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Stumbled across this pretty the other day:
The artist’s name is Akemi.
I think it’s my favorite depiction of Cory to date. Cory and Valerija, especially, look just like I imagine them in my head.I so love it when people take a crack and visual depictions of my characters. Since I can’t draw for crap myself, I always get a kick out of other people illustrating my imaginary people. Thank you!
The last few weeks, especially, have been killer unicornerific. I have been doing some edits on my two killer unicorn short stories, and the final pass on Ascendant. I also, in New York, did a reading from Rampant, which I hadn’t done in many moons. (And it was a new reading for me, too. I read from the section where Astrid makes out with Brandt on the blanket. Which, as it turns out, is quite funny read aloud.) It’s nice to be back in that world for a little while. 2010 has been mostly filled up so far with projects that have absolutely nothing to do with killer unicorns.
That’s one of the other dirty little secrets about this job. We spend a year promoting stuff that we worked on a year ago. When you write series, it’s especially hard, because your mind is a book ahead of your readers’.
And now, back to the grind.
In all the excitement about announcing my new book yesterday, I forgot to point y’all to one of my guest blogs. Kate at Read This Book! asked me to blog about one of my favorite “lost” YA novels. I sing the praises of Gene Stratton Porter’s turn-of-the-century classic, A Girl of the Limberlost. Check it out.
Thank you all so much for your congratulations! I am so excited about this book. It’s a project that has both been a long time in the making, and that kind of flashed up on me quite suddenly. I thought I’d take this opportunity to answer some of the questions that were batted around in the comment section yesterday:
Lell asks: Given just the depths of your love for PERSUASION, was it at all daunting to write a retelling? Or was it one of those fun “This is what I was meant to write” situations with singing and bluebirds?
Actually, it was a little of both. For the better half of the decade, the words “a retelling of Persuasion” has been sitting in my “idea” file, with nothing to hook it onto. I’m a big fan of retellings in general, and I love Austen retellings like Clueless and Bridget Jones’s Diary. (BTW, the Bridget sequel is a very loose retelling of Persuasion.) After participating on a Dragon*Con panel last fall with Heidi Anne Heiner of Sur La Lune Fairy Tales (a fantastic woman and a fantastic site) I started thinking more seriously about how to attempt such a project (even though it’s not a fairy tale).
Around the same time, I started having conversations with my critique partner, Carrie Ryan, about how I, a great lover of Post-apocalyptic fiction, hadn’t written anything post-apocalyptic while there was a post-apocalyptic boom happening all around me. At some point, the words “Post-apocalyptic” and “Persuasion” came together and everyone involved had a lot of fun trying to pronounce it (especially after a few glasses of wine).
Of course, that was just the beginning. I had a lot of other questions I needed to answer before I could turn a phrase I had a lot of fun watching my agent try to pronounce five times fast into a book proposal.
Stacy asks: How the heck did you make it into a post-apocalyptic story?
Obviously, that was question number one. What was the apocalypse? Why did it happen? And, sorry guys, but I’m not going to tell you that yet. But, like all post-apocalyptic writers, I worked backwards. I’m writing about a very particular society so I had to craft an apocalypse that would result in that society. My husband (also a big science fiction fan) and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out all the details.
Stephanie asks: though what age will the heroine be? because i don’t think of Persuasion as a young adult book.
That was the other big question. As I said in my last post, I think of Persuasion as one of Austen’s most “mature” novels. The characters are older and wiser and have been burned before by the time of the story’s action. They aren’t giggly teenagers.
Then again, a lot of characters in contemporary post-apocalyptic YA aren’t giggly teenagers either: Katniss of The Hunger Games, Mary of The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Additionally, Astrid of Rampant and Ascendant is not a giggly teenager either. So once I started thinking about who these characters are, and how they’ve been shaped by the society they live in, it wasn’t difficult at all.
