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. 

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.

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.

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!



I am Not a Teen Writer

I am a writer.

I sit curled in corners with my laptop balanced on my knees, the keyboard chattering beneath my fingers, a story spilling onto my screen. I strain my eyes squinting at my dim computer screen in the ungodly hours of morning. I stay up into the even ungodlier hours of night trying to patch up plot holes or developing characters or figuring out what to say to Oprah when she asks me to be in her book club.

I am a teenager.

I waste money on clothes I don't need (also at Cherry Berry, because what's the world without frozen yogurt?). I procrastinate. I have a microwave and a goldfish in our editing room for the school newspaper, both of which are strictly prohibited by the school. I do stupid things. I go to Walmart with my friends, and we race each other in shopping carts. I pull all-nighters before exams. I worry about college. I'm afraid of responsibility.

I am a writer. I am a teenager. But I am not a teen writer.

We don't call 30-year old writers "adult writers" (I mean, unless they write for adults, but THAT DOESN'T COUNT). We don't call 50-year olds "middle-aged writers." We don't call 70-year old writers "senior writers." But we're free with the "teen writer" label, and too often, that label is associated with phrases like, they took pity on you.  Or they want to use your age as a marketing strategy. Or you're good, for your age.

Listen up. I don't want to be good for my age.

I want to write. I want to get better. I want other people to read the manuscript I've spent hundreds of hours working on. I want what every other writer wants.

I'm not saying that my age doesn't matter--it does, because being sixteen affects me every bit as much as being a writer does. But being sixteen doesn't make me less of a writer. Being a writer doesn't make me less of a teenager.

We are writers. We don't measure ourselves in years, or successes, or failures. We measure ourselves in words. In drafts. In revisions. In the mistakes we learned from. In the stories we promised to tell.

I am not a teen writer. I'm just a writer.

Why I Write

I have a confession to make. Last week, our AP English teacher told us to write a "Why I Write" post as homework. Well, I kind of forgot to do it, and ended up reposting my "This is Why" post on my school blog. I know, I'm a terrible person.

So, this week, I'm (finally) writing my "Why I Write" post.

*clears throat*

Um.

...

...........

I don't know.

I don't know why I write. I write because I breathe. I write because I have to. I write because I don't know how to stop.

Maybe I write because I'm a narcissist. Or maybe I write because I doubt myself. Maybe neither. Maybe both (probably both). Maybe it's just that I love that letters make words and words, stories. Or that I love beautiful things, and a story is the most beautiful thing of all.

Maybe I write because there are too many worlds and not enough bridges. Because there are many chasms and many faults, many directions to go and many reasons to run away. Because I'm a dreamer. Because when I jump, I do so knowing that I might fall flat on my face. But maybe I write because I know that I may also fly.

Maybe I write because my head is full of doors, otherworlds, caged stories. There are so many stories to tell, so many beating hearts, so many breaths and bodies and lives. Maybe I write because I can't resist the lure of motion, or maybe because I'm afraid of passing moments and oblivion. Maybe I write because I don't want to let go.

Maybe I write because I'm insane and writing makes me more insane and less insane and embrace insanity. Maybe I write because the sound of tapping keys organizes my confusion, quiets my neuroticism and obsessiveness and nerves, makes my fear of failure a very small and silly thing.

Maybe I write to remind myself that I'm not alone, that I'm not the only person on the planet who is sad or lonely or afraid, that we all have hidden tears and fake smiles. Maybe I write to give myself a voice, a place, a name, a reason, a choice.

I don't know why I write. I don't know why I started. All I know is that I do write, that I will always write, that I love to write. And that's what matters.

The One That Could Have Been

If you caught the Friends reference in the title, be my lobster.

Anyway.

Between finals and SATs and revising and interning, the last two weeks were probably among the most hectic of my life. So, while running around and studying and reading and missing the deadline for tennis leagues and forgetting to practice piano and trying to boost my SAT score up another thirty points and doing homework and desperately searching for time to revise, I found myself wondering if my life would have be easier if I hadn't started writing. I wondered what it would have been like.

