How Writers Made It BIG: Gillian Flynn

“Every author kind of secretly wants their book to be made into a movie,” said New York Times bestselling author, Gillian Flynn.

https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/gone-girl-author-gillian-flynn-i-killed-my-darlings-20141003

Gillian and I have two things in common: writing (but of course), and Kansas City. So it's no surprise that I wanted to do a post on the kick-ass, story guru from my hometown.

Like most aspiring writers, Gillian found herself writing between working. At the time she was employed as a film and book writer for Entertainment Weekly Magazine.

“I would write for a while and get busy with work and not write for awhile,” she said. “I was covering movies at the time so I was flying all over the place to film sets everywhere."

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/read-gillian-flynn

By 2006, she published her first book, Sharp Objects. In 2009, she published her second book, Dark Places. And by July 4th, 2012, her third book hit No 1 on NYT bestseller list after only a month of its release. If you ask me: she was gone, girl. (ha, get it?)

Okay, okay, dad puns aside, Gillian sky-rocketed with her novel, Gone Girl. With the unexpected twists and turns, and the enticing tale of her main characters' toxic marriage, the book was picked up as a movie and projected to hit over $300 million before its release.

And that, my friends, is what I call real-life goals.

Now at 47, all of Gillian's books are optioned for film, and she has officially clocked in at one of the world's top-earning writers. Can someone say, cha ching?

Why Gone Girl worked for Flynn:

Well, Gillian says, "Oh, I finally figured out how to write a book." That, and she was able to tackle the push-pull dynamics between a long-term relationship from a woman and a man's perspective. This story wasn't exactly a happy story, and I think the realness of it contributed to its success. 

Who is Gillian's Agent?

I couldn't find a ton of information on Gillian's publishing/querying story. I imagine, since she already had some great credentials under her belt with her prior job, she was seen as a pretty legit writer. She was picked up by the Leving | Greenberg | Rostan Literary Agency--try saying that three times fast--and was agented by Stephanie Rostan. Her books went on to be officially published by Penguin Random House. 

How can we learn from Gillian?

We can learn from Gillian by knowing that even if our debut novel doesn't do as good as we hoped, we can still make it to the top by continuing what we love: writing. 

We can also note that killing our darlings isn't a bad thing--it's a superb move. 

References:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2012/10/08/gillian-flynn-

interview/1610623/http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/skokie/news/chi-skr-gone-girl-author-screenwriter-visits-skokie-amid-wild-run-20150119-story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/03/gone-girl-phenomenon-gillian-flynn

That's it for this blog post, friends!

Drop a comment below on your reaction, or an author you'd like me to cover next time.  

Till next time, blog world. 

And remember: don't stop writing. 

#PitMad What?!?!

So, it appears I've started looking for agents again . . . 

This time, I had luck!

Friends, did you just hear that?! Seven years of queries and finally . . . FINALLY.

Okay--so here's the story: It's no surprise I've been sitting on a completed manuscript for a little over a year now. After the first round of queries and rejections, one could say I lost my confidence. I mean, this is my THIRD book, numerous rejections, and all I can think is, "I need a break."

After months of my boyfriend persuading me to get back out there, I began querying again--small publishing houses and agencies this time. I conveniently hop back on Twitter five days before #PitMad, and . . .

This is where the freaking out begins.

It's been years since I've participated in #PitMad. Thankfully, a lot of the writers I follow on twitter, kept mentioning #DVpit and #PreDv (go to this link here to learn more about it), and #PreDv gave me the chance to practice my one-liner before #PitMad. I acquired some pretty great help from @JenniferZeynab, @KatCho and @JL_Dugan. Then, the next day, just a couple of hours before my West Coast Swing class, I get a like from an Agent.

*Insert internal screams here*

After a few more moments of freaking out, I put on my focus goggles and start researching this guy like crazy.

I like what I find, so I send over my query, and I'm so nervous that I forget to mention word count and genre.

The next day at work, I accidentally open my email and find this:









More freaking out:

At some point I decide to get my crap together and send over the requested MS.
And now, here I am, waiting.

I'm so, so nervous. I'm nervous and excited. I've got all my fingers and toes crossed and God is probably tired of hearing my prayers.

Even if he decides to eventually pass, I'm just happy I've gotten this far.

So here I am, writing friends, I've entered another realm of waiting.

Wish me luck.

How Writers Made It BIG: Stephen King

"I was made to write stories . . . that's why I do it. I really can't imagine doing anything else," said New York Time's best-seller, Stephen King.

