A new title?

It looks that way. YAY!

Introducing Janie book 1 under its new title:

WAKE.*

Book 2 is still a go with FADE.


*please note: This is the third time we've changed the title for this book, and I've found that it's not the easiest thing to go through. So if you hate it? Lie to to me, baby, because I don't think it'll change again.

What not to do when talking to bookstore clerks about your upcoming book.

Today I went out to my favorite bookstore, CHANGING HANDS, which was recently voted the #1 independent bookstore in ALL OF AMERICA by PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. No pressure. Especially since I went there purposely to chat with the YA book buyer about my book and find out if they'd maybe do my launch party, since it's the PERFECT location and has an attached restaurant.

I was nervous, but I did okay. I even remembered what my book was about.

I spent $50 on books to show her I'm a supporter of their bookstore (which I am, but I've never made pointed contact with them before).

And then.

The clerk who rang up my purchase asked me a question about my book while I was closing my purse (which has a long shoulder strap), and I got all nervous. I slung my purse over my shoulder, trying to be all nonchalant, and assuming, like every other time I've ever done this, that my ARM was inside the damn LOOP of it. But it wasn't.

And it went sailing off behind me (it was quite heavy, since my phone was attached) and hit a old woman who had one of those walker shopping carts.

So. How was your day?

(and yes, you may point and laugh)

I have a DATE.

A publishing date for book 1, that is. March 4, 2008. Isn't that the most perfect date ever?

And lookit over in the side bar!

a countdown-o-meter.

Innit cute?


----->

Janie book 2

is finished well ahead of schedule and awaiting a first read by my lovely editor Jen. It will be a few months before we start working on revisions for that one.

Meanwhile, how do I get Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennett on Heroes, aka The Cheerleader) to read and give me a blurb for my first book?

Hayden, are you out there? Do you read my blog? Will you read my first novel, please? I think you'd really like it. My Janie, she's a lot like your Claire! Except, well, not really. In fact, Janie doesn't really care for cheerleaders, much. But I'm sure she'd like Claire. Oh totally, she would. Yeppers. So, please?

On Being a Newbie Author

I'm increasingly fascinated by the book publishing process, and many fears have been laid to rest over the past few months. As I learn how this all works, I have found some really great resources written by very generous authors on the HOW of being a successful author. Author of the Jack Daniels trilogy, JA KONRATH, is among the most generous with his time and advice that I've discovered so far. If you are interested in straightforward information and advice not only on getting your books published, but sold (!!), click on his name for a link for his blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. Plus!! JA Konrath has two free technothriller e-books he's giving away on this blog: THE LIST and ORIGIN.

Here are just a few of my own discoveries and tips:

1. Agents and editors are amazingly helpful people. Don't be afraid to ask questions.

This seems obvious, but when novelists first begin the querying process, it's pounded into our heads that we must follow a strict set of rules regarding proper, professional behavior -- and above all, don't be a nuisance! Learning the time frame of publishing is a hard lesson. A query to an agent might take a day to garner a response, or it might take four months. We learn that it is not proper to follow-up until the appropriate amount of time has passed. When in doubt, allow three months. For partials, four months. Full manuscript, six. (Of course, many agents respond much more quickly than this.) As agonizing as it is, we follow these guidelines.

After querying for months or years and finally getting an agent, we tend to continue in the pre-agent mode: We must not make a nuisance of ourselves. We must not bother the agent. Some new authors sit in angst, wondering how, why, when, for months.

It took me a few months to feel comfortable emailing my agent with questions. And guess what? When I emailed him, he responded with answers! And now that I have an editor, she responds to my questions as well! I just have to ask them. Isn't that simple?


2. Agents and editors are human. They have lives outside of work. They get the flu sometimes. They likely have good days and bad days, just like everybody. And you know what else? They are funny. All the ones I know are, anyway. I adore my team.

3. Being On Time is a good way to be.

The weird thing I discovered about being an author is that I've been in charge of my own writing schedule all along, and when I sold a book, that changed. Working on my own, I rarely had a day where I felt like procrastinating or blowing off work. Now that I have people expecting things from me, I have this tremendous urge to procrastinate (rebellion from my teen years has re-surfaced!). This new urge fights against my inherent anal tendencies to be early for everything. It's quite a humorous battle raging in my head. Odds are high that procrastination loses this battle every time, though.

4. Work ahead -- once you sell your novel, there are many new things to consider. Marketing. Promotion. Public speaking, visiting classrooms, booksignings (yikes! You mean, like, physically leaving the house?), marketing gizmos and gadgets and giveaways, contests. Start the brainstorming early, so that when you actually have cover art and a definite title, you are ready to promote.

