YA Mythbusters

Okay, let's face it--a lot of books and movies don't accurately address teenage life. Like, I, for one, have never hit my head on a chandelier while drunk-dancing, which unfortunately means that I haven't been caught by a conveniently-placed Heath Ledger, either (womp). So let's examine a few of the misconceptions, shall we?

• Bullying isn't as bad as it used to be.
• *DISCLAIMER: My concept of "used to be" is drawn almost exclusively from nineties chick flicks.* Bullying is different, sure. It's needling. In a lot of cases, it's subtle. Lots of passive-aggressiveness, gossping behind backs, snide remarks followed by "Ehmahgawd, I'm just kidding! Lighten up!" Honestly? I've seen two primary kinds of bullying:
• First: within cliques. You fall in with a group of people, and you let them step all over you and talk down to you. So that they'll like you. So that you'll have someone to sit by at lunch. You swallow their crap, you wake up the next morning and do it all over again, and eventually, you forget how to stand up for yourself. Or why you should.
• Second: there are certain kids that a grade or an entire school will mark as "okay" to bully. Maybe they're not good in social situations. Maybe they don't shower as often as everyone else. Maybe the committed some stupid faux pas in middle school and people still won't let go of it. Whatever the reason, these kids get bullied. Their classmates bully them, and the worst part is, they don't recognize it as bullying it. Once, I confronted one of my friends about her stupid comments to a kid in band, and she replied, "Oh, come on. Look at him. He brings it all upon himself." Hell, even the teachers do it.
• Example: there was this story a while ago about a group of kids that voted someone unpopular onto a dance court, and how the school/community wouldn't stand for it. It was a beautiful story, but why was that news? Because it's rare. At my school, they've voted someone unpopular onto basically every dance they've held since my freshman year, and our administration barely even addresses it. It's horrible and disgusting and people don't think twice about playing a prank like that, because your part is so small. One click on the computer next to someone's name. You laugh. They don't. You don't ever think of yourself as the antagonist in a story. We are not villains. We are not heroes. We are hormonal. Sometimes we make mistakes, and sometimes we don't. 

VERDICT: BUSTED

• Cliques aren't as bad as they used to be.
• I have a friend who puts it like this: "They tell us not to label, but we can't help it. We put people in categories--it's biological. We label and then everyone tells us that labeling is bad, so we lie and say that cliques don't exist." To be clear, it isn't like Mean Girls. It isn't like there are the cool Asians and the nerds and the jocks, and no one intermingles. But there are definitely friend groups, and since my school is a very athletic-oriented one, most of them were formed around the teams you were a part of. And there's definitely a social hierarchy.
• But then again, I've heard from friends at bigger schools that say that the social structures aren't as rigid as they used to be. It definitely depends on who you ask.

 VERDICT: I DON'T EVEN KNOW

• Teens are lazy.
• Here is a typical day for me:
• 4:30 a.m. Wake up, write (this has been more sporadic this year, because damn, my bed is comfortable. And you could argue that most teens don't get up to meet a deadline. But a lot of sports teams have morning practices, and some classes are held during zero period. There's not a lot of sleeping in).
• 6:30 a.m. Start getting ready for school: last minute homework, morning routine, etc (this also varies. Like, at the beginning of this year, my morning routine was pretty standard: makeup, hair, and so on. I gave myself a break on No Makeup Mondays and Sweatpants Fridays. Now it's No Makeup Everyday and I'm lucky if I wear real pants twice a week).
• 7:45 a.m. Get to school, go to the coffee shop, etc.
• 7: 55 a.m. - 3:10 p.m. School. There might be a study hall in there if you're lucky.
• 3: 10 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. After-schools. Sports practices (though during tennis season, I rarely get home before seven. On game days, you get home anywhere between 8:30 and 11:30 or later. Games can be on Mondays, Tuesdays, or Thursdays. Except varsity football and boys' basketball, which have games on Fridays). When your sport isn't in season, you might be in the weight room, editing the newspaper, attending open gym, or doing some other extracurricular.
• ALTERNATE: 4:00 p.m. - 9 p.m. (ish): this seems to be a popular work slot for most teens.
• Whenever you get home, you finish everything else that needs to get done. I play piano, and I try to get in an hour or two of practice a day, but that's not always possible. We have two-three hours of Calculus homework 2-3 times a week. Three reading assignments for reading per reading. Spanish vocab tests, economics packets, and a lot of online work for science classes--all in all, anywhere from fifteen minutes to six hours of homework per night. Keep in mind that the six hours of homework could fall on a night on which we don't get home until ten or eleven.
• So you see why it's frustrating when the protagonists in YA literature have no homework to worry about and don't seem to care about anything but their love interests? Jesus. Obviously I'd rather be thinking about Benedict Cumberbatch's cheekbones than conic parametric equations, but I also don't want to fail Calc. So drop some stuff, you suggest. Don't take on more than you can chew. You don't need to be in so many extracurriculars. BS. You do whatever you think it'll take to get into college. You snatch as many leadership positions as you can. You take every AP course even though you don't need most of them for the career you have in mind. And you claw your way along while trying to keep your class rank, in order to get scholarships.