I came up with this.

***

Amy Zhang is a small and rather clueless junior with a love of books. In the morning, she gets up after hitting the snooze button 3.4 times (on average, that is--her most recent career interest is statistical analysis), gets dressed, and goes to school. She has maintained her class rank, due to the fact that she has nothing better to do in AP Chemistry than listen. She actually takes notes in her notebook instead of scribbling ideas and worldbuilding details in the margins. Her Physics grade is in good shape, because she is also considering a major in civil engineering (not that she knows what civil engineers do. She just thinks it sounds cool).

When she meets with her counselor to discuss her future, she lists off a few other careers she's thinking about and tries very hard to ignore the fact that she isn't quite suited to any of them. Math and science are her strengths; that's what everyone has always told her, so it must be true. Sure, she likes reading, but she can't exactly read for a living. Or at least, she had never heard of such a career. Anyway, her AP English grade is wobbling; she only took this class so she could write it on her college application. Her mind obviously isn't meant for literature. Her world is made of numbers and lines, and creativity is a childish thing.

After she goes home, she does her homework and plays piano, and then she reads, because frankly, she doesn't have much else to do. Writing is a mystery to her, authors are distant and mystical figures, and she is only vaguely aware of the existence of a publishing industry. She digs through an old box out of boredom and comes across an old notebook. It's mostly empty. The first few pages hold a story with no end, and she smiles because she was once silly enough to try to turn her imagination into a tangible thing.

***

The fact that I was thisclose to living that reality scares the hell out of me. There's a line, I think, between writing and being a writer, and when you cross it, there's no going back. You don't write, you are a writer. Words become a desperately, irrevocably living part of you. Don't ignore them. Don't abandon them. Write until your fingers are brittle and your heart is raw with all the stories you've told. Write until your words are greater than your doubts. Just write.

(Also, what would you guys have been doing if you hadn't started writing? Share! I'm curious :)

2012 Recap

Here’s a secret: I hate New Year’s Eve, for three reasons: 1) For the first six months, my dates are always wrong, 2) January always feels like an enormously long Monday, and 3) I always look back and feel all down because I hadn’t accomplished all of the things I’d wanted to accomplish that year. So…I wrote this to prove to myself that I didn’t spend the entire year lying on the couch watching Big Bang Theory.

January: Made a New Year’s resolution to sign with an agent this year. Began re-querying my YA fantasy, WILDFLOWER. Sent nine queries, received four full requests. Fell out of my chair during Global Studies upon receiving a request from an awesome agent just ten days later.

February: Officially signed with the wonderful Emily Keyes of the L. Perkins Agency on the 23^rd. Started revising WILDFLOWER for subs.

March: Made a twitter and this blog. Tried to balance revising, school, and extracurriculars with arguable success.

April: Finished revising WILDFLOWER…but it came in at almost 125K. Started working on another round of revisions with the sole purpose of cutting words.

May: Struck up a conversation regarding BEA, fake boobs, and man purses on Twitter, and irrevocably became writing friends with John, Ari, Olivia, and Mark. Started the For Love of YA blog with my wonderful critique partner/soulmate/brother-from-another-mother, Mark.

June: Took exams, finished up sophomore year, went to a few graduation parties, did some other generally stupid things to celebrate the start of summer vacation, like getting kicked out of Walmart for pushing my friend Noah down the isles at four in the morning, which, apparently, is frowned upon. Finished another round of revisions for WILDFLOWER and managed to cut 20,000 words. Started discussing subs, which was super exciting. Turned sixteen. Realized that I really, really needed to find the time to take Driver’s Ed, because all evidence suggested that I would be the last person in my grade to get my license. Ended up become very apathetic towards the subject as the month went on. Continued mooching rides off friends.