Photo from: http://www.denofgeek.us/books-comics/stephen-king/

Like many writers, King knew that writing was his talent. And indeed, it surely was.

While living in a trailer, King went to work on his fourth novel. It was to be a short story for Cavalier Magazine.

King had the idea to write about a teenage girl named Carrie with the gift of telekinesis. He got this idea from a book he had previously read about mental abilities. However, his idea for the main character's personality had derived from paying close attention to a girl he knew in middle school and high school.

"She was a very peculiar girl who came from a very peculiar family. Her mother wasn't a religious nut like the mother in Carrie; she was a game nut, a sweepstakes nut who subscribed to magazines for people who entered contests … the girl had one change of clothes for the entire school year, and all the other kids made fun of her. I have a very clear memory of the day she came to school with a new outfit she'd bought herself. She was a plain-looking country girl, but she'd changed the black skirt and white blouse – which was all anybody had ever seen her in – for a bright-colored checkered blouse with puffed sleeves and a skirt that was fashionable at the time. And everybody made worse fun of her because nobody wanted to see her change the mold, " said King. 

Once King finished the first three pages, he threw them in the trash--something I would do.

King had said:

"Some woman said, 'You write all those macho things, but you can't write about women.' I said, 'I'm not scared of women. I could write about them if I wanted to.' So I got an idea for a story about this incident in a girls' shower room, and the girl would be telekinetic. The other girls would pelt her with sanitary napkins when she got her period. The period would release the right hormones and she would rain down destruction on them… I did the shower scene, but I hated it and threw it away." 

But like any other good spouse, King's wife dug his papers out of the trash, encouraging him to finish it. And once he finished it two weeks later, he sent it out.

Soon enough, he received a telegraph that said: Carrie Officially A Doubleday Book. $2,500 Advance Against Royalties. Congrats, Kid - The Future Lies Ahead, Bill.

Before he knew it, New American Library had purchased 400,000 rights for his paperback book, and a year after the release, it sold one million copies.

Now, over forty years later, King is still known for Carrie and many other books he's written that makes readers afraid to sleep at night.


What to learn from Stephen King:

-Even if you have a wacky idea, don't give up on it. The odd ideas tend to be the best ideas.

Shock Factor:

-Can we just take a moment to reflect on the fact that King wrote a stellar book in TWO WEEKS. That's a record.

-Though Carrie was his fourth novel, it was his first published book.

References:

http://stephenking.com/faq.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_%28novel%29
http://www.biography.com/people/stephen-king-9365136#early-life

How Writers Made It BIG: Veronica Roth

I get really excited and anxious when I write these. My hope is that it inspires you to finish your manuscript just as much as it inspires me.

On that note, here's how Veronica Roth made it BIG!!!

For Roth, once choice transformed her.

It started at a writer's conference in Muncie, Indiana--the middle of freaking no where. 

Here, was the beginning of the beginning for Roth. She signed up for a pitch session with agent Joanna Stampfel-Volpe of New Leaf Literary Agency. 

Volpe requested a partial. Roth made revisions. And eventually the manuscript was turned down--BUT the manuscript that Roth submitted wasn't Divergent. Nope.

In response to the rejection, Roth wrote a new book, polished it, and submitted it to Volpe yet again. 

Then she waited, and waited, until at last: she received a phone call. 

"Okay, so you know how, while you're querying, you spend a lot of time refreshing your inbox and irrationally convincing yourself that every unknown number that calls you is an agent who will tell you that all your dreams have come true? Well, sometimes that unknown number IS actually an agent, calling to tell you that she lost power, which is why she couldn't send you an email, and PS, she's offering you representation," said Roth on her blog.

That was Divergent. Yup! Roth had submitted 56,000 words, a little less than 200 pages, and Volpe loved it. Together they worked on reversions where Roth added 49,000 more words, clocking in at a total of 105,000 words. 

During four days of submission, Roth received another phone call. This time Harper Collins wanted her book, along with the series.

Roth's response: "Okay. I'm going to cry a little now." Roth has loved Harper Collins since she was a toddler, and she never imagined being published by a company as big as this one. 

And that is how twenty-one year old (at the time) Veronica Roth made it big. 

Now she has a deal with Summit Entertainment and has a movie series, along with the complete Trilogy making New York Times best seller list. 

