Aesthetic Book Series: Meet Noah

Welcome back to another Aesthetic Book Series blog post.

Today, we get to meet the main character of Rubatosis, Noah. 

Noah Dean Turner is seventeen when he leaves home to find the true meaning of life.

Noah. The MC. The boy that walks around with his heart outside of his chest--in more of a literal way than figurative way. The story chaser and adventure seeker. The one on the hunt to discover the meaning of the world and the truth behind it. The book requisitioner and superhero of his own story, though he hasn't come to terms with it yet. The one we're rooting for

"Noah considered taking off in that instant. He could easily leave through the back door and run as far as he could till he hit the woods. No one would find him—he would be perfectly lonely. 

But he paused at the back door, letting his hand rest on the knob. Noah could see all the land from where he stood. He could see the rows of vegetables that would never be picked and weeds that would never be pulled. He could see his life out there, his future, and his granddad’s words ran through his head."

That's all for this one!

Stay tuned for next week to meet the next character! 

Aesthetic Book Series: Meet The Book

Writerly friends and readers from all around,

Due to my constant Twitter distraction, (that and being on submission) I have been inspired by the #ThursdayAesthetic hashtag. This has fire-started a pretty cool series to introduce you all to my debut novel, Rubatosis: The Unsettling Awareness of One's Own Heartbeat. 

That's a complete mouthful, I know. 

Though the title may be subject to change, the characters, and so on and so forth . . . I thought, what the heck, might as well get you all excited for this book since that's all I've been talking about on here for the last few years or so anyway. 

With this series, you can expect to see some stellar book aesthetics for each character in the order that they're introduced in the book. 

To kick it off, I will start by introducing the book with an excerpt from my query and #pitmad tweet that got me my agent. 

Find the goodness below. 

(Fun fact: this is actually take two of the main aesthetic, go here if you want to see the original.)

#PitMad Tweet: A boy with a timer on his heart tries to overcome his death sentence by making sense of the world through books.

At eleven-years-old, Noah Dean Turner learns that he has ventricular tachycardia, a potentially life threatening arrhythmia that causes his heart to beat twice as fast.

With the support from his granddad, Noah makes it to year seventeen. Long hours in the garden and reading thick books has provided a distraction to his inconsistent heartbeat. But when Noah's granddad passes away, and he's forced to move in with his promiscuous aunt, he hops on a bus in hopes of finding a place that he can call home. Instead, Noah is dropped off at a retreat center called Camp Neodesha. There, he realizes two things. One: everyone's story parallels to a book he's read. And two: falling in love with a broken heart is, in fact, as deadly as it seems.

RUBATOSIS: THE UNSETTLING AWARENESS OF ONE'S OWN HEARTBEAT can be summarized as Alice in Wonderland meets The Fault in Our Stars. This story isn't just about a boy with a death sentence, it's an adventure story about growing up, a story about finding love and meeting radical characters that help Noah make sense of the world, including a boy who steals, a kind stranger that smokes hookah, a domineering mother figure that owns a smiling cat, and a girl with wild hair and heterochromia eyes that makes Noah forget about every good book he's read.


*Wipes off sweat* 

Phew. Alright guys, that's the overview for good ol' Rubatosis. 

I hope you like it. I'd love to see any that you may have as well! Drop your links in the comment section below, or tag me on Twitter!

Next week, you'll get to meet Noah, the main character. 

Andd if you didn't know . . . Noah's pretty great. 

*wink, wink*

Before I forget, if you want to know more about my query, and those that helped me form it, check out my AQC link: http://agentqueryconnect.com/index.php?/topic/34139-rubatosis-update-on-post-24/?hl=rubatosis

Till next time!

The Book Process: Beginning to End (Traditional)

It has recently dawned on me that many of my close friends and relatives have no idea how the book process works.

Now that I'm represented by a literary agent, I get random emails and comments that go something like:

"Hey, Britney, when can I get a copy of your book?" or, "Hey, can you send me a copy of your book cover when you get the chance?" or, "It's so cool that you have an agent, when can I expect to read something of yours?" or "Oh, are you still writing? I thought you got published months ago?" Or "Are you sure you're still getting published? I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure the process doesn't take this long. You should check in with someone, like, seriously." Or, "You're sure--like absolutely sure--that this is still happening, right?"

My response to these questions vary, and I struggle on how elaborate I should be when it comes to informing someone on how this process works.

Then I find myself getting agitated when I have to constantly repeat myself; my tongue literally triple folds into knots, and at some point, I finally realize how glamorized media has made the publishing process. In movies, writers go from drafting a book to being multi-millionaires over night.

That is not how it happens.

So today, I have decided to dedicate my morning to writing about how this whole book process works when someone has decided to take the traditional route of getting published.

This might be a long one, guys, so buckle in.

First, and foremost, a writer must have a finished book. And by finished, I mean it's been edited a gazillion times by beta readers, critique readers, and possibly many random people they may have met in a writing forum going through the same experience as said person.