July: Got a marketing internship with Entangled Publishing, which I was truly terrible at. Wrote a novel about wolves and stars and hot chocolate. Officially sent WILDFLOWER out on subs. A few houses requested the manuscript. Then, on the 25^th, I got an email while wandering through Walmart titled “Don’t Freak Out,” saying that a senior editor at Harlequin wanted to take it to acquisitions. Naturally, I freaked out. Actually, I almost fell over. A Walmart employee caught me and asked me if I was okay in a very Oh-crap-this-child-is-insane kind of way. I hugged her. And then ran away.

August: Became an intern for Pam van Hylckama Vlieg of Larsen Pomada. Read some full requests, loved being on the other side of the querying process. Waited for the acquisitions meeting. Made the varsity team for tennis. Realized that real-life-summer-vacation wasn’t nearly as long as Phineas and Ferb’s summer vacation, frantically tried to finish AP homework.

September: Got kicked off the varsity team for tennis, which was…sad (meh. I still lettered, so I’m still putting it on college applications). Started junior year with a totally screwed up schedule, tried taking Pre-Calc as an independent study (which was a total fail), ended up having to take it as an online course. Assumed the editor-in-chief position for our school newspaper, published our first issue (which was so awfully awful it was just awful…but we figured out what to do by the second issue). Realized that taking AP Chemistry was probably one of the worst decisions that I had ever made. WILDFLOWER received its first rejection. I moped. Found out that the editor at Harlequin got called to jury duty, so the acquisitions meeting had been moved back yet again.

October: Found out that another senior editor at Harlequin had expressed interest in WILDFLOWER, and that both would take it to the board. Got an official date for the acquisitions meeting, which was later cancelled because of Hurricane Sandy. Signed up and outlined for NaNo. Got a phone call at six in the morning saying that a boy in my grade had died in a car accident, almost quit NaNo because the novel I’d planned to write was about a car crash, and I didn’t think I could handle it emotionally.

November: Received the news that the board at Harlequin ultimately decided to pass on WILDFLOWER. Could not find enough chocolate to smother the sobby feels. Decided to participate in NaNoWriMo because I was tired of moping. Didn’t sleep very much. Was bribed into going Black Friday shopping, which was…terrifying. Finished my YA contemp, FOR EVERY LIFE, on November 30^th.

December: Sent FOR EVERY LIFE off to my agent and critique partners, who all seemed to really like it. Started talking about subbing it. Had a mild life crisis regarding what to do with my life. Spent winter break studying for the SATs, revising FOR EVERY LIFE, and trying to watch all ten seasons of Friends. Wrote this blog post. Am currently realizing that I have not, in fact, wasted an entire year of my life doing nothing of importance.

In all seriousness, this was a great year. I wrote, I read, I made friends, and honestly, I'm so, so thankful for all of you. So...happy New Year’s Eve, everyone!

Writer's Block

Hi, guys! So, first of all, I got interviewed by the wonderful Patrice Cadwell this week! Check it out here.

So anyway, I have writer's block a lot. Like, seriously. A lot. Usually when a) I'm feeling lazier than usual, b) I'm Twitterpated, or c) I don't understand a character's emotions. So, like, 58.23% of the time.

Writing is about translating emotions into words. And it's hard. Sometimes, you just don't connect with your characters. You don't understand what they're going through. You just have a picture of your main character in your head, standing on a cliff and looking out at an endless sea called Mourning. You can see the wind shoving her hair into her eyes, and you can see the way she digs her fingernails into her palms and pretends that she's okay with being lonely. But the words don't come. Because seriously, what is she really feeling? What is she thinking? Why is she so afraid to cry?

So, when I have writer's block, I play piano. More specifically, I write music for my manuscripts. I think I've mentioned this briefly in other places, but I've always been too lazy/awkward/shy to put anything I've written on the wonderfully wondrous web. I wrote the following YouTube clip while I was revising my newest manuscript, tentatively titled BENEATH THE DISQUIET STAR, and honestly, it helped me me fix like, three plot holes.

So, how about you guys? How do you get over writer's block? 

Be Inspired Blogshop Meme!