VERDICT: BUSTED

• Teens procrastinate.
• Okay, so the psychologist Roy Baumeister once did this experiment during which he had two groups of students, right? He put one group of students in front of an oven full of baking cookies and gave them a bowl of radishes, saying the could eat as many radishes as they wanted but weren’t allowed to touch the cookies, and left them alone. The second group was allowed to eat as many cookies as they wanted. After thirty minutes, he gave both groups the same math problem. The group that got to eat cookies solved the problem way faster because the first group had already used up their store of mental energy. Willpower is a real thing, guys. After four years with a schedule like the one outlined above, you don’t have a ton of it. You replenish it with a good night of sleep and a good meal, right? But have to skip dinner at least a few times a week and get maybe five hours of sleep. My sleep deck is the goddamn Titanic. And it isn’t just me, it isn’t just because of writing—most of my friends are stressed. Like. I’m sitting here trying to remember if there’s one of us who hasn’t burst into tears at some point during this last year.
• Another thing: all of our teachers, coaches, advisors, etc. tell us to prioritize. So we do. But prioritizing means that something has to come first, right? And everything else has to come after that, and that makes people mad. So prioritize really means this: Put my subject first. My sport. My club. And we’re in a stage of our lives where we really need to be liked, and when a teacher/coach/advisor is unhappy, we take it a lot harder than I think most people realize.

VERDICT: PFFT. EVERYBODY PROCRASTINATES

• Teens are shallow.
• So, I have a love affair with Buzzfeed. But this article pissed me off. At lunch on Friday, my friends and I talked about the gender gap, internalized misogyny, The Handmaid's Tale, and the tendency to fulfill expectations whether we want to or not. After school, we went out for coffee and talked about statutory rape, abortion, tried to figure out our political opinions, and acted out scenes from Frozen.

VERDICT: YOU DECIDE

• And a personal peeve: High school dances are no longer a thing.
• A lot of schools have done away with them due to low attendance, but the low attendance is caused primarily by rules about physical contact. For example, a few of our local schools saw a sharp decline in dance attendance after forbidding grinding. People don't buy tickets because the high school dance becomes more of a middle school formal, wherein you stand in your stupid little gender-segregated circles and jump around in time to the music. Less attendance = fewer tickets sold = less money to hire a DJ and buy decorations = crappy music and crappy decorations = an even small attendance for the next dance. So if schools do away with dances, that's usually why, not because we're too busy snapchatting/Facebooking/Tweeting/etc. But on the other hand, schools that do allow grinding tend to have pretty high attendance numbers. So are high school dances dying out? Should they? Meh.
• Also: Jeez, CNN. Lighten up on the nostalgia. If you want, you can come to my school and relive your prom in our cafeteria, where on dance nights you walk in and smack into an almost-literal wall of heat slide around on the very literally sweat-soaked floors.

VERDICT: BUSTED

What do you guys think? Did I miss anything important? Leave below in the comments, and I'll do another post. Also, what do you guys think of having a Twitter chat about this? YA authors, do you have questions or want to do a fact-check on your contemp manuscripts?

COVER REVEAL (and Nostalgia)!!!!

MY COVER! IT'S MY COVER! ALSO A GIVEAWAY! AND MY COVER! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

http://www.yahighway.com/2014/02/cover-reveal-and-giveaway-falling-into.html?m=1

HUGE thanks to the wonderful people at YA Highway, who not only hosted my cover reveal, but managed to put it together in, like, two freaking hours. If that's not a superpower, I don't know what is. And also to the amazing, AMAZING team at Greenwillow who designed this breathtaking cover. Can we just sit here for a minute and marvel at how amazeballs they are? Because HOLY CRAP THAT COVER.

AND ALSO ginormous thanks to my agent, who played fairy godmother/therapist/shoulder-to-whine-on/superhero/buttsaver this week (and every other week).

NOW GO LOOK AT THAT COVER. GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO!!!!!!!!
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AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH IT'S SO PRETTY I'M GONNA DIE!!!!!