When the writer feels like their manuscript is free of errors (as much as it can be), they begin doing research on literary agents who might like their manuscript and who represent their genre. (Click here for an older post on how I used to research agents. Also, click here if you're thinking, "what the heck is a literary agent?")

This can take anywhere from a couple of hours to a few weeks, depending on the writer. 

But before they can send their book to a literary agent, they must complete a query. As many writers already know, queries can take form of the devil sometimes. It's a one page summary of the manuscript condensed into 400 words or less. This query has to be concise, appealing, and close to perfect. (Perfect: an ever-changing adjective that differs from person to person--so yeah, good luck on perfecting that query, my friend.)

I'm not going to lie, though, I've developed a soft spot for queries overtime, and they're not as scary as they seem. (For more about queries and how they haunt writers' nightmares, click here.) 

So once they have a polished manuscript and query, they can send it out to literary agents. 

This is where rejection hits hard. Depending on the agency, some agents receive hundreds of queries a day. Many of these queries never even see the agent because they might be filtered by the agent's assistant, and most queries will receive a form rejection (for many different reasons) that goes something like: 

Dear Britney,

Thank you for your query. While your project does sound interesting, I'm afraid it's not quite right for me at this time. I genuinely appreciate your email and wish you luck finding an agent who can successfully champion your work.

All best,

Yes, this is an actual rejection that I have swiped from my inbox.

To be quite frank, many writers fall under the weight of rejection, and they lose sight of why they began writing in the first place. Some writers stop writing all together, or they choose a different route of getting published.

But, some writers actually hear back from an agent, and if a literary agent is impressed and confident in their work, they will offer to represent them in this crazy world of writing. (For more on how I found my agent, click here and here.)

And yet, that's still not the end of it.

After contacts have been signed, the agent and writer work hard together to shape the manuscript into greatness by going through more rounds of edits. These edits will vary depending on the agent and what condition the manuscript is in. Some will ask to re-work a few chapters; some might ask for a synopsis if one isn't written yet. This process can take a few weeks or a few months.

Once the manuscript has gone through more edits, the literary agent will begin to submit to editors in publishing houses. (You've probably heard of Random House, Penguin, or Simon & Schuster, to name a few.)

Hearing back from editors can take a long time because, just like literary agents, they are getting multiple submissions in their inbox on the daily. They are also looking for specific works that they feel confident in and that they believe will make a hit in the market.

This can be a doozy for many writers because they'll probably find themselves refreshing their inbox on multiple occasions, hoping they've heard back from their literary agent with good news.

And when the time finally comes, the writer will be get a phone call from their agent stating that some editor wants to publish them! (This is, of course, after the agent has negotiated the author's work.) Soon, another contract is signed, and there is it, they have officially began a whole new process.

Even after a writer has signed a book deal with a publishing house, it could still take up to two years before they ever see their book in print form! *gasp*

With an editor, a writer goes through a few more rounds of revisions (and then that version of the  book gets edited by many other people in the publishing world) before a final draft is created.

I promise, though, this process grows to be a great one because while all this insanity is happening, many people are making sure the book looks phenomenal across multiple formats, and there's a whole team of people who are working on how to market the book and tailor it to whom they think might be the perfect audience for it. All the while, there's another group of people reading the book and creating a stellar cover for it.

Finally, the book is complete; the book release date has come; and the author finally gets to hold their book in print form.

And this, friends, family, who ever has made it this far into the post, is why I still do not have a book in print form to give you.

I promise, something is happening.
It just takes time. A lot of it, to be exact.

I hope this answers your questions on how the book process works; this whole publishing thing is a bit bonkers.

Still have more questions? Leave a comment below.
Like these posts? Share them in your writing community; it helps me know that I should make more.

Till next time!

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. 

The Writing Life (Take Two!)

Coming into this life, I expected it to be easy, somewhat.

But clearly, I was fooled.

It's been almost a year since I began blogging and almost four years since I began writing seriously. (You know, with the hopes of being published someday.)

And it's not even about wanting to get published--that's a simple perk of being a writer--it's about connecting with other writers, with readers. It's about living in a world where people understand you. A world where when you say, "I think I have carpal tunnel," they don't look at you like you're crazy. It's about being invested in a community, like this one, where other writers welcome you with GIF hugs and emojis.  A world where they send you so many emails about their book that you think it's spam. But mostly, a world where they not only want to be invested in you, but in your characters, in your writing.....that's the best feeling.

So here I stand with a heart full of words and a mind filled with stuff about writing. Like I said before, I will either succeed or fail miserably in this realm. But for us, for me, for my words, I believe that I will make it far in this life someday. I might even own my own literary agency . . . ha . . . now would be the time for me to come off that high horse.

But if, and when I do publish my first book through some hardcore agent who believes in me, I want to remember you, all of you who read this.