Hiya, everyone! This week, the lovely Silent Pages at Pro(B)logue tagged me for the Be Inspired Blogshop Meme! *cue confetti* Yay! So, I was trying to figure out which project to do this about, but then school started and I got distracted by the fact that 5 x 5 = 30 in Chemistry and my schedule was screwed up and I didn't have pre-calc first semester, and I totally forgot about this until last night. So. I think I'm going to do this one about the MS on subs right now. Because. I can't stop thinking about subs. So.

1. What is the name of your book?

WILDFLOWER

2. Where did the idea for your book come from?

Hmm. Let's see. I was on a mission trip when I first got the idea for WILDFLOWER. It was in the mountains of Arizona, and it was dry and hot and my nose was constantly bleeding and I was dehydrated and there was only one toilet between twenty-five girls and it's highly possible that I was hallucinating slightly. I was lying awake in the middle of the night and someone was snoring across the room, and I was trying really, really hard to fall asleep because we had to wake up at four. See, when I need to fall asleep, I do this thing were I imagine things. By then, I'd already written one (very terrible) manuscript, and I think I'd been considering a revision when suddenly, this boy with a scar appeared in my head and told me that he had a story.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep much that night.

3. In what genre would you classify your book?

Definitely YA Fantasy.

4. If you had to pick actors to play your characters in a movie rendition, who would you choose?

Erm...I...dunno...I think maybe Ian Somerhalder for my MMC, Aro, because he has that arrogant, secretive look. Only, his jaw is too extreme. As for my FMC, Faye, I really don't know. Hmm. I'll have to think about that one.

5. Give us a one-sentence synopsis of your book.

In a world where everyone carries knives, Faye knows she should never be surprised to be stabbed in the back--until she's captured by Aro, a quiet, enigmatic soldier from the enemy kingdom who makes her realize that keeping her heart locked away won't be enough to save her life.

6. Is your book already published?

Sigh. It's still on subs. You guys will know if anything happens. I promise.

7. How long did it take you to write your book?

Well, it took me just about three months to write the first draft. I rewrote and revised thirteen times, though. So, all in all, about a year and a half.

8. What other books within your genre would you compare it to? Or, readers of which books would enjoy yours?

Well...hrmmm...I think it could be compared to Kristin Cashore's Graceling and Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief, because it's set in a similar world. Like, epic-ish fantasy without the dragons and elves, y'know? Make sense? No?

9. Which authors inspired you to write this book?

E.B. White, who wrote the first book that ever made me cry. J.K. Rowling, who made me fall in love with words. Lemony Snicket, who taught me that letters, when they are arranged correctly, have the power to break your heart. Frances Hodges Burnett, who taught me to see the beauty between the lines. L. M. Montgomery, who made me laugh when I was alone. And then there are the authors who made me want to keep writing...I could go on forever.

10. Tell us anything that might pique our interest in your book.

I drew a map for it once! Wanna see? I posted it once a long time ago, but I'll paste it again. It's not the most recent version, but...hey, this is the land where the story takes place. :)

11. Tag five people!

Mark O'Brien, my fantabulous critique partner, who's writing this new story that is so beautiful and emotional and GAHHHH-inducing I just. Can't. Even.

John Hansen, who's writing a new sci-fi that sounds absolutely wonderful.

Ari Susu-Mago, because she rocks AWL TEH SOCKS OFF.

And...I don't know who else to tag. Everyone I was going to tag was already tagged earlier this week :\ So...have some cumin. Love y'all!

Summer Highlights

Guys. GUYS. You know what today is? It's the last Saturday before school starts on Tuesday. LAST. SATURDAY. Sad story, ain't it? So that's why I've been mysteriously absent for the last few weeks. I WAS blogging, just for AP English instead of here.

ERGH. Teachers don't let you sit in a closet all day and write. Can you imagine? Sooooo not looking forward to it...so, let's relive summer a bit, shall we? Here, in no particular order, are the highlights of my summer, to prove to the world that I accomplished a few things (I know, weird, right?).