*deep breaths*

Seriously, though. I love everything about it. I love the physics equations in the background, even though I've spent the last few weeks staring at them and realizing that I forgot everything I learned in physics. I love the car falling and the road and the words. I love my name (DO YOU SEE MY NAME IN THE CORNER THERE BECAUSE OH MY GOD MY NAME IS ON A BOOK). And I love love love love LOVE the hand, because it's THE IMAGINARY FRIEND'S HAND!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!

Okay. Okay. So it's actually kind of funny that I'm having my reveal today, because it's exactly one day after the anniversary of my book. That's right. FALLING INTO PLACE sold on February 28, 2013. And in another one hundred and ninety-three days (that's ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-THREE, 19FREAKING3) days, you'll be able to go to your bookstore and, like, TOUCH IT. AND HOLD IT. AND READ IT.

*brain implodes*

The life-changing, panic-inducing, holy-hell-it's-happening text from my agent.

Shameless Self-Promotion

HELLOOOO, INTERNET.

Yes, it's true--I am actually alive. I am actually blogging. I am (hopefully) here to stay this time. Because I've missed you, Internet.

(I just realized that this is my first post of 2014. *stares at calendar* *smacks self*)

Anyway, I'm going to try really super incredibly terribly hard to get back on a blogging schedule, but for today, I thought I'd compile a handy-dandy Here's-What-Amy-Has-Been-Doing-Instead-of-Blogging guide (also known as shameless self-promotion, but shhhhhhh).

I've done some new interviews and guest posts!

- Sometimes Books Don't Sell
- Interview at Brooke Reviews
- Interview at Rachel Russell Books

I have purchase links!

- Barnes & Noble
- Amazon
- Book Depository
- HarperCollins
- Books-A-Million

I have stuff for you to like/add/follow!

- Facebook page
- Goodreads

2013 Recap

Are we absolutely sure that there were 365 days in 2013? Maybe we skipped a month? I demand a recount. I don't want this year to end.

It has been a CRAZY AMAZING year. I can't believe how much has changed since this time last year. I have new interests! I have new friends! I have a friggin' BOOK DEAL with my dream publisher!!! And so first off, I want to thank all of the people without whom my year would have been very, very different: my editor and the rest the team at Greenwillow, my AMAZING agent, my critique partners, friends, family. Thank you, THANK YOU for indulging all of my writing neuroses (and all other neuroses).

The highlight of my year was probably that "Call me, I have good news" text I got from my agent back in February, but some other ones include meeting my agent and editor without looking too idiotic, seeing my cover and bursting into tears in the middle of class (it is SO BEAUTIFUL. I absolutely CANNOT WAIT to share it with you guys), deciding to go to BEA with one of my critique partners, joining the Class of 2K14 and getting to know so many wonderful ladies, and the crabcakes from G&M Restaurant and Lounge in Baltimore.

I think the best book I read this year has to be Wonder by R.J. Palacio. It's a fantastic example of so many things--characterization, POV, voice. It made me laugh and cry and stay up until 3:00 a.m, and I don't regret a minute of it. I also loved Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick, Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson, and Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen.

As for 2014...okay, I admit it--I'm terrified. Some of the most fundamental aspects of my life are going to change next year. Most likely, I'll move halfway across the country. I'll be on my own for the first time in my life. I'll have a book on shelves. But here's the thing--my life changes every year. It changes every day. And change is always terrifying, but I guess all you can do is roll out of bed and put on pants anyway, right? (Ew, pants.)

And lastly, some resolutions: I didn't complete any manuscripts this year, but I started a few and I'm almost done with one. For 2014, I hope to write and revise three novels: MEMENTO MORI, THIS IS WHERE THE WORLD ENDS, and THE STORYWEAVER. I hope to learn more about publicity and marketing. I hope to keep up this blog. I hope to not go completely insane.

Bring it on, 2014.

"BLOGFEST: Class of 2k14 is Thankful For..."

Hey, guys! The Class of 2K14 is doing this blogfest for Thanksgiving. What are you thankful for? Leave it in the comments!

I’m thankful for everyone who has supported my writing—agent, editor, friends, family. I’m thankful for my critique partners, who deserve a category all to themselves. I’m thankful that my book sold to my dream publisher. I’m thankful that I’m debuting with so many amazing people. I’m thankful that this year has given me the opportunity to grow up a little. I’m thankful that this thing called perspective exists. I’m thankful for this line in A Member of the Wedding: “It seems to me I feel the world going around very fast. I feel it turning and it makes me dizzy.”

Most of all, I’m thankful that though my parents often refused to buy me candy or clothes or movies, they never refused to buy me books.

On

Every year, my church holds this pie sale. We go in for a night or two, peel hundreds of apples, make pounds and pounds of crumble topping, and throw food at each other. It would be fun, except we’re not allowed to eat anything—all those pies, DO NOT TOUCH.