Just because you are diong a teenage retelling of Austen doesn’t mean you have to make the characters into something they are not. Cher of Clueless is clueless because Emma was as well. (And they took what? Twenty years off Paul Rudd’s Mr. Knightley character?) And, despite the fact that Anne and Wentworth are supposedly “older and wiser” they still have their fair share of silly behavior. After all, Anne has been moping for seven years, and Wentworth sets out initially on a petty quest to make her pay for rejecting him. That translates quite easily into the YA realm.
So, to answer your question, the main characters are teenagers.The book is YA.
Regular readers of this blog have long heard me wax on and on about my love for Jane Austen’s last novel, PERSUASION. It’s my favorite of all the Austens. I own about seven different editions of the novel, and three (count ‘em) three versions of BBC movies made from the novel. I even have the 1970s one, where Anne Elliot looks like this:
My love, she is deep as the ocean.
So why, oh why do I love Persuasion so much? What is its hold on me? Do I prefer Captain Wentworth to Mr. Darcy? (Um, jury’s out, actually). Anne Elliot to Emma Woodhouse (okay, yes on that one, definitely). The follies of Sir Walter and Mary Musgrove to those of Mrs. Dashwood and Lucy Stone Steele (nice catch, JJ)? (Really, can there ever be too much of a good thing?)
I admit, (as did one Elizabeth Bennett, once upon a time) that I did not always love this novel as I do now. When I was in high school, and discovering Austen for the first time, I enjoyed the brash and outspoken charms of Elizabeth to Anne’s soft silence. I didn’t understand how the hell she put up with her horrid family. But as I got older, I began to appreciate the book more and more, until eventually, it beat out Pride & Prejudice in my heart.
How do I love Persuasion? Let me count the ways:
1. I love that Persuasion is such a mature novel. Even in modern romance, I’ve always been a sucker for a reunion story, and Persuasion is the pinnacle of all reunion stories!
2. I love the psychological complexity of the main characters and their love story. I love the skill in which Austen arranges their complex dance. You think that Darcy gives smoldering glances? Re-read Persuasion sometime. The characters hardly ever speak to each other, and yet, if you read carefully, you see that they are at every moment aware of one another. Entire conversations with other people revolve around sharing the smallest fact (usually meant to injure) with the person they really, really want to be talking to.
3. I love the secondary characters. Austen often includes fantastic secondary characters in her stories, but in Persuasion, she really outdoes herself. I adore the Crofts, especially. In most Austens, you see an example of a happy, equal marriage for the main characters to aspire to (The Gardiners in P&P) but in the Crofts, you see a real insight into their love story. The Musgroves and the other Navy men are similarly well-drawn.
4. Two words: The. Letter. Oh wow, y’all, the letter. The letter, the letter, the letter. The letter might be one of the most favorite single pages in all of literature. Austen men give good letter, as any fan of Pride & Prejudice knows (heck, even Willoughby’s horrific letter is a work of art for its purposes), but no one — no one– writes a letter like Frederick Wentworth. “You pierce my soul…” I tell you, I never read that letter without crying. I never watch the scene with the letter in any of my versions of the movie without crying (even in the most recent one, where they totally screw up the whole POINT of the letter and send Anne on some bizarre marathon through the streets of Bath…)
5. And I love this reason most of all:
Children’s: Young Adult
Author of the Secret Society Girl series and Rampant Diana Peterfreund’s FOR DARKNESS SHOWS THE STARS, a post-apocalyptic retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, to Kristin Daly at Balzer & Bray, in a good deal, for publication in 2011, by Deidre Knight at The Knight Agency (NA).
Excited? I sure am!
ATTENTION: I will not be attending the Books of Wonder signing on Sunday. Just thought you all should know.
Sorry about the delay, folks. The winner’s of the contest are:
SAM (Comment #11) from “Northern Canada”
and
RAELENA (Comment #38)
Congratulations, guys! Remember, you have to contact me with your address to receive your prize. Make sure to specify which book you want. First come, first served.
On Thursday, I finally sat down and started work on my new book. See the word counter over there on the right? Pretty, pretty orange! Look at the way it creeps up on that vast swath of unwritten white!