• Hanging out with friends. Just in general. From shopping to bonfires at the beach to getting kicked out of Walmart at four in the morning (because I guess it's frowned upon to stick your friend in a shopping cart and push him down the isles...who knew?). Just being a teenager, I guess. Doing idiotic things. Laughing about them later. Getting grounded. Y'know.
• Tennis season. So, I made varsity this year. Then three of our seniors decided that they DID want to play this year, after all...and so I got pushed off. Sigh. But I seriously love this sport so much. Like, I've never been a super-athletic person. I'm definitely not cross-country or track material. But still, I get to letter this year which means that I'm in line for captain next year which means that my design for sweatpants might actually be realized (I want them to say KISS MY ACE across the back).
• Buying a new house. And it's big and beautiful and I have a Narnia in my room. Seriously.
• Writing. Drafted a new manuscript and revised an old one and outlined a few ideas. I sat in my closet and in my bathtub and on my roof and in my other odd writing nooks and got lost in words. And it was wonderful.
• Reading. I read and reread so many wonderful books this summer. I laughed and sobbed and remembered why I first fell in love with words (but I did a lot of reading outside, and outside=mosquitoes. Did I mention that I'm allergic to mosquito bites? Like, severely?)
• Eating deep fried cookie dough on a stick. I KNOW, RIGHT?
• Critiquing. I have such a talented critique group, guys. Seriously. I'm so lucky to have the privilege of reading for them. It's like getting AARCs in my inbox.
• Interning. I got internship for a literary agent this summer, and it's been wonderful. I get to read full requests and I'm just like DUDE I WONDER IF SOMEONE WAS DOING THIS WHEN I WAS QUERYING THIS IS SWEET GAHHHH.
• My mom is making crown roast for dinner. Legit.
• The agony and ecstasy of being on subs. That is all. GAHHHHHHHHHH.

Tag! I'm it!

So, Mark O'Brien the Fabtastic tagged me for this! Now you get to listen to me rant! Yay!


1. What are your 5 favorite movies?

Ugh. I'm too fickle to pick favorites. I'll go by genre.


Fantasy: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Comic Relief: Get Smart
Sappy Romantic: Roman Holiday
Book-to-Movie Adaptation: Pride and Prejudice (the one with Lawrence Olivier and Greer Garson)
Miserable Monday Night Go-To: The Little Mermaid (don't judge)

2. Would you rather go without makeup for a year, or without shaving your legs for a year?

Makeup. Not shaving legs for a year? Ew. Wait, but I'm still allowed to wear makeup for prom and stuff, right? Does bronzer count? Because I have awful razorback tanlines from tennis. And I can still use my eyelash curler, right? As long as I don't use mascara? I don't ever wear mascara because I always end up stabbing myself in the eye. But I curl my eyelashes. Is that weird? Have I made it weird?

3. What book have you read recently that you really love?

Recently. Recently...oh! I read Pretty Amy by Lisa Burstein, and it was fabulous. Not just because she has an excellent taste in names. See my review of it here.

4. What book have you read recently that you really hated?


The Official SAT Study Guide. But my AP English textbook comes in close second.

5. If you had to eat one food for one meal every day of the year, which would you choose?

Oh! Right now, I'm craving the pomodorie e gorgonzola salad from my favorite Italian restaurant. It's to die for. Seriously. Like, I'm not usually a salad person when I go out to eat. But that stuff. Food of the gods of food.

6. What was the best part of your senior year of high school?

I dunno. I'll tell you when I get there.

7. What piece of electronic equipment do you think you could easily live without?

An alarm clock.

8. Do you prefer your beverages from a straw, a bottle, or another container?

Um. In the can it came from? Is that an answer? It is now!

9. Would you rather have glow-in-the-dark skin or squishy teeth?

Glow-in-the-dark skin. No competition.

10. Who would win in a fight between Gandalf and Dumbledore?

Oh. Um. I guess...Gandal--wait, no, Dumbled--but then...um, pass? Am I allowed to pass? I JUST DON'T KNOW, OKAY?!