Last year, on Annual Pie-Making Day, my novel was rejected at acquisitions. I was crushed. I cried in the car.

This year, I couldn’t stop smiling because my editor had just emailed me, saying that she had read my revision and cried again.

(I like making people cry.)

It’s funny—so much has changed. So much hasn’t. Robert Frost said it best, I think: “In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”

I touched one of the pies tonight. I ate some crumble topping, and it was fantastic. 

Post-Deadline Thoughts

As of 1:14 A.M. October 21st, I have finished my first round of revisions. I have met my first deadline, and it feels unbelievable.

Revising this book was the hardest thing I've ever done. Drafting it had been so simple--the story told itself, poured through my fingertips as if I were only a vessel for it. It is, as my publisher says, a "jigsaw puzzle," and while drafting, the pieces had fallen into place all by themselves, and I had expected revising it to be just as easily.

It didn't, of course. Because the book is told in a non-linear fashion, I couldn't move a scene without changing two scenes before it and three scenes that followed. I would try to make subtle revisions, a nudge here, a shift there, and everything would fall apart, and I would sit curled on my floor with my laptop cast among the circle of charts and revision plans and the pages of my edit letter, thinking about all that could go wrong, all that was going wrong. I thought about all that homework piling up and all of that college stuff I hadn't touched yet. I thought about the thirty, forty, fifty chapters of my book I had yet to edit. I thought about all of the chapters from contests that I had yet to critique and all those manuscripts from my internship that I had yet to read.

Basically, I sat there and whimpered. Cried. Sent panicky, all-caps emails to just about everyone--critique partners, non-writer friends, teachers, my agent. Cried some more, thinking about marketing and publicity and how I didn't know how to do any of it. A bit more, imagining all of the bad reviews I was sure to get. And then some more, because there was so much to do, and I would have more time to do if I would stop bawling.

Today, of all days, I should have had a breakdown. I had noticed a pattern--they usually came during the ungodly hours of Monday morning, surprise, start off the week strong! Today (well, yesterday, really) was the last day before my deadline, and I wasn't finished with my final read-through. It was a perfect opportunity to eat chocolate and cry, and I was ready to, when I was suddenly struck by what an incredible thing it was for me to be stressed at all.

I was stressing over turning in my manuscript on time to my dream publisher. My editor brought some of my favorite books, books that I've grown up with, into the world--she had made it possible for me to fall in love with these characters and peek into their distant lands and take them with me, between covers designed by people who were now working on my cover, copyedited by people who were combing my manuscript for mistakes, loved by a team that was now taking an enormous risk by loving my book as well.

It's two in the morning. I am exhausted, sleep-deprived, barely aware of what I'm typing, and I am the happiest person in the world.

Sh*t People Say to Writers

Last Sunday, my local newspaper wrote a story about me...and my writing...and stuff. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know that I used to be very, very secretive about writing. I never talked about it. So this week was WEIRD and awkward and generally hard for me, but on the bright side, I FINALLY get to write this post! I've always wanted to. :)

So you wrote a book?

Actually, I've written five novel-length works. The first one will never, ever see the light of day. I queried the second one and found my agent with it (YAY!), but it never made it past acquisitions. I also wrote a (very bad) sequel to it that clocked in around 200K (LOLZ). I wrote a standalone Norse-inspired fantasy about wolves and hot chocolate and losing your first love, which I'm planning to revise. Then I wrote this one, which sold. And I'm currently working on a few projects--

Like, a novel? Fiction or nonfiction? Wait, what are you doing? Why are you poking me?

I'm trying to edit your redundancy, but your "delete" button seems to be broken.

How many pages is your fiction novel?

OH MY--*breathes* never mind. And I don't know. 51,000 words. Ish.

What is your book about?

(via Title To Come)

BONUS: What is your book about (old church ladies edition)

It's about fornication and drinking and drugs and abortion and basically what your grandson/granddaughter does on weekends, except I'm not going to tell you that because I'm afraid you'll have a literal heart attack.

Childhood, ma'am. It's about childhood and growing up. *insert smile and innocent head-tilt*

So how much did you have to, like, pay for them to publish this book?

Actually, in traditional publishing, the publishing house gives you money for the--

What?! How much did you make?

Good question. Would you like to know how much I weigh, too?

Dude, I wish I had the time to write a book.

What? What is this time thing that you speak of?

What's your book called?

Um, I can't tell you right now. I went through a title change, and the new title is still confidential. Hopefully I can share soon, though!

Whatever. You just don't want us to buy it, do you?

I actually really, really want you to buy it, because your money will trickle down to me. And I do like money an awful lot.

Okay, so can I read it now?

But you need someone to read it! What if it sucks?

Gee, that isn't the stuff of my nightmares or anything.

