Category: Writing (Page 62 of 73)

A Big Deal

January 19, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

Some months ago I posted that an opportunity had come up, a big one, one that I was very excited about. Back in October I was on maternity leave from my job at the puzzle factory and had just gotten back into subbing agents with my YA fantasy Elixir Bound.

This was the first full novel I had ever written. Back when I first thought I had “finished” this manuscript, I started sending it out to a few publishing houses, mostly to editors I had met at conferences or ones I had been following online. I got a few bites (and waited a very, very, very long time to get a heartbreaking rejection from an editor I would have loved, loved, loved to work with), but nothing came of them. I put the manuscript away and worked on a new project.

Time passed and I started thinking about that YA fantasy again. It just so happens that this manuscript was very close to my heart, originally written as a way to mourn the death of my sister. Then it became more than that and I was hooked on writing. I attended a seminar with an agent who offered a ten-page critique. She like the pages, offered some very good advice on revisions, and wanted to see the whole thing after I worked on it. She was very kind and praised my writing, but ultimately passed on offering me representation.

Another close call. The manuscript was better than ever. I was ready to start submitting hardcore. But not to editors. The world of kidlit publishing had changed since my first round of subbing and most editors wouldn’t even look at unagented material and even when they did, it took forever to hear from back, if you ever did hear back.

I said to myself, “No more submitting to editors. I am only going to query agents. That’s the route I want to take to publication.” So I did a ton of research to find the right agents. I wrote, rewrote, and rewrote my query letter. I had other writers critique my letter and rewrote some more. Finally I started subbing. Again, there was some interest, but no offers.

Then I gave birth to The Boy. And that brings us back to maternity leave and subbing to agents…only agents. Somehow, though, I ended up on the Muse It Up Publishing website. I did some research, heard some good things about this Canadian e-book publisher. They had a buzz about them. I broke my rule and sent in Elixir Bound.

A few weeks passed and I got an e-mail from Lea Schizas, the founder of Muse It Up. She wanted to publish Elixir Bound! A myriad of emotions overwhelmed me. I was excited, shocked, nervous. I still had no agent, but one offered to take a look at the contract for me. She said, “Go for it!” And I did.

You’ll be able to buy your very own copy of Elixir Bound for your Nook, Kindle, PC, or any other e-reader device in August…of this year! I first conceived of a there-and-back-again tale of two sisters nearly ten years ago. It took a very long time to get to this point of publication, and now it’s moving very fast.

My son will grow up most of his life knowing his mommy is a published novelist. My sister will live on in the pages of a story, my story, our story.

I’m Not Stressing

November 17, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

I will never apologize to you, dear readers, for going long stretches of time without writing on my blog. It’s not that I don’t appreciate you…I cherish each and every one of you (really, it’s not that hard to send out a little love to five or so people!).

It’s just that when I started this blog I did it for fun. I wanted to have a place to exercise my personal literary voice and my opinions and thoughts. I said to myself, “I’m not going to stress about this whole blog thing. If I feel like posting, I will, but if I don’t feel like it or don’t have the time, so be it; I won’t stress about it.”

So when I see day after day that I haven’t posted anything since October 29th (and it was a short post about the weather of all things…with a picture that filled most of the space), I keep telling myself, “Don’t worry about it.” I’ve got plenty of good excuses as to why I haven’t posted (I just had a baby a couple of months ago!).

Still, I hate seeing that same posting every time I click on my blog page to read all those other blogs that are listed on my sidebar. It makes me feel like such a slacker. It reminds me off all those journals I started as a kid and teenager and fell short on. I would write furiously in them for a few days in a row, then a week would go by, maybe a month, maybe even years before I would write again. And still, to this day, there are more blank pages than full ones in each one of those books.

And then it spirals into a reminder of all the things I haven’t done in life, of all my shortcomings and failures. The dirty laundry in the hamper, the maternity clothes that haven’t been packed away, that manuscript that needs to be revised, that e-mail I haven’t responded to. It’s enough to drive any sane person (and I’m not claiming to be entirely sane!) mad.

Now, though, I can breathe easy for another few days because there’s a shiny, new post on my blog.

No More Waiting!