11. Do you consider pushup bras to be a form of dishonesty?


Oh. Definitely. Sternface *runs to closet to hide the one bought during an eighth-grade identity crisis* Stop judging. Puberty makes you do stupid things, okay?!

The Booker Award!

Hi, everyone! Sorry I've been quiet lately. Life has been, you know...life.

So, this week, I was tagged for the Booker Award. Of course, being my typical clueless self, I had no idea what this was. But Google is my best friend.

Yay! So, the rules:

1. This award is for book bloggers only. To receive this award the blog must be at least 50% about books (reading or writing is okay).
2. Along with receiving this award, you must also share your top five favorite books you have ever read (more than five is okay).
3. You must give this award to 5-10 other lucky book blogs you adore

 Alright, then. Simple enough, right? Here I go! Being me, though, I might have the overwhelming urge to explain everything, so bear with me.

Top 5 Favorite Books (in no particular order):

1. The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater: Because the writing is gorgeous, the voices of the two POVs are distinct, and the ending was heartbreaking. A lot of books now are raw and gritty, but this one was simple and beautiful and gripping without being dark. I was in love from the first page.
2. Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins: A lot of people didn't like this one as much as the first two in the Hunger Games Trilogy. I loved it. I bawled. So hard. Mostly, I loved that Collins wasn't afraid to make sacrifices, and that made it believable. She tore my heart out, and I loved her for it.
3. The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak: If I were ever asked to recommend one book to every teenager in the world, it'd probably be this one. The voice is witty and dry and a tad wistful, and writing...THE WRITING. I loved the little snippets from Death, the "Here's a small fact..." sections. Also, one of my favorite things about this book was that the reader knows the end from the very beginning. Everything is flatly stated, and the realities of WWII are gritty and immediate, but the ending still tragic because we couldn't keep ourselves for hoping for something else.
4. The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green. This is a book I would have read just for the title. I have no way to describe it except: READ IT. Please. Keep a pillow handy, because you will sob into it uncontrollably. 
5. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card: I'm being so repetitive now, but I seriously love this book so, so, so much. It doesn't fit at all with my usual tastes, and I expected to hate it. The premise is just...so...sad. Children-stripped-of-childhood gets me every time.

Then there's Harry Potter, which first made me fall in love with reading, classics like Pride and Prejudice and To Kill A Mockingbird and A Little Princess (don't judge me...I fell in love with that book in third grade and never stopped), contemporaries like Before I Fall and dystopians like Divergent. I like the old books my library sells for a quarter each and I like the new ones on the display cases and the not-so-old-but-not-really-new-ones sandwiched on shelves...telling me to pick five really isn't fair.

And...5 other amazing blogs:

1. Mark O'Brien Writes
2. Write or Die Trying
3. Truth, Justice, And Other Stuff
4. Wonderland's Reader
5. Olivia's Opinions

So that's it! Hope ya'll enjoyed!

Top Ten Mishaps--um, Events of My Sophomore Year

Sophomore year is OVER. And I can seriously say that I couldn't have asked for a better year. So, I thought I'd write a post about the top ten stupid/hilarious/unbelievable/gooey events the past school year (because, let's face it, as teenagers we measure our lives in school years, not in actual years).

10: In Global Studies, on Columbus Day:
Teacher: Okay, guys, let's talk about Columbus!
Classmate: Oooooh! Wasn't he the guy who rode through America shouting that the British were coming?!

9: Passed our state's WKCE test with high enough scores to exempt most of my exams. Pretty sweet. (Still had to dissect a fetal pig for Human Anatomy and Physiology, though. Teacher wanted us to have the experience. *shudder*).

8. Legend of Korra premiere! I know, I'm such a dork. But The Last Airbender was seriously my favorite show when I was younger (okay, fine, on occasion I still do watch it with my little bro and sis...), and there was no way I was going to miss the new series. It's not as great as the original...but still pretty epic, no?

