My Musical Ode to Rejection Letter Survival

The theme this week at The Lucky 13s is What Keeps You Going When the Going Gets Tough. I responded with a song:

"THE TWELVE DAYS OF REJECTION"

My First Post-Book-Deal Interview & Other Blogosphere Travels This Week

All this week I'm traveling around the blogosphere, making various guest appearances.

Today Mindy McGinnis, author of the upcoming dystopian thriller Not a Drop to Drink, interviewed me over at Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire. I'm part of her interview series called Submission Hell—It's True (I'll let you figure out the acronym of that series on your own). You can read about my long and winding submission journey here.

P.S. Not a Drop to Drink sounds amazing. Check it out at Goodreads.

I also just participated in Gennifer Albin's Januquery project. Gennifer is the author of another upcoming novel I can't wait to read: Crewel, set in a world where women designated as "Spinsters" can control time. She invited members of The Lucky 13s to help her critique query letters people are submitting to her site, and my critique ran yesterday. I've worked as a copy editor in the past, so I sincerely hope the author whose query I chose didn't pass out when she saw all my red marks. Queries are an extremely challenging part of the process of getting an agent, and I wish the best for all the Januquery participants.

Tomorrow (Jan. 11) I have a post running at The Lucky 13s. This week's topic: What Keeps You Going When the Going Gets Tough. I may have composed a song for that particular subject...

Finally, this Friday I'm participating in the monthly 13th-Day Post at The Lucky 13s and celebrating Friday the Thirteenth with a special post at Suburban Vampire.

When I'm not running all over the place, giving my two cents on the world of writing, I'll be right here working on my newest manuscript, which I'm trying to tackle as much as possible before I receive my In the Shadow of Blackbirds edits. All I can say about this one is that it's another Gothic historical novel. The working title, the basic plot, and everything else about the book will be staying under wraps for now.

My Novel's Time Period Is Showing Up in Movies and on TV...Tonight!

It's one thing to study a time period's look (i.e., the clothing, the hairstyles, the home furnishings, the lack of indoor plumbing!) by poring over pictures in books and reading about all the minute details. But to see your historical era of choice portrayed in a movie or on a TV series is especially satisfying. Observing the way a particular style of skirt moves when a woman walks or the way her complicated hair arrangement stays in place can be extremely helpful in imagining life for your historical character.

I happen to have chosen an era that occurred after the invention of movies, so I have the advantage of seeing people from 1918 in action. For example, here's a 50-second glimpse at women involved in the YWCA during WWI:



The film is a really short peek at 1918, but like I said, I can see a woman's hairstyle from all angles in this clip, and I can watch the way a female walks in WWI-era clothing.

Furthermore, I currently have the opportunity to watch two different WWI-set dramas made in modern times, both at my local theater and on my TV tonight: War Horse and Downton Abbey. The number of movies set during WWII is staggering, but it's usually really hard to find modern-made tales involving the first world war.

I saw War Horse last week (and sobbed like crazy), and tonight I'll be curling up on my couch, switching on PBS, and traveling to WWI-era Europe, paying attention to everything from the rumble of automobile engines to the way everyone's hats fit on their heads.

My Interview with a Debut 2012 Author & a Query Critique Opportunity

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! It's 2012, which means we'll now get to enjoy the books of The Apocalypsies—a group of YA, MG, and children's book authors debuting this year. I had the pleasure of interviewing one of those writers: Kami Kinard, author of The Boy Project (Notes and Observations of Kara McAllister).

You can read my chat with Kami at
http://thelucky13s.blogspot.com/2012/01/apocalypse-now-interview-with-kami.html.

In other news, Gennifer Albin, author of the upcoming YA novel Crewel, is running an event called Januquery on her blog. She asked us members of the The Lucky 13s to help her critique query letters that people send in, and I'm going to help out. If you have a query letter you'd like to submit for feedback, go to http://blog.genniferalbin.com/2012/01/januquery.html.

My kids are heading back to school on Tuesday, so I'll be wrapping up some goodies over at my Suburban Vampire blog and then diving back into my writing, which has been drastically ignored during the break. I'm also contemplating starting a group blog for debut YA historical novelists, but we'll see if I have time. It's also the start of Girl Scout Cookie season, and I'm the cookie mom, so things are going to get a little insane around here soon. If you hear the muffled cries of a stressed-out writer buried beneath boxes of Thin Mints, that'll be me.

Happy New Year!

P.S. 80% of the people who responded to my December poll said they've had a ghostly image show up in their photographs.