We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.
Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
I was trying to think of something cool and pithy to write here today, but I can’t think of anything.
Yesterday, I was interviewed by a reporter who is writing an article about me for our paper and she reminded me of how I did absolutely everything wrong when I was submitting my first book. So, I thought that maybe if I shared that story with you all, it would ease up some of the pressure you put on yourselves and your writing to be perfect.
how did carrie get published?
It begins as all good things do with an email announcing the creation of Flux, an imprint of Llewellyn. Flux was accepting YA novels. Hhm? I thought to myself. I just wrote a YA novel. Sure, I hadn’t shown it to my advisor at Vermont College’s MFA in Writing Program. Sure, I hadn’t let ANYONE read it. Sure, I only just wrote it in the last month and it was rough, rough, rough. But I sent it in. I chugged out a cover letter. I found some stamps. I mailed it.
Here is what followed, taken from my Livejournal entries.
Sweet Editor Man called me within a week of me mailing the manuscript. Seriously. It was wild.
the 30th, 2006
Okay. Here’s the big question of the day: Why am I so stupid?
I will work on the self esteem exercises tomorrow… but today! Today! Today I am allowed to realize the full extent of my idiotness.
Here’s why.
I sent out some manuscript queries on Thursday.
I get a phone call this morning, from a real live editor who says, “Um, is this C.C. Jones?”
“Yes,” I say while pouring out cat food on the table.
He then proceeds to tell me he got my query, wants to see more of my manuscript, but his email requesting it bounced back.
“Really?” I say. “That’s weird.”
“Let me tell you the address,” he says. “cjonese at…”
“Oh,” I say. “Oh. Oh. Oh.”
“What?” he says.
“There’s no e on the end of Jones.”
“I didn’t think so,” he says.
I then apologize and berate myself for not even being able to spell my own last name! What an idiot. He gives me an email address. I send him the rest of the manuscript.
Yeah, that baby’s going somewhere. Not.
Although, he was kind and he did say, “It’s the manuscript I care about, not your inability to spell your own name.”
What a nice man. Even when he rejects the manuscript. He’s still a darn nice guy.
This means now that MY BOOK has been requested. The JOHN WAYNE LETTERS has been requested (by agent and house). And another book, which was crucified at workshop, has been requested. Will anyone actually buy anything? No…. And if they did, will they be able to contact me? Not unless I can remember to get my email address right. Geesh.
the 31st, 2006
So, despite the fact that I can’t spell, the nice editor man called me back yesterday and talked to me for 40 minutes and told me all the good stuff about my book and what he thinks could get better. It was like talking to a Vermont College mentor. It was really cool. He was brilliant and really, really nice.
And he’s starting the book through the acquisitions process at his imprint, which is really cool… But, I’m not getting my hopes up about it, until papers are signed.
Still, he had the best insight on the piece and I am so excited about working on it. So, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go work on it. He only wants another 10,000 words. Geesh. Piece of cake. Ha.
the 4th, 2006
Well, here’s a quick update on the sweet editor man. He sent me an email, which I can not quote verbatim, because it’s somehow infringing on copyright. HOWEVER, he said that he wanted to let me know what’s going on, that the piece is heading to the acquisitions committee on Thursday and he’ll call me when they’re done.
That is so sweet of him.
But now I’m going to be a nervous wreck until Friday and I’m already hyper and neurotic enough as it is. I think everyone in my family will soon disown me.
On a positive note, I wrote 15,000 more words on it this week and I’m really happy with it. It’s done the Sarah A. rubbing thing, where the characters work off each other. I’ve put more setting in, which is good because I’m weak with setting. I’ve also changed the ending and added a couple of conflict scenes. Oh, and sweet editor man said he hopes I’d have a great weekend. Is he crazy? As I told Emily Wing Smith, no matter what happens I’ve made the piece better already, so I can’t complain when he dumps my butt. So, yeah… Now, back to revising my critical thesis.
the 9th, 2006
Um, okay… Sweet Editor man called and he continues to be Sweet Editor Man.
He talked to the acquisitions committee today and wanted to call me about it before he battled the snowstorm and drove home. He said they were all “very enthusiastic about it.” They liked the writing, especially the details and he said even the people who don’t like YA were hooked.
YIPPPEEEE!!!!
So, he’s calling me in the morning to give me contract details, etc… which is great except I know absolutely nothing about contracts because I never thought I’d get offered one. Oh, the stupidity of me continues….
the 3rd, 2006
Well, today was a happy fine day because today the JOHN WAYNE LETTERS (title soon to be changed I am sure) passed an acquisitions committee and is now officially wanted with an offer on the table.
Yippee!!!
What karma gods did I appease? Was it when I helped the little old lady at the grocery store heft her 20-lb bag of kitty litter on to the checkout thing? Was it when I agreed to help run the middle school civil rights team or the drama club?