7. The Hunger Games premiere. I had seriously started counting down to it in March of freshman year. And it was worth it. I had plans to sneak out of my second-story bedroom window and pay one of my guy friends to drive me to the theater, but I chickened out. Boo.

6. Performance of Bach's Concerto in F Minor in a Big Fancy Concert Hall. See, I'd originally learned this for a concerto competition, but I ended up losing to a 24-yr old with a trombone. So since I didn't get to feature with a symphony orchestra, my piano teacher signed me up to play in this Big Fancy Televised Concert. I even recycled my prom dress for it and everything.

5. Tennis season. I only joined the team last summer because I needed a sport for college applications. And I was horrible when I'd started out. Like, seriously. I'd never really played before. But by the end of the season, I was our number two JV, and officially Good At A Sport Besides Swimming. Chances of making varsity this year are fairly high :)

4. Started social networking. Which I hadn't really considered doing for my book before my agent mentioned it. See, I have this issue with fads. So I never made a Facebook, never wore Silly Bandz (because they were RIDICULOUS), etc. But since social networking is so integral to the industry now, I kind of, you know, had to start tweeting and blogging, and it's seriously been so. Much. Fun.

3. Found a critique partner who actually, you know, CRITIQUES. I'd given my manuscript to two of my friends before, and while I love them to death, they didn't actually give me any helpful advice. Also started a blog with the fabulous CP in question, which you should totally check out: forloveofya.blogspot.com. Go there! Please.

2. Growing as a writer. Manuscript was rewritten...eight times this year? I'm very glad to say that I can look back and see that my writing has improved. It's encouraging :)

1. And the absolute highlight of my year...Finding an agent!!! :D Words cannot describe how amazing THE OFFER and THE CALL were. So. Unbelievably. Cool. I actually got the offer while I was in school, too! I mean...um...I totally wasn't on my phone at school or anything...

So that's it! This year really has been amazing. But that got me thinking...graduation was today, and of course the cliche "best for years of your life!" was thrown around about a million times. This year WILL NOT be the best I'll ever have (um, God forbid that I should count videos of heart transplants and pig dissections among the best in my life). So...junior year, no pressure or anything, but I expect you to be absolutely freaking epic. :D

Rejections

Using my new phone app while on my way to a concerto competition! I'm extremely nervous right now, so I'm blogging to distract myself.

I think the last time I felt this nervous was the day after I sent out my first few queries, when I opened my inbox...and found my first rejection. My already fragile and hormonally-enraged self-esteem was torn to shreds. Sure, all of the websites I had visited and books I read had said that rejection is all part of the process, but don't we always expect ourselves to be the exception?

But I made myself move on, telling myself that I'd get a request for a partial tomorrow. Little did I know that there were almost fifty more rejections queued up in my future...

Some of them were nice. Some of them were not. Some of them were form rejections letters and some came in the form of cold silence. And then, about twenty rejections in, my first request for a partial! I didn't see it until about a week after it was actually sent, because I had been on a strictly no-phone mission trip (fine, I'll admit i cheated a few times, but this is before the smart phone era, so I didn't have Internet anyway). I was frantically ecstatic, and went to bed dreaming of book deals and advances and trying to decide which publishing house I would want to sign with. My good mood lasted for about a week...and then the rejection came. I was heartbroken.

I guess my point here is that you can't expect everyone to love your writing (something I'm still trying to grasp). Even J.K. Rowling was rejected close to forty times before Harry Potter found a home. You shouldn't take it personally, and you most definitely shouldn't send the agent you queried an angry email insulting her tastes in writing (which I almost did when my number of rejections hit the thirties). I once read a quote that said that every book that deserved to be published eventually would be. I repeated that line to myself at least ten times a day while querying. And I'm sure that I'll be repeating it even more often as soon as my agent begins shopping my manuscripts to publishers.

Just remember that your book's most important fan is yourself (there I go talking to myself again...). Don't let a few rejections dampen your enthusiasm for it. After all, if you don't believe in your work, then who will?