GILDED is now on Goodreads. My emotions are all jumbled up right now. Excitement. Scared. Freaking out (this is REALLY happening!). And so so happy. My dream is coming true.
I’d love you forever if you’d add GILDED to your Goodreads “read list”. Click here to find it.
Many of you have been reading my blog since I started this journey as a writer. Thank you for cheering me on and being totally amazing
Have you ever made a playlist for your book? I’m totally addicted to them. Check out my post here on The Lucky 13’s blog for the why’s and how’s to have one for your book.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’ve been very busy lately. You know, eating turkey, consuming heaps ofย birthday cake and writing, writing, writing. It’s been a great month and I’m so excited about December because it’s just one month away from 2013, my debut year!!!!!
Okay, so I’m just a teeny, tiny bit excited over 2013. But you really can’t blame me.
Today I get to announce my winner of RENEGADE by J.A. Souders. It goes to Akoss! Just pop me an email with your address and I’ll send you that gorgeous book. My email is farley dot christina L at gmail dot com.
Last night my friends, Larissa, Tara, Lizย and I headedย to downtown Orlandoย to attendย Jessica Souders’ book launch for RENEGADE. Jess had her launch in a cool, high-rise, open-spaced office area. This was one of the locations that inspired the setting for RENEGADE.
We jumped in line and got the last of the books she had. Jess signed them with her tagline, “Never forget”. I even got an extra autographed copy for you guys to give away at the end of this post!
Then we decided to make Jess cry by giving her an engraved bookmark with her book’s cover on it and the famous line from her book.
We had such a fun time hanging out and celebrating Jess’ big day. I won’t ever forget when she first got her editorial letter and later reading her revisions of RENEGADE. Last night was so exciting to see it all come together into a beautiful book to hold.
If you haven’t read RENEGADE, I highly recommend it. It’s full of action, mystery and romance. And if you haven’t,ย then enter my contest below.ย I’m giving away an autographed copy and swag (bookmark, pins and a magnet). Just enter the form by Nov. 24th!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
NaNo is underway and I’ve beenย plugging away at my next novel. If you’re mildly interested, I’ve started storyboarding it over here on Pinterest. I’m so hooked on Pinterest with having pictures relating to my novels. They’re great visuals for me to use as I’m writing and adding details to the settings.
One of the things that’s helped me write my first drafts quickly is prepping for my novel. I do a lot of my research in advance. This book, just like Gilded, required lots of research to make sure my details were correct.
I also plot out my novels in detail and imagine the story in my head so I know what feel I want the novel to have.
If you’re getting ready to prep forย your nextย novel, check out my vlog for ideas:
I’m doing NaNo this year. I know. Crazy idea. I will be sleep deprived. I will be haunting Starbucks. But I’m determined to get most, if not nearly all, of this writing project I’m working on finished.
Any of you doing NaNo? If you are, sending luck your way!
So youโve written the story of your dreams. Youโve stamped your soulโs signature onto it. With all your heart, you believe itโs publishable, unique and marketable. It just has one itsy problem.
It has earned the fond name of THE BEAST. You might have heard me refer to this in previous blog posts and on Twitter. Let me tell you, that book practically killed me. And Iโm not finished with it. I donโt even know if it will sell. But I truly believe the story is stronger because of the process I put it through.
1.ย ย ย ย ย ย Ask yourself if youโre committed to the story. Are you willing to do anything for it? This includes major rewrites, structural, plot, or overarching changes in the main characterโs internal conflicts? If you can answer yes to all of these things, then keep reading. If not, forget your story and write a new one.
2.ย ย ย ย ย ย Okay, so now that youโre committed, you need to write a query, synopsis, and a detailed outline. The query will tell you the central issue your story will face. The synopsis will give you an idea of flow of the story, and the outline will show where your plot holes are located, among other things.
3.ย ย ย ย ย ย Study your query, synopsis, and outline. Personally, I like to also use a plotting grid. See the one attached that I made up using a traditional one with my own personal tweaks. (Don’t worry,ย I planย on vlogging more on this plot grid later)ย Find where your weaknesses are. Number them from biggest issues to smallest issues. Tackle each one step at a time.
4.ย ย ย ย ย ย Now send it to two or three critique partners who will tell you if itโs awful or not. When they send back their notes, take them seriously. If more than one person is saying the same thing, you should strongly consider changing what they say is the problem. I find that my critique partners are right 99.9% of the time.
5.ย ย ย ย ย ย At this point I print out their suggestions and highlight them in various colors. An example is: character issues,ย I highlighted in blue, plot is in green, internal conflict with main character in purple. Iโm a visual person and right away I can see where the central problems are lying in.
6.ย ย ย ย ย ย From there, I brainstorm ways to fix my problems using a flow map. Something like this.
7.ย ย ย ย ย ย Don’t be worried about trying multipleย versions. In THE BEAST, all three of my crit partners didnโt like the opening. It was too slow, but they didnโt know how to solve it. They all gave me suggestion though.
What I found after looking at my color scheme of highlighting that most of my issues stemmed back to my main characterโs internal conflict. It wasnโt strong enough and therefore those opening chapters reflected that. So I decided to write three different versions of chapters 1-3. It was hard work, but I think I got closer to solving the problem. Hopefully, youโll be able to fix the problem without writing three different versions. ย
8.ย ย ย ย ย ย Mission accomplished! Youโve now finished another draft of your beloved manuscript. You read it and itโs all fixed. Yay! Go celebrate! But this was not the way it went with me. I felt I still had problems. I didnโt know what they were but something was still not right.