Am I in your book?

Oh, honey. Would I really tell you if you were?

Can I be in your next book?

Sure. I'll kill you brutally within the opening pages. I'll even let you choose your own method of death. Sound good? (but if I DO put you in a book and you don't like what you read, remember this conversation, kay? xoxoxo).

Well, can I be in the movie?

On the teensy chance that they make a movie...no.

Do you know J.K. Rowling?

Yup. We had lunch the other day.

Why did you write a book about suicide? You're not suicidal, are you?

No, but once I wrote a fantasy about a world at war and a girl who kills people, and I'm not homicidal.

Yet.

I'd like to write a novel. How does it work? Can you tell your publisher to buy my book?

Well. I can tell you that it DOESN'T work like that. First you have to write a novel and edit the unmerciful suck out of it. And after it's nice and pretty and polished, you have to slug through the query trenches and hope you find an agent who loves it enough to sub it for you, and then you have to hope that an editor loves it enough to invest money and time and tears and sweat and passion into it.

Okay...so--

NO, I CANNOT TELL MY PUBLISHER TO BUY YOUR NONEXISTENT BOOK.

So...YA magical realism? That's like Twilight, isn't it?

Why won't you answer any of our questions? You won't even tell us what the title is. Stop being so stuck up about it.

Eek! I don't mean to come off that way--but I've never really talked about my writing with people, and this makes me feel so incredibly uncomfortable that I've pretty much depleted what little social ability I have. But I really can't tell you the title!

Geez, you talk about this so often. You sound so stuck up.

But--YOU ASKED! I don't mean to sound stuck up! But this is something I'm genuinely and overwhelmingly happy about, and I'm sorry if I'm doing something to make you misinterpret this. But I AM proud of myself, I DO love writing, and sometimes it's hard not to smile like an idiot about it.

The Next Big Thing Meme

The fabulous Lori M. Lee tagged me for this one! I'm going to cheat a bit and tell you about both my about-to-be-published book and my WIP, because ERMAHGERD, guys, I'm so excited for both of them. Okay? Okay.

(Side note: those of you who have added my book on Goodreads, THANK YOU, but that isn't the official Goodreads page. My publisher didn't make it. And whoever did mixed me up with another author, so...yeah. Not me. I'll let you guys know when there's a book to add--it'll be around the time that I get to share my title with all of you!)

1. WHAT IS THE WORKING TITLE OF YOUR NEXT BOOK?

Still can't tell! But I CAN tell you that I submitted it as FOR EVERY LIFE, which is a reference to Newton's Third Law of Motion, and I CAN tell you that the title of my WIP is MEMENTO MORI, which is Latin for "remember you will die." Mori is also the name of my protagonist (who's dying. Shocker, huh?)

2. WHERE DID YOUR IDEA 

FOR 

THE BOOK 

COME FROM?

UNTITLED (we'll just call it that for now--isn't it easier?) actually began as two short stories--one about an abandoned imaginary friend, and one about a girl who tries to commit suicide. UNTITLED is their lovechild. I'm not sure where the ideas for the two original short stories came from, but I knew there was a connection between them and I knew I wanted to develop that connection into a full-length novel.

MEMENTO, on the other hand, has been sitting in the back of my mind for...a year? Two? I don't remember where the idea came from, or when I got it, but I remember thinking, "I have to write this story. I have to." 

3. IN WHAT GENRE DOES YOUR BOOK FALL?

UNTITLED is YA contemporary with a touch of magical realism. MEMENTO is YA contemporary with a touch of ice cream (or a lot of ice cream).

4. WHAT ACTORS WOULD YOU CHOOSE TO PLAY THE PART OF YOUR CHARACTERS IN THE MOVIE RENDITION?

Something about UNTITLED: there are no descriptions of the character's appearances. None. I want people to be able to see themselves in Liz and Kennie and Julia. I want them to be able to see their friends. I want the characters to be anyone, everyone. So no actors :)

As for MEMENTO....I don't know I'm just really bad with actors and stuff okay LEAVE ME ALONE

5. WHAT IS THE ONE-SENTENCE SYNOPSIS OF YOUR BOOK?

UNTITLED is about a girl who tries to end her short and catastrophic attempt at life, told from the perspective of her abandoned imaginary friend.

MEMENTO MORI is about a girl with half an immune system, a boy with half of his muscles, a cat named Schrödinger, and the road trip they take to solve the paradox of life.

6. WHO IS PUBLISHING YOUR BOOK?

UNTITLED is coming out in fall of 2014 from Greenwillow/HarperCollins. MEMENTO MORI is not currently under contract.

7. HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO WRITE THE FIRST DRAFT OF THE MANUSCRIPT?

I wrote the first draft of UNTITLED during NaNoWriMo 2012--so, a month. I'm actually super proud of that, mostly because November was a rough month for me, and I was under word count the entire time. I managed to pound out something like 13K in the last two days. Then I revised for about two months, and it sold the following February.

As for MEMENTO...well. I've been drafting for the last four months or so, and I have about another 15K to go.

8. WHAT OTHER BOOKS WOULD YOU COMPARE YOUR STORY TO WITHIN YOUR GENRE?

UNTITLED: BEFORE I FALL meets THIRTEEN REASONS WHY

MEMENTO: Hmmm....I'm not sure. My CP says it reminds him a bit of THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, except, you know, far less AMAZEBALLS.

9. WHO OR WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE THIS BOOK?

"Isn't this basically the same as question #2?"

Lori's answer, which I'm seconding. 

10. WHAT ELSE ABOUT THE BOOK MIGHT PIQUE THE READER’S INTEREST?

UNTITLED is told by an imaginary friend, which opened up these incredible options for the story. The story is actually told in a non-linear fashion--there are three main times: a countdown from seven days before Liz crashes her car, a countdown of the hour before Liz crashes her car, and the day after Liz crashes her car. And there's a chapter with eleven words. I love that chapter.

In MEMENTO, Mori has written letters to the dead for as long as she can remember, and the book is actually her last notebook of letters. Among the addressees: Maurice Sendak, Gregory Peck, Nannerl Mozart, Georgiana Cavendish, and, of course, Schrödinger. I really love playing around with narration (have you noticed?)

I'm tagging fellow Greenwillow author Chessie Zappia, whose book ASK AGAIN LATER sounds totally amazefrackingballs and Mark O'Brien, because he's working on this new MS that I want everyone to be excited about. Take it away, guys!

Life After THE DEAL

It seems like all of my blog posts are prefaced by "ERMAHGERD SORRY I HAZ NOT POSTED IN FOREVER" now.

But yes, I'm back. Hopefully?

So why the hiatus this time? A lot has been happening. We've decided on a title for my BOOK (I still get this stupid little grin on my face every time I say it), so hopefully I can share it with you soon! With revisions forthcoming and my spectacular talent for procrastination, the end of summer has devolved into a mad rush of holy crap holy crap I don't even know where to start working and ugly crying.

Oh, yeah, and I forgot how to write.

I think, as writers, we tend to view a deal as a climax. It's when the prince defeats the dragon and demonstrates a fetish for unconscious women, and all that's left is the happily ever after. Which, on the other side of the climax, is kind of a horrifying idea, because it means that we've already peaked.

It's ridiculous, of course. And I told myself so as I sat, day after day, in front of a manuscript that, all of a sudden, was impossible to write. And not just the manuscript--blog posts, interviews, essays. I couldn't WORDS.

I tried taking a break. I watched all three seasons of Downton Abbey in a weekend and got to level fifty in Candy Crush Saga and devoted, like, twelve hours a day to Pinterest. And then I sat down and tried to write again and the words just wouldn't come.

So I'm (hopefully) on the tail end of the worst writing schlump of my life, and I'm still terrified that I've depleted my quota of reasonable writing ability, terrified that I've peaked, terrified that I will never write anything decent again, terrified about what this says about me as a writer, terrified about what this means about the future. I'm terrified that the book I've already written won't sell and everyone will hate it and I'll have to dye my hair purple and get a new nose and become an alpaca farmer to escape the shame.

I know it's silly. I know I'll get over this eventually. But right now I'm terrified, and that's okay. Because writing isn't easy and that's why we can't stop. Because sometimes we end a story and have to take a deep breath, because endings are frightening and transitions are hard. Because our characters can have happily ever afters and all of my friends are dead endings, but we can't. We have tomorrows. And it's okay to be afraid of them.

...but existential crises still suck.

Class of 2K14 Website Launch

More exciting news! I'm a part of the Class of 2K14, and today is the launch of our website! *throws confetti*

We're a group of twenty YA and MG debut authors with books that range from historical to contemporary to sci-fi. In particular, we target booksellers, librarians, and teachers (BLTs!), and we try to get some fantabulous books in the hands of readers. There are some CRAZY amazing people in this group, guys, so make sure you keep an eye out for the books.

The website features the authors, the books, opportunities for author visits, and information for BLTs, including fortchoming discussion guides and other curricular materials (the wonderful Addie Degenhardt is making mine! It's SO EXCITING because all of this seems so REAL now! I'm abusing exclamation points again!). There will be TONS of giveaways in coming months, including monthly ones of the Class of 2K13's books, but for the launch, we're giving away...a $100 gift card to the book retailer of your choice!