So, despite the fact that until Thursday, I hadn’t written anything for the better part of a month, I don’t feel too bad. Because I have written over 70,000 words already this year. (Cf. the top word counter over there on the right — the one labeled MG — which is ALL ORANGE, plus “Errant” which never did get a word counter, and I don’t feel so bad about that.) And I did two rounds of revisions on the aforementioned MG.
(BTW, MG in this case does NOT stand for middle grade. People keep asking me that. Carrie asked me that, which I thought was especially weird, since she actually knows what it stands for.)
I’m still busy, though. I expect I’ll be getting some revisions on “Errant” and possibly a bit more work to be done on MG, not to mention the 1st pass of Ascendant that showed up here yesterday morning and is due at the end of the week. Like, today, before I can do any work on this new project (codename: PAP) I need to look into these first page proofs, put together a quick project proposal, and finish up the Rampant paperback extra content (yes, owners of the Rampant paperback get fantastic and exclusive extra content, including, but not limited to, an excerpt from Ascendant. Not to mention take Rio for a walk. Rio has been sorely neglected recently.
But I’m glad to have started PAP, and I’m really, really excited about the direction I’ve decided to take it in.
In other “life of the freelance writer” news, I really love getting surprise royalties. I say “surprise” because at this point in my career, most of my projects are just starting to earn out, so it’s still a new thing for me for royalty statements to come with checks attached. When I talk to writers who have been around for a lot longer than me, they do count their royalties as a larger and larger percentage of their income, and I know more than a few writers whose living expenses are entirely paid for by “evergreen” items on their backlists, which… wow, that just sounds like a dream come true.
Right now, the way I get to keep this job is by getting new work. I got two new contracts in January that will keep me employed for a while. As I said before, I have four all-new projects (two books, two short stories) coming out in 2010 (plus the Rampant paperback). And those are all parts of contracts that I signed anywhere from 2007 to 2010. In some cases, I was paid for those projects back in 2007. In other cases, I haven’t been paid yet.
I share this because I know there are a lot of writers and aspiring writers who read this blog, and they are curious about how the money part works. I think, in the beginning of your career, it’s important not to depend on royalties, and to really figure out WHEN you are going to get the various portions of your advance when you are planning out your work and your ability to go freelance.
For instance, say you have decided that your budget is $30k per year, and you can net $10k (i.e., after agent commission, taxes, and business expenses — or, just to make the math easy, let’s say we live in a world where those things don’t exist) for a book you wrote. So you think to yourself, “Easy, I’ll write three books.”
Au contraire, my friend.
Because you usually only get half of that advance upon signing a contract for those books (and some houses are going to thirds “upon signing”). So let’s say you do get a three book deal (in this magical world where there’s no agents, taxes, or business expenses) at $10k per book. You get the contract (anywhere from a few days to a few months later — and if you think I’m joking about the few months part, I know people who have waited a year on their contracts), and sign it and send it in and get your “upon signing check” — for $15k. Because 1/2(10k per book) x three books = $15,000.
Then, if you’re lucky, the D&A (delivery and acceptance) date for the first book is that same year (again, I know writers who get their D&A at the same time as their on signing check, because of contract delays), for what is sneaking into a lot of contracts lately, which is 1/4 of the remaining advance (and then another fourth on actual publication). So there’s $2,500.
So your total for year one of selling a three book deal for $10k per book is: $17,500.
In year two, you turn in book two, and see the publication of book 1. Total payments: $5000.
In year three, the same, for publishing book 2 and writing book 3: $5,000
In year four, you get your last little “on publication” check: $2,500.
And if you’re lucky, you do earn out right away and get royalties. But you can’t really count on that. And you never know when the earn out’s going to happen. It might happen right away. It might take four years. It might never happen.* So your $30,000 book deal takes four years to pay out.
You can also be lucky and get a compressed publication schedule, where they put all your books out the same year. But that’s pretty much up to the publisher to decide. and if that happens, what will also likely happen is that the publication of your first book is pushed WAY back in the schedule to give you time to write book 2 and 3. Whereas usually you might only have 12 months between D&A and publication, it might be 18 or 24 for book 1, and then only 14 for book 2 and 8 for book 3.