I propose that the first fifteen people who email me with the sentence, "we are a community" will receive a signed, hard-back book from yours truly. That's a promise. Maybe that doesn't mean much to you, but it means everything to me. You all are my people--we're a community--and I want to give back.

Till then, I'll be working hard on this third book with community in mind. I'll be looking into Carpal Tunnel because, yeah, this pain is real. And I'll be diving deep into this writer's life with high hopes.

Look forward to the next post because I'm going to continue the series, "How Writer's Made It Big!" This time, we'll be looking into how Veronica Roth corrupted 2014 with her Divergent series. You don't want to miss this one!


Till next time blog world,

OH, and somehow I managed to make it on a cover of a magazine. Who would have thunk it?

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!

Successful Query Examples

Do you ever stop and think: Man, if I had a few successful queries or book descriptions to look at, life would be easier.

Or maybe it's: I just don't feel like going to a bookstore and reading book descriptions. Actually, I don't feel like moving at all. 

Well, this is for you. No moving involved. Everything is here in one place.

Today's blog post features top chart books and their book descriptions. Maybe you'll be inspired when it comes to your own query.

*Note: these are not the actual queries. But they may help you create your own query. 

1.) If I Stay: In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen ­year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make. Heartwrenchingly beautiful, Mia's story will stay with you for a long, long time.

         

Version two:   Just listen, Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel.
                             I open my eyes wide now.
                             I sit up as much as I can.
                             And I listen.

                             Stay, he says.

Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones: Stay true to her first love—music—even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind?

Then one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, and in an instant, everything changes. Suddenly, all the choices are gone, except one. And it's the only one that matters.

If I Stay is a heartachingly beautiful book about the power of love, the true meaning of family, and the choices we all make.

Nifty Link: Here!

2.) DIVERGENT: In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, Tris also learns that her secret might help her save the ones she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

Version two: “One choice can transform you.”
In Divergent, Beatrice faces a choice that will change her life forever. She can choose any of the five factions to live in… forever. It will determine who her friends are. Who she will marry. What job she will have. What skills she will learn. What philosophy she will model her life around. What virtue she will pursue far beyond any other. Her choice of faction will shape the rest of her life.


Cool Link: Here!

3.) Thirteen Reasons Why: Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker - his classmate and crush - who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why. Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and learns the truth about himself-a truth he never wanted to face.

Extra Cool Link: Here!

I hope this helps!

Until next time blog world!

What I'm Reading

Between queries and scribbling on manuscripts, I read.

Yes, there are actually some--please add an extra emphasis to the word some--days when I have time to read an actual book with words I didn't write.

And I love reading. Before I knew that I wanted to pursue a dream in writing, reading was the best thing (I mean, it still is.)

However, lately, whenever I find myself reading a book, I would get excited and anxious about my own. Then, before I know it, I'm working on my manuscript, not even finishing the first chapter of (insert any book here that's been published in the last 50 years.)


With that said, I've forced myself to get over that barrier. Not only that, but now that I've actually finished The Willow Tree, it's been easier to enjoy a novel other than my own.

Which brings me to the point of today's blog post:

What, exactly, am I reading?

As of today, I am reading The Notebook.

If you live in America, you've probably seen this movie a million times. It's one of those mesmerizing, tragic, I-want-that-kind-of-love stories. It's almost as popular as the story of Romeo and Juliet (maybe...)

And though I have seen the movie, I decided to read the book. Many people don't know, but The Notebook was Nicholas Sparks's first published book. (Read the story here.) And I love reading debut novels because it gives me hope--like that could be me one day--and it's easy to tract the author's growth from the first novel to the most recent novel. But the best part is seeing how far they've come. 

Hopefully I'm able to finish this book; it's a really easy read, and it moves at a nice pace. Ha, wish me luck. 

Are you struggling with reading books other than your own, too? Share below!

Till next time blog world. 

The Book Life

Hello, blog world,

Today, my friends, is a BIG day for me.

But before I get into that, let me share a little bit about myself.


My name is Britney.

I am a city girl, born and raised in the good ol' Kansas City, KS. (However, I've always dreamed of being a country girl . . .)

I like music....like alot! And I sing in the shower.

I prefer cold tea over coffee.

I am twenty years old, and I am an active student in college who has changed her major more times than I can count.

I am a writer.

I love writing more than I love sleeping--not kidding.

And I could probably watch movies all day.

But, moving on. The reason this day is such a big deal is that I've sent out four queries!

Now, if you're unfamiliar with a query, a query is basically a blurb of your book (you usually find this on the inside jacket or the back cover of a novel.)
If you've ever experienced the querying process, then you know how nerve-racking it can be.
This is the second book I've queried, and right now, I'm trying my absolute best not to poop my pants.
I hate waiting.
And these agents probably won't get back to me for weeks.
So how do I kill the time?
I create another blog. (Yes, I said another one.)
Again, I love to write!

That's all for today's post!
I will be updating soon!