Although I don't have a pub date yet, it is likely to be less than a year away for Janie book 1 (spring 2008). I've finished my first round of edits and sent them off. Simon Pulse has my bio and author picture for the spring '08 catalog -- they are working on that already.

If my revisions are acceptable to my editor, Janie will go to the copy editor. And now, I must work on the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS page -- I'm told they'll need this soon. Wheee! This is so exciting.

Check it out!!

I'm the guest blogger today at the Canadian Writers' Collective.

Take a peek!

Time to edit!

On Saturday, I received my marked up manuscript in the mail from my editor, so now it's time to do the first edits on Janie. Thankfully there are no major changes necessary and no over-arching plot lines that have to be fixed, but I still see a lot of red! Yikes! And what I thought was a pretty grammatically correct and clean manuscript turns out to have a few embarrassing third-grader mistakes, like YOUR/YOU'RE (Dang!). There is definitely something to be said for reading/editing a hard copy of a manuscript -- some mistakes are too easy to miss on a screen.

My editors, Jen and Caroline, did an amazing job and now they really have me thinking hard about a few concepts and suggestions for changes.

Despite all the red marks, most of them are simple fixes. The handful of other suggested changes will take me some time to think about and when I'm all organized, we'll have a discussion about what to do.

This is all very exciting!

Bad blogger

I have neglected this blog, partly because I don't have much news. Right now I'm sort of in waiting mode with my lovely editor. She's working on Janie, and while I wait for revisions, I'm working on a couple of other books. Both are quite different from Janie, and both are turning out to be a lot of fun. More on those another time.

We are still considering titles for Janie 1 and 2, and may go with simple one-word titles with sophisticated cover art. At the moment, DREAM for book 1 and FADE for book 2 are at the top of list. Oh, and I got my formal contract, signed and returned. Things are moving along steadily.

I got my author photos taken -- the pics are on my Myspace page if you want to see a few of them. The link to that page is over there on the right. I am looking forward to seeing what sort of cover design S&S comes up with. And now that it's April, I'm guessing we're less than a year away from launch date, though I don't have an exact date yet.

My sister is visiting from Michigan this week, so we're taking it easy and she's enjoying the sunshine and warm temps (90/60 pretty much every day). Thinking about driving down to Nogales for a day -- Nogales is on the AZ/Mexico border.

Hope you are all having a lovely week! I hope to have more interesting news to share over the coming months. :)

The week in review...

Wrote about 5000 words on the next novel.

Spent countless hours as a parent representative for my kid's school on a panel, interviewing principals. Eighteen of them, to be exact. My brain is fried.

And now I know the principal buzz words: Respect. Dignity. Wiping down tables in the lunchroom (I swear to God, at least 15 of them said they do this). Team player. Facilitator. The teachers work the hardest. Greeting the kids when they come off the bus. Shooting baskets with the kids at recess. Honor, respect, dignity (over and over). Engagement. Enthusiasm. High expectations.

Boy. That was interesting.

What did YOU do this week??

New title...

It happens a lot. Luckily, I wasn't in love with the title of my book in the first place. In fact, I'm sort of excited to have some help in renaming my book.

Janie Hannagan: Dream Catcher ... catch you later.

So, now what to name it? This is the tough part. When I first wrote it (for "it" is what we are calling it, now) I had huge troubles coming up with a title. So now what? It remains to be seen, but I imagine "Dream" will be in there somewhere. My editor and I joked about calling it "Angsty Teen Dreamer." But now I need to get serious and think of something. Agent and editor and editor's assistant are all thinking too.

Keeping track

If you haven't found it yet, I started keeping track of things folks are saying about Janie Hannagan: Dream Catcher. If you are so bored that you'll read anything, feel free to take a peek.

Woo Hoo!

"Janie Hannagan: Dream Catcher," a book for teens and up, will hit bookstores in spring of 2008, with its sequel in autumn '08. Published by Simon Pulse.

What's it about?


For 17 year-old Janie Hannagan, getting sucked into other people's dreams is growing tiresome. Especially the falling dreams. The naked but nobody notices dreams. And the sex-crazed teenager dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her half a lifetime.

But then there are the nightmares that leave her blind and paralyzed in fear, even after the dreams are over. Those are the worst. Because one day, someone's going to notice her freefalling to the floor after somebody's study hall naptime nightmare, or collapsing outside a resident's room at the nursing home where she works. Or her worst fear: careening headlong into a tree if she ever drives past *that* house again.

She can't tell anybody about it. They'd never believe her. And she can't do anything to stop it. Until she gets to know Cabel Strumheller, a secretive, pothead flunkie turned pretty-boy. And he accidentally falls into a dream with her on the senior high bus trip to Stratford.