Oh, and you can’t cheat the system and “write quick.” So if your publisher has said that the D&A date for Book 1 is January 1, 2011, and then 1/1/12 for book 2 and 1/1/13 for book three, you can’t turn them all in in 2011 and expect to get paid for all of them. That’s why it’s D *and* A — they have to accept it. And they usually won’t until they are contracted to.
And there are other ways to make up the difference, for instance:
- write and sell something else to make up the difference.
- make more money from the things you sell (getting higher advances, selling subsidary rights, charging speaker fees to talk about the work).
- have an alternate income from old projects (this is where those royalties come in handy, or putting your out of print backlist on kindle).
- have another job.
- be of independent means.
Some of these things are easier to control than others. Most writers I know manage by mixing up all of the above. And sometimes you don’t even know they are doing it. That writer you know who has two books out a year? You don’t know if she’s ghost writing on the side, or doing copywriting or other freelance work that her name isn’t attached to.
You don’t know if I’m doing that.
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* Please note: If it never happens, you do NOT have to pay the publisher back. That is a myth. Also, it does NOT mean that you will never again get another contract. Also a myth.
So New York Times Bestseller Carrie Ryan and I had an awesome weekend of eating, lounging around on the couch, brainstorming, and watching movies that reminded us of our books. It was half writing retreat, half slumber party.
Rio was utterly charmed by Carrie, and vice versa. I mean, I know she doesn’t look too thrilled in this picture, but Carrie’s more than making up for it, don’t you think? Trust me, Rio loved Carrie like only a “curl up on the guest bed, roll over and whine until Carrie rubbed her tummy all morning” little brat could.
Quoth Carrie: “She’s so little! She’s so compact! She’s like the mini-cooper of dogs!”
This is what happens when you’re usually living with an 85 lb. rottie mix. Don’t you worry, Rio. I think you’re the perfect size.
And then yesterday, we drove up to Baltimore to attend Carrie’s launch. In Carrie’s tour packet, it said “your friend will drive you up to Baltimore” and I am not one to disobey the mandates of the Random House publicity team.
Fortunately, it was a lovely day out, and we had lunch down by the Harbor, overlooking the Constellation. It was so beautiful, in fact, that Carrie found it problematic when she tried to turn on the air conditioning in her very sunny and warm (93 degrees!) hotel room only to discover it didn’t work. So she got ready for her launch party in an overheated hotel room filled with two hotel engineers and a phone call every 30 seconds from the front desk asking if the engineers were there fixing the problem. (“Yes.” “YES.” “YES.” “Please stop calling us, they’re here.”)
I pretended to be Carrie’s PA, which was especially funny when the wine and strawberries showed up.
 Carrie, a model of grace under pressure, ended up looking fabulous in a swingy gray dress and coral jewelry, and off we jetted to her launch signing at The Children’s Bookstore. I’ve never been there before, but it’s fabulous! I really had to have a talking-to with myself before I bought every single picture book in the place. As it was, one of the booksellers kept getting me to buy new unicorn books I hadn’t read, like Birth of the Firebringer, by Meredith Anne Pierce.
Research! Research!
Carrie’s launch was lovely. There was a great crowd there. Zombie fans, fantasy fans, writers, — there were even some folks who’d made her launch signing in Greenville last year. Talk about commitment!
Carrie talked about zombies, about her childhood fear of Poltergeist, and about how she and I have diametrically opposed creative processes that occasionally drive each other to drink. (I’m a planner; she is not.) She signed stacks and stacks of books, including two that I’m giving away to you, dear reader.
SPEAKING OF GIVEAWAYS, I am having a problem, guys. You enter my giveaways, and then when I announce the winners, they never show up and email me. I have a STACK of books that I’m supposed to send out to winners who have never contacted me. Like the Heist Society winner from a few weeks back? No word. I even left a comment on her blog. What should I do? I can’t chase you guys down all the time, and honestly, given that I’m buying these books with my own money and sending them out with my own stamps, I kind of feel like I shouldn’t have to. Should I give you a period of time to get in touch with me and if you don’t, your prize is forfeited? (Then no doubt I draw a new winner who never gets in touch with me and the darn cycle stars all over again.)