October 24, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

I’ve never thought that sitting around wishing for something to happen makes that thing happen. Not that I haven’t done my share of wishing on shooting stars, on eyelashes that have fallen out, when the digital clock reads all one number (like at 11:11, for example), on a coin thrown into a fountain, when splitting a wishbone, when blowing out birthday candles…okay, I really don’t just sit around wishing on things all day.

Oddly enough, though, a lot of writing is sitting–the old butt-in-chair as you write–is waiting–to hear back from critique partners, agents, or editors–and is wishing–because you’ve got to have something to keep the hope alive. But you also have to be active too. I need to experience life in order to be inspired while I’m sitting and writing, I need to send out my work in order to wait to hear back, and I need to actively daydream about my life as a best-selling author to fuel all those wishes (okay, that last one doesn’t really work, but you get the idea!).

So for that past year or so, I’ve been submitting my writing more actively than I have in all my previous years as a writer. Some opportunities have come up. And a strange thing happened: I found myself turning some of them down.

It wasn’t because they weren’t good opportunities or because I had so many offers pouring in that I could just shrug off the ones that didn’t give me the most gain. It was because they didn’t feel right in my gut. Not that the offers were bad; it’s more that they were not the right fit for me at the time. Every time I’ve said no, it’s been very, very hard. What if I never get another opportunity for that piece of writing? What if I never get another opportunity for any piece of writing? Did I just say no to the only chance I ever had as a writer?

The thing I’ve come to realize is that a single no or a string of noes (I originally typed “a string of nose,” which would be an entirely different thing…LOL!), whether it’s someone else telling me no or me telling someone else no, doesn’t mean the end of my writing career. My career ends when I stop sitting and writing and waiting and wishing.

It just so happens that some 3,120 days since I first conceived of the idea that, yes, I can be a writer for real (this is an estimate because I don’t remember the exact date I thought this), a pretty big opportunity has come up. One that I feel is right in my gut…one that I am going to say yes to. One that makes me want to climb to the top of my house and shout “YES!” from the rooftop (admittedly, this wouldn’t be too hard because I live in a one-story ranch).

So maybe sitting, waiting, wishing worked out okay for me after all. I think I’ll go do some more of that and maybe the next offer will be even bigger.

Exploring the Uncontrollable and Unexplainable

August 26, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

I know, I know: Everyone’s talking about Hurricane Irene! Well, I do what I want to do, which often isn’t what everyone else is doing, but what I want to do today is talk about Hurricane Irene, so I won’t let the fact that everyone else is doing it stop me.

I’ve got to admit, earlier in the week I was a little freaked out. I don’t normally get all worked up about things like the weather. Where a hurricane goes is out of my “circle of influence” and while I can take steps to prepare for one, there’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop it from coming. But I’m 9 months pregnant, so I’m trying to give myself a little slack for being more worried than usual about something like the weather.

Really, I shouldn’t be that concerned because The Boy has proven to be resilient through record-setting snowfall, a tsunami, and an earthquake. He’s probably in the womb saying, “Bring it on, Mother Nature!”

Thinking about my lack of control over the weather, got me thinking about my YA fantasy Elixir Bound because certain higher beings in that story can control the weather. They use it to communicate with each other and to send messages to regular-old humans too.

Then that got me thinking about how an author can take something that is uncontrollable in the real world and manipulate and control it in a story. There’s terrible things in life that we have no control over, like war, rape, abuse, your 16-year-old sister suddenly dying when some unknown thing attacks her lungs. And for all intents and purposes, none of these things make any sense.

So as a writer, I can take a world that is often confusing and scary and try to make sense of it. There is something very empowering about that. That doesn’t mean I will succeed at making anything in this real world make sense through my fictional world, but at least it might open up a dialogue (even if that conversation is only taking place in my own head). And maybe someday others will connect to that thing I was trying to make sense of and will realize they’re not alone in their feelings.

Because there’s lots of other wonderful things in the world that can’t be explained either, like love and souls. As a writer, I explore these crazy, scary, wonderful things in my stories. First I explore these things for myself. And hopefully, others will read what I’ve written and explore those things for themselves.

Thinking About Thoughts

August 14, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

“Thinking: The talking of the soul to itself.” ~Plato

Don’t worry, I’ll let you in on the conversation soon enough! In the meantime, We Do Write is hosting a twitter-length pitch contest with agent Mandy Hubbard.