It's his own dream.
And it's a dream he'd rather no one knows about.
Especially Janie Hannagan.


I am thrilled to be a part of Simon & Schuster (Simon Pulse).
And did I mention I love my agent? Because I do.

I met an online writer friend

in person for the first time, today. Whee!

It was a fun lunch at The Cheesecake Factory, and then we had to check out B&N to find our fellow writer friends' books.

And I made a new bookstore friend. I hope he works there forever -- he was really smart about the books, knew where everything was, had terrific suggestions. *sigh*

It's nice to find a bookstore worker who actually knows a lot about the books. I wish he worked on commission.

Since my brain is fried,

and I can't pull together a coherent blog post of my own, I bring you a spot-on post from author Holly Kennedy.

Just so that you know why I forget to call you back...for six months. It's not you, it's me.

xo

lisa

P.S. Weather in the Phoenix valley: warming up to 60, finally! Monday we had snow on the mountains again, and ice (read: ICE!!) on the car windshield. You could sell an ice scraper here for a hundred bucks. Thank goo'ness we still had one in the car from when we drove here from Michigan.

Slang and stuff

WEATHER in the Phoenix Valley: Forty degrees and raining at 2pm. This is insane.

On to the topic of the day. When writing historical fiction, it's a bonus when you can find slang terms. For the first historical I wrote, it was harder because the characters spoke German and lived in England, slowly learning English, and man, that was nuts trying to accurately nail the process, while still writing the entire book in English.

On my second historical, which I'm just starting (yeah, we had a few paranormals in between), life is easier for two reasons. One, I grew up there and know the local dialect with Dutch influence, subtle as it may be (oh, knock it off). Two, a simple Google search brings up websites with slang of the 1920s...it's the berries (aka bee's knees or cat's pajamas)! Though getting used to the word "Bimbo" being used as a compliment (A tough guy) is a little difficult. Insert the word "Bimbo" into a book without proper context could have your readers scratching their heads.

"Bum's rush" today has shades of a sexual nature. In 1925, it meant to get kicked out of an establishment.

"Butt me" sounds, um.... but it was a common phrase referring to lighting up a cigarette, and a "Dick" was, of course, a private investigator.

If you write anything other than present day fiction, a great place to check your slang words is an etymology dictionary. I used it to check the word fink. Did that word exist in 1930? If so, how was it used?

But, as one wise commenter mentioned in the previous post, technology has come a long way in the past 20 years, and the language has changed along with it.

So writers, don't be a pill. Get on the trolley, or you'll be all wet.

Researching is FUN

You may disagree, but I think researching is a fascinating adventure.

I'm working on a new novel that takes place in 1930, in the town of my birth. The setting is one I know well -- not because it exists anymore (well, the land is still there), but because I've spent so many hours researching it that I feel like I know it well -- I can picture the buildings, the landscape, the views... yes, the view hasn't changed much in 80 years. And I've been to the site many times.

I'm so excited about this story. Sometimes there's nothing more exciting than real life in a small town in 1930. I'll tell you more as I make some progress.

Meanwhile, I'm reading a history of the 1920s, so I have a very good understanding of the political, social, and economic environment leading up to my story.

Next time: Fun slang words from the 20s and 30s. Some of them might surprise you.

Lisa

Oooh, Snap

It's been cold here in the desert. Temperatures in the 20s at night have caused people's water pipes to burst and damaged citrus crops (not to mention my two 20-foot tall ficus trees).

So while you East coasters have been lounging in the January heat wave, we've witnessed a cold snap like we haven't seen in years around the Phoenix valley (so they tell me, anyway). Now's your chance to point and laugh. I mean, like, my swimming pool temp is like totally down to 46 degrees.

Once...

"Once On This Island" is a musical, set in Jamaica.

My daughter just landed a small part in the Actor's Youth Theater production of this.(squeee!) After having a blast with The Three Musketeers last fall, she thinks this one sounds equally fun, maybe even more so. Rehearsals start Saturday.

Performances in early March.
Tickets: $10 for adults and...um...less than that for kids 10 and under.

Beaker apparently wasn't an option

You Are the Swedish Chef

"Bork! Bork! Bork!" Your happy and energetic - with borderline manic tendencies. No one really gets you. And frankly, you don't even get you. But, you sure can whip up a great chocolate mousse

The Muppet Personality Test

So, hordes of minionses...

where are you? I'm waiting. *tap tap tap*

I know, you're taking down your plastic trees and Menorot*. I'll be here when you're done.


*edited for proper spelling, hat-tip to Sasha