Okay, now that that little housekeeping issue is off the table, onto the giveaway!
Today I’m giving away a copy of the New York Times bestselling paperback of The Forest of Hands and Teeth, signed by one New York Times Bestselling author Carrie Ryan. AND, a copy of the amazing companion novel, newly released in hardcover: The Dead-Tossed Waves. Also signed by the author. May or may not include a small smear of wasabi from when it was sitting on the table at the sushi restaurant where said author and I had dinner last night. It’s that authentic, y’all.
HOW YOU ENTER:
Leave a comment in this blog entry saying how you would react in the face of the zombie apocalypse. I will randomly select two entries. When I announce the winners, if you are a winner, email me with your choice of which book you want. First come, first served.
Today I’m Guest Blogging over at Justine Larbalestier’s site. I’m talking about inspiration, Velcro, ice cream cones, and the movie Working Girl.
So I got back from having the worst manicure in the world with New York Times Bestseller Carrie Ryan to discover that word on the street is out about my new anthology, KISS ME DEADLY: 13 Tales of Paranormal Romance.
It’s the follow-up to last year’s THE ETERNAL KISS, which was an (awesome) book of (awesome) vampire stories. Except for our book is not (necessarily) about vampires, but about all kinds of paranormal shenanigans.
My story is about killer unicorns. I know, shocking, right? It’s also my first historical ever ever — or at least, since i tried my hand at a regency romance when I was 15 and mainlining Johanna Lindsay.
FWIW, “Errant” is NOTHING like Johanna Lindsay.
(ETA)
The full list of authors in the antho are:
Becca Fitzpatrick
Caitlin Kittredge
Karen Mahoney
Justine Musk
Daniel Marks
Diana Peterfreund
Sarah Rees Brennan
Michelle Rowen
Carrie Ryan
Maggie Stiefvater
Rachel Vincent
Daniel Waters
Michelle Zink
And I’m sure they’re stories are totally awesome too. Actually, I’ve read the story of New York Times Bestseller Carrie Ryan, and it is totally awesome.
Though really, I think they must have designed this cover especially for me. New York Times Bestseller Carrie is sitting across from me right now, and when she saw the cover she’s like “oh wow, they illustrated your story.”
Then we looked closer and realized it was supposed to be a ghost of a fairy wing, and not a veil, like it looks. Still, I am sticking with my story. Read Kiss Me Deadly, with a cover that illustrates “Errant,” which is an 18th century French feminist killer unicorn story about a nun and a bride and a forest full of monsters.
John Scalzi and Justine Larbalestier are talking about “owning” your one star reviews on Amazon. I went to go look mine up, only to discover that, to my shock, I don’t have any one star reviews on Amazon. Given the angst I’ve felt over Amazon reviews in the past, I was sure that some of them had to be one star. No, apparently only two stars. I have my fair share of those.(Don’t worry, though, I have plenty of one star reviews on Goodreads!)
Yet none of them, I think, can possibly top the one I just received for Rampant. A snippet of its (two star) fabulosity:
“I felt as if the author is very self-impressed and narcissistic. Which I guess is fine until it permeates the writing. If you read the jacket cover – all about how wonderful and adventurous she is – and then realize she’s attempted to weave in the myth of Diana goddess of the hunt and that her name is Diana….well too much self homage for me. Nothing redeems this insipid tale.”
Finally, someone calls me out for making the magic system in my book something that was invented by a goddess whose name is the same as mine. I was wondering when that would happen.
Justine’s post is all about Jane Austen’s one star Amazon reviews for Pride & Prejudice. I haven’t read through them, but I sincerely hope that someone calls that chick out for naming her most beautiful Bennett sister Jane, not to mention that annoyingly perfect Jane Fairfax from Emma.
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