Was it simply when I refused to succumb to road rage when the guy in the Subaru refused to yield and almost t-boned me? Instead of succumbing to road rage, I thought, ‘Oh, perhaps I’ll get a new car out of this. I hope there’s no major injuries involved.’
I don’t know why. I’m just happy. That’s two YA books now. Now I need to find someone who’ll like my middle grade.
AND my birthday was good despite the fact that I am now old, old, old because I am the same age my mother was when she had me. That is just horrifying. Sigh.
No, wait. I am happy, happy, happy. So happy, in fact, that I’ll even spell check this.
I am not an officially published author yet, because no contracts have been signed but I AM SO CLOSE!
Now in 2019
That book was published here and in Canada (French and English). Some bookstores did not carry it because it had the word ‘gay’ in the title. It won a Maine Literary award. It won an Independent Book Publishers award, but it also made me a writer and started me off on the weird journey that I’m on.
All that happened despite the absolute lack of perfection.
So have hope. No matter what your dreams. You can do this even if you can’t spell your own last name.
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).
A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
So, you want to write a young adult novel and you want it to be bad? I hear you. You’re tired of trying to write good novels for kids. Writing something awful? Well, it’s freeing and everyone cares too much about kids anyway, right?
Here are my tips for writing the worst YA novel you can.
Write like an 88-year old man from a wealthy neighborhood in Connecticut.
You once had a teenager perspective inside you back a few decades ago. That’s over now. You’re a full-fledged curmudgeon. Write like it.
Make sure that the whole book is written like you’re observing things from an ancient, judgmental difference.
Like a total fool, Brandon failed to put money in his IRA or notice that his skin’s taut nature. I laughed at him.
Make sure there is no emotional truth in anything.
You don’t want the readers to identify with any of your characters. What better way to do that than to make sure that they can’t. How do you do that? Make everything bland. Make everything completely lack intensity. Imagine Spock from Star Trek when he’s not in love with Kirk. Channel that.
I fell in love. No metaphors. It happened. Maybe it was gas. I had burritos for breakfast that morning, which always impacts my digestion.
Avoid any real teenagers. Wait. You can yell at them to get off your lawn, but that’s it.
You want a sucky book, right? Make sure you have no current pop references, write in a bubble and have no clue what teenagers care about or even look like. They’re all blue, right?
I wanted to be one of those people who are just there but not. I liked the smell of Metamucil. When Grampa visited I thought, “Cool.” Same thing as I thought when the love of my life showed up. Intensity is overrated.
Use a lot of slang!
Nothing makes an awful book like using slang from the 1940s in a present-day time period. Put in as many as possible.
Good ones include:
Armored heifer – Canned milk
Bust your chops – Yell at someone for being a dork
What’s buzzin’ cousin? – How are you doing?
He had high-tailed it out of there, and I did not have moxie to flap my gums to him about how she was a bearcat or not to take any wooden nickels from the other one, who was such a cancelled stamp.
Have No Plot
Seriously. Just have everything be stagnant. Have there be no immediacy. Have it be like a town planning board meeting discussing the land use ordinance’s shoreline setback for 5.7 hours.
We sat there. The others talked. Time passed. We sat some more. I stared at the ceiling fan. It seemed bored, too. We sat some more.
Have No Hope
Life is dark. Life has no hope. Why not teach the kids that right now, right? They will one day have to sit in a town planning board meeting so they might as well get used to life with no light at the end of the tunnel where someone busts their chops all day and they have to drink armored heifers.
Make them hate their existence as much as possible.
Everything sucked, but not in an intense way. Just a mellow suck – sort of a droning on of suckitude for years. Then I died after 80 years of almost-but-not-quite existential worries and moments. The end.
Do Good Wednesday!
A lot of abuse happens at home. Know the signs of abuse and help your friends or yourself. Nobody deserves pain.
National Domestic Violence Hotline
Staffed 24 hours a day by trained counselors
Control what you do, who you talk to or where you go?
Look at you or act in ways that scare you?
Push you, slap you, choke you or hit you?
Stop you from seeing your friends or family members?
Control the money in the relationship? Take your money or Social Security check, make you ask for money or refuse to give you money?
Make all of the decisions without your input or consideration of your needs?
Tell you that you’re a bad parent or threaten to take away your children?
Prevent you from working or attending school?
Act like the abuse is no big deal, deny the abuse or tell you it’s your own fault?
Destroy your property or threaten to kill your pets?
Intimidate you with guns, knives or other weapons?
Attempt to force you to drop criminal charges?
Threaten to commit suicide, or threaten to kill you?
You can volunteer for organizations locally and nationally. A good place to start is here.
Every time you do something good, you make an impact. It might not seem like a lot but moment after moment, tiny bits of help after tiny bits of help add up to change.
WRITING NEWS
Yep, it’s the part of the blog where I talk about my books and projects because I am a writer for a living, which means I need people to review and buy my books or at least spread the word about them.