"It's been amazing. It's obviously not what I was expecting when I was in my rubber ducky pajamas writing this first book on Winter break. It's been definitely kind of transformative. It's definitely changed me as a writer, and it's been really exciting," said Roth in an interview.

Rejections:

Honestly, I'm not sure what how many rejections Veronica received. I don't think she received any from Divergent. From all that I've read, it seems that the only rejection she received was from her first book.

Why Divergent worked for Roth:

Besides the obvious relationship she had with Volpe, Roth had a great idea for a book and she put it into action. Many critiques say it's a mix between The Maze Runner and The Hungers Games, which is probably why it has so much hype. I'd say: great writing and great timing. 

Where are they now:

It seems that after writing Divergent, Roth also focused on Four. Not the number, but the actual book. I haven't read Four, but according to wiki,

 "Four is a collection of five e-Book short stories from the Divergent trilogy, told from Tobias Eaton's (Four) perspective, and written by Veronica Roth."

But, Roth has also been up to a multitude of things since the books and movies. To find out more, fill free to creep on her blog: veronicarothbooks.com 

Advice from Roth:

"Stop going back and reading it out loud! Don't reread at all, if it's keeping you from writing. Just push forward through the idea until you reach the end, and then work to revise it—but you'll never know how to fix the idea if you are never able to execute it."

That's it for today's post!

Till next time, blog world. 

And remember: Once choice can transform you. 

How Writers Made It BIG: A series

Ladies and Gents, I am more than thrilled to introduce to you the series: How Writer's Made It Big.
Within these series, you can read the stories on how a few of America's favorite author's hit the best selling list like Stephen King, Nicholas Sparks, John Green, ect.

I look forward to sharing their stories with you, and the first story I'll be telling is the one of the beloved Stephenie Meyer.
Like her or not, this woman is a genius.

 (Photo from: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com)

It started with a dream. A literal one. One about a lion falling in love with a lamb, a vampire falling in love with a human.

"Though I had a million things to do, I stayed in bed, thinking about the dream. Unwillingly, I eventually got up and did the immediate necessities, and then put everything that I possibly could on the back burner and sat down at the computer to write—something I hadn't done in so long that I wondered why I was bothering,” Meyer said.

Quickly after, Meyer developed a plot for this dream she had, and three months later, she finished the novel we know as Twilight.

Like most of us, Meyer was quite naive about the publishing process. She thought, and I quote, "I thought it worked like this: you printed a copy of your novel, wrapped it up in brown paper, and sent it off to a publishing house."

But knowing what we know now, the publishing process doesn't quite work that way. Eventually, Meyer subscribed to Writer's Market and found a few literary agencies and publishing houses that she liked. She then sent out a total of FIFTEEN query letters, receiving a few rejections along the way, and then getting picked up by literary agent, Jodi Reamer, a month later.

Together, Reamer and Meyer worked on Twilight for two weeks before sending it to Megan Tingley (of Megan Tingley Books, of Little, Brown and Company ) and then, well, the rest is all history--no, seriously.
In six months, Meyer dreamt, wrote, and published Twilight.
Within one month it was number five on the New York Time's Bestseller list, and within a year, Twilight was named one of Publisher Weekly's best children books of '05.
In the next three years, she completed and published the series, becoming the best selling book of 2008 and 2009.

Today, her books have been translated into 37 different languages.

It's crazy when you consider the time line of things. It's hard for me to even wrap my head around the idea of becoming a best selling author in one year. What the heck?!

Rejections: 

I'm not sure how many total rejections Meyer received for Twilight, other than the two she mentioned on her web page. According to the good ol' wiki, she got rejected 14 times. Which means that all of her agents, except for one lucky one, wanted to take on her project.

Why Twilight worked for Meyer:

Twilight worked because it was the purple cow of the industry. I mean, hello: vampires who sparkle in the sunlight instead of die, and a teenage girl who devotes her life to someone who wants to kill her. That's pretty strange if I say so myself, but people want strange--better than that, they want strange romances!

Where are they now: 

As of October of this year, Meyer is on a new project: The Storytellers--New creative voices of the Twilight series. Meyer is teaming up with filmmakers and producing short films on a broad number of characters from the Twilight saga.

She is also wanting to know which characters we want to see in film! So hit her up on her social media:
Twitter
FickleFish
Facebook

How can we learn from Meyer?

Well, how can we not? If you have a dream--one that you are so completely in love with--don't run from it, run with it.
Because within a year, you could write and publish that dream novel.



Till next time blog world,

Stay tuned for more from this series!