One. Hundred. Dollars. For. Books. You know you want it.

NOW GO CHECK IT OUT!!!

And make sure you also check out our Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Goodreads page!

ALL. THE. FEELS. (Part II)

Part DOS:

After the phone call, I went to lunch and flailed and I'm sure other things happened, but I was drunk on happiness and honestly don't remember very much of it. I called my agent as soon as I got home to figure out the finer points of EVERYTHING, and I finally figured out that the offer was a pre-empt, and I had to give an answer like, yesterday.

It was all a bit hectic because my phone was acting up and the connection was crappy and I was barely at home all day because of prior commitments (stupid prior commitments). Everything was happening INSANELY fast, and I was still giddy and my sanity was questionable, so I wanted a second opinion (or a number of them) on the offer before I accepted (but HOLY CRAP AN OFFER I WANT IT GIMME NAO), so I talked with my family and my agent--

(Okay, I need to take a minute and gush about how fantabulous Emily Keyes is. You guys have no idea how much of my flailing she's had to put up with in these last few months. Emily, THANK YOU for believing in my writing and being the bestest agent a girl could ever ask for :)

--and the amazing Louise Fury, who all gave me wonderful advice, and at the end of the very hectic, badly-connected, most wonderfulicious phone call EVER, I accepted the deal.

(I really did this, but about 1/100000th as gracefully).

The next day, I got to talk to Virginia Duncan over email. She was lovely and enthusiastic, and the best part? GUYS. SHE SAID SHE LOVED MY BOOK. SHE SAID SHE WAS THRILLED TO BE WORKING WITH IT. AND ME.

ME.

Except I was mostly too starstruck to form intelligible responses.

And we talked about revisions and the contract and the FUTURE, and it was so wonderfully wonderful that I have honestly stared at the screen for about ten minutes trying to figure out how to describe it, except I. Cannot. Describe. My. Feelz.

So what happened after that? Why didn't you guys get to hear my news sooner? Why all of my mysterious tweets and hints in the last four months? Something got in the way, Internet.

THE LAW.

See, apparently being a minor causes all sorts of silly problems, like not being able to sign a contract or receiving more than a certain amount of money without court-appointed Fancyschmancy Guardians of My Estate or Something (and no one would hop on my anarchy bandwagon. I mean, no law = no messy litigation things, amirite? JUST KIDDING. Anarchy is bad, boys and girls) I...am still relatively unclear as to what happened because it was all narrated in fancy lawyer lingo. Basically I needed a lawyer and my parents needed a different lawyer, and we went to court  and I tripped in front of the judge and almost fell on my face.

And then finally, FINALLY, I could tell all of your wonderful faces my news (I think I've said "wonderful" about a thousand times in this post, but guys. GUYS. It was all so wonderful and you are all wonderful and cheese is wonderful). SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so, so, SO unbelievably excited that you guys will get to read my ickle-widdle-squishy baby manuscript. I loved writing it, I love the story, I love the characters, and I hope you will, too. I still haven't completely wrapped my head around the idea that in just over a year, people will actually be able to like, HOLD IT. AND READ IT. I feel crazy-lucky that I have this opportunity, and crazy-luckier that I've been surrounded by absolutely INCREDIBLE people through this thing (looking at you, Mark, John, Ari, and Olivia <= BEST CPs IN THE WORLD).

So...thank you. All of you. For caring what I have to say. :) xoxoxoxoxoxox

(P.S. I ultimately decided not to make start another Rafflecopter giveaway, but in celebration of Part Dos, I've added another prize to the first giveaway. It's a fancyschmancy wall hanging like this:

which I will make with a quote of your choice and send in addition to the two YA books of your choice and a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Writer's Inspiration) SO GO ENTER!!!! :D

ALL. THE. FEELS. (Part I)

Hi, Internet. HI.

There are some important questions we must address today. Why hasn't Amy blogged in a month (actually, this has nothing to do with today, so IT CAN WAIT)? Why the faux-calm and creepy smile? Why is she acting even more freakish than normal?!

Well, Internet. Let me tell you.

MY BOOK, FOR EVERY LIFE, HAS SOLD TO VIRGINIA DUNCAN OF GREENWILLOW/HARPERCOLLINS!!!!!!!!!!

Here's the PM announcement:



And PW Children's Bookshelf (it's my deal! And my face! My deal! My face!)



AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What exactly happened, you ask? (Please ask). WELL...

A lot, actually. So, this is going to be the first of two blog posts about ZE BOOK DEAL (I'm beaming at my computer screen like an idiot), which means...TWO POSTS CRAMMED WITH .GIFS. TWO GIVEAWAYS. TWO TIMES THE EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!