9.ย ย ย ย ย ย Try, try again. Soโฆ. If this happens, write a new query, synopsis and outline (or plot grid). Then pull out your old versions and compare the two. What changes did you make? How did these changes improve your story? Can you take it to another level?
10.ย ย Get More Feedback. If youโre like me, I decided I needed more feedback from my crit buddies. I resent it to two of the girls and they took another look at it. While they were looking at it, I didnโt even think about the manuscript. Instead, I took a break and started writing another book. I think sometimes, stepping away from a project helps you get a clearer picture of that project later on.
11.ย ย Take a Break! After a few months break I took on the new suggestions that my crit partners gave me. I reread the manuscript with fresh eyes and made the changes I felt were needed.
12.ย ย Send it off! A couple of weeks ago, I sent THE BEAST to my agent. Last weekย the two of usย chatted. It’s still not submission ready, but it’s closer.ย He had great ideas of how to fixย my biggest problems.ย I’ve been playing aroundย with some different scenarios and seeing which angle will work best. I’ll let you know what happens!
Ultimately, the key to revision is the ability to adapt and be open to change. If you can do those two things, you have a chance to slay THE BEAST before it kills you.
Any revision tips that you have?
I’ve been tagged by Justina Ireland, author of upcomingย VENGEANCE BOUND,ย and Tara Gallina.
I’m supposed to answer all kinds of questions about the book I’m working on. I’m actually working on two other projects, one a sequel to GILDED, and another is a dystopic fantasy. Even though I’m over-the-moon excited about these two projects, they’re still in the secret stages where only the Brilliant Ones (my crit partners) and my ninja agent knowย details.
I thought you might want to hear a little more about GILDED because this baby is coming out to the world next November (Yes! My editor gave me aย release month).ย
What’s the working title of your book?
GILDED (Crossing fingers I get to keep the title)
Where did you come up with the idea for your book?
I love mythology. While living in Korea, I was teaching Greek mythology to my students. I thought it would be fun to learn more about mythology of the country I was living at. When I came across the myth of Hameosu and Princess Yuhwa, I was hooked. I knew I was going to write their story.
What genre does your book fall under?
Mythological paranormal
Which actors would you play the movie rendition?
For Jae, I’d choose Song Hye Kyo because of her look.
This is how Jae looks mostย of the time (ticked off, thanks to Haemosu)
But when she’s around Marc, the world changes:
For Marc, it would have to be William Moseley.
What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
About a 16-year old Korean-American girl who discovers an ancient Korean god has been kidnapping the first-born daughtersย of her family for generations. And she’s next.ย
If you’re interested in a pictorial idea of GILDED, you can check out my Pinterest page here.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Um…. there really isn’t much out there in YA. The closest would be the Percy Jackson books. I’m anxiouslyย waiting to read Amanda Sun’s INK. From its blurb, it might be the closest YA out there in similarity.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Living in Korea absolutely inspired GILDED. I wrote what I saw, heard, smelled and lived. Most of the scenes were recreations of stuff that actually happened to me. Like the ski scene. So me.
What else about this book might pique a reader’s interest?
If you like booksย with: tough fighter girls, romance, lots of action, dragons, portals, fantasy and mythology then you’ll like GILDED.
Now who to torture next?ย *rubs hands deviously*
Andrea Mack!
The day has come to announce the winners of my EPIC book deal contest. First of all, thank you to everyone who tweeted, blogged and Facebooked the contest. You guys are so amazing. If I could give you a hug I would.
Thanks to Rafflecopter, it tallied up the totals and determined winners for me.
Here they are:
Writer’s Pack: Joy McCullough
Reader’s Pack: Jude Griffin
Traveler’s Pack: Jaime Heller
Email me your address at farley dot christinaL at gmail dot com
Congratulations!!!
The other day, I was sitting on the sidelines watching my son’s soccer practice. On the field behind me a football coach was yelling at his players, saying, “If you’re not sweating, you’re not working hard enough!”
My first thought was, โMan, Iโm glad youโre not my boysโ coach.โ
But that line bothered me for the rest of the day. Was he right? Will working hard make them better players? My thoughts turned to writing. If I worked harder, wrote more, would that make me a better writer?
The conclusion I came to was โyesโ and โnoโ. Yes, in that the more you do something, your craft is developed. But at the same time, if youโre doing it wrong, itโs like banging your head against the wall. It can hurt your craft and frustrate you.
1.ย ย ย ย ย Write as often as you can. I work a full time and part time job. Iโm a mom and Iโm taking classes. Time is more valuable than gold. But if I want to write, I just have to suck it up and sit down and write. That means I might only have an hour a day. But the reality is, the more I write, the better I get.
2.ย ย ย ย ย Read. When you read, study the way the author has constructed the story. Pick one or two elements that you feel are lacking in your book such as plot, character arcs, or conflicts within a scene. Focus on those two elements as you read and see how that author has developed them. Write down notes in your journal at what worked and what didnโt. Read another book and do the same thing. I find I learn so much by reading other authorโs books.
3.ย Find critique partners who know their stuff. These people donโt have to be writers. Sometimes your best critiquers are actually readers that have the eye for when a character isnโt being true to themselves or the plot is sagging. Trust them. Listen to them.
