish, they have deadlines, too, set by their readers. Readers devour e-books rapidly, and they always want the next book now. Amanda Hocking famously sold a kajillion e-books in a year, but she put out nine in that span. If she had just written one, then taken a year to write her next novel, sales would have dropped.

So remember when it's November 28th, and you're only at 34,000 words, and you're thinking of throwing in the towel, keep on writing! Don't stop. Think of it as practice on your way to being a  published author. Anyone who pays you will always set a deadline, so get used to it.