Okay. Let's TALK.

Some of you might remember that for a while, I blogged constantly about FOR EVERY LIFE. And then I took like, a two month hiatus from blogging. What was happening? I revised. I felt good about this manuscript--I really did. I was so excited to start subbing it, and finally on February 25, the only acceptable Monday in the history of Mondays, my agent emailed me saying that my ickle-snugglykins baby manuscript was officially READY. She sent me the list of editors she was going to sub to, and basically I saw it and died.

And so I waited.

And then I waited some more.

And then there was still nothing and I was like, THEY HATE IT.

...Then it was the next day, and I had to get up and function like a normal human being, which was practically the definition of cosmic cruelty.

BUT THEN. I got an email from my agent saying that editors had requested the manuscript! And they were asking questions! And one of them wanted to know what my inspiration was! And I had to come up with something! Like, RTFN! There wasn't even time for fainting!

The next day, more editors asked for information about me (me! They wanted to know about me! Like I was interesting! And it was a snow day!), and my agent told me that she had given them my blog address. And I entered an obligatory panic attack because, hello, I don't inhibit my stupid on this blog.

So I sat around and bit my fingernails and ate my refrigerator.

And then it was Thursday. There I was, sitting in class, and...my phone started vibrating. But I figured it was the library calling again to ask where my overdue library books were (oops)...except then I got a text, and it was from my agent saying she had good news.

GOOD NEWS? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?! I had to wait a whole FIFTEEN MINUTES to go to my independent study and call her back.

Here's basically how that conversation went:

Agent Emily: So Greenwillow! Book deal!

Me: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Emily: Amy, breathe--

Me: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Emily: DO YOU NEED A PAPER BAG

Me: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I AM GOING TO BE AN AUTHOR! MY BOOK IS GOING TO BE PUBLISHED BY MY DREAM PUBLISHER. GUYS.

OKAY. Okay. I've abused enough exclamation points already, so let me tell you about the first giveaway. What do you get? TWO YA books of your choice and ONE copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for Writers!

And come back on Saturday (at which time I will hopefully have calmed down) for the rest of the story and the second giveaway!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I LOVE YOU ALL FOR PUTTING UP WITH MY EXCLAMATION POINTS! <3

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway!

GUYS. Guess what arrived this week?

 

SQUEEEE!!!!!!! You know what this means? GIVEAWAY TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

It's an awesome collection of stories for writers at any stage, and mine just happens to be about the way I started writing. So, to enter this giveaway: In the comments, briefly tell me about how you started writing. You can earn an extra entry if you tweet about it! Next Sunday, I'll put all of your beautiful names in a hat and the winner gets a copy! Yay! (U.S. only, please. I'm a poor high school student).

 

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *dances* *trips* *twitches on ground*

EDIT: Contest is now closed! The winner is Deserae McGlothen! Deserae, please find my email under the Contact tab and give me your address. :D :D :D



I Keep Forgetting to Blog About This... *cue belated confetti*

One day last summer, I was bored (okay, let's face it--I was bored almost every day last summer, but it just happened that this particular day's boredom led to something less boring), so I started Googling random things, and eventually this led to the search, "writing contests." I was in between manuscripts, so I figured that I'd write a few short stories or something (maybe. Fine, I don't actually really remember much...). I ended up finding a call for submissions for Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for Writers. So I wrote an essay. And I submitted it. And then I went back to watching reruns of Friends.

 

A few months ago, I got an email during Physics that said that my essay had been accepted for publication. I had to read the email twice because a) I was simultaneously trying to take notes on Bernoulli's Principle or something, b) it took me a minute to remember what this was about, having completely forgotten that I had submitted anything at all. Once I did remember, I flailed and accidentally-on-purpose slapped my friend in the arm. She slapped me back.

 

But then other things happened, our teachers began throwing homework at us like possessed dodgeballers (I've never been good at dodgeball, okay?), and between it all, I kind of forgot about it again until I got an email a few days ago for publicity info and other exciting things. Soooo, without further ado...

 

Here's the cover!

And here's the Table of Contents (LOOK AT MY NAME :D)

And here's the first page of my essay (this is all from Amazon's Look Inside feature)...

 

(I know, the title kind of bothers me now. When I was writing it last summer, I wanted to show that I am both a teenager and a writer, but now I'm afraid that people will see it as another "teen author" thing. Ah, well. My name! Is on that page! Also, isn't the quote amazingorgeous?!)

And here's my bio!

 

(Such a lie. I text all the time. And tweet. And email. And play Fruit Ninja.

You can buy it here (B&N), or here (Amazon), or here (Chicken Soup). Also, Goodreads! I'll be doing a giveaway sometime in the next few months, so stay tuned!