Mystery Agent TOMORROW!

Operation Awesome is hosting its second Mystery Agent one-line pitch contest!

Details will be on the OA blog tomorrow. In fact, the contest post is already written!

But you still have to wait until tomorrow. Buwahahaha!

It's kind of like how they finished filming all the Harry Potter films forever ago, but still make us wait a year between each one! LOL.

Oh, and Happy Halloween!

I'm not into sé·ances or anything fancy like that, but I do like to look up my ancestors in some of the many family history books I've been given over the years. Let's face it. There's something cool about these old black and white pictures.

Mary Field Garner Picture from Utah State History Digital Collections

From Sister Marcia Geilmann's mission blog:

Mary Field Garner, the last leaf, as she was the last living person to have personally known the prophet, Joseph Smith. She was about 10 years of age as they began the exodus. She told of her mother not having time to finish the bread she had started, so she put it in a pot, hung it along side the wagon and started on the journey. When they stopped for the night, then she baked the bread.

Mary Field Garner

"[My great-great-great grandmother] was born February 1, 1836 and died July 20, 1943. She lived to be 107 years of age. She was present at the meeting wherein the saints chose their next prophet after Joseph Smith's martyrdom. The baby in her mother's arms had dropped the tin cup she was playing with and as she bent down to retrieve it, she heard the voice of Joseph Smith as Brigham Young spoke. Looking up, she saw not the form of Brother Brigham, but of the former prophet and patriarch, Joseph Smith. Mary's mother was a woman of great faith and perseverance. In the cold winter months in her family's journey back to Nauvoo after the main body of saints had moved on west, she would cross frozen rivers, carrying the two youngest in her arms and bidding all the children to cling to her skirt so that if they should fall, not a one would be left to the torture of mobbers.

Throughout the endeavor to establish residency in the far west, Mary's mother and Mary herself underwent an interesting experience with a certain Indian Chief who took a fancy to Mary's long red hair, which fell in locks down her back. This same Chief followed Mary's camp of saints for days, checking in on Mary. One day Mary's mother hid her under the feather beds and when the Indian came to see her and found her gone, he asked of her whereabouts. Her mother told him that she was lost. He didn't accept this and searched every wagon in the camp including Mary's, but did not find her. At this, he left and they didn't see him for a long time until they had established residency in Utah. Then, this same Chief appeared at her door and asked Mary's mother to give Mary to him to wed. Mary's mother refused and bade him go away. He sat at their door for 3 days, at which time he offered Mary's mother many, many ponies, blankets and beads, saying that Mary would be his white squaw and queen of his tribe, and that all of his other squaws would be her servants. Mary's mother refused again, but it wasn't until Mary herself told him NO and to leave her alone that he left. She married William Garner Jr. in Slaterville, Utah in the year 1856."

And if she hadn't, I wouldn't have been born. There's something for all you sci-fi writers working on time travel books. ;)

Family histories are interesting nuggets, rarely complete, that tell us where we came from and how far we've come, sometimes because of the sacrifices and strength of those who came before us. That's why on the Day of the Dead, I like to think about Mary and other grandparents who lived and died, in another world completely, so that we could live in this one.


Michelle is talking about awesome, spooktacular first lines over at Operation Awesome, so trick-or-treat over there and wish her a Happy Halloween. :)

Also, give Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins a read. Witches, vamps, and demons, oh my! It's a perfect Halloween read for the 16 and over crowd. It had me up all night reading to find out how it ended. It's also about to be followed up with an awesome sequel: Demonglass.

Cover love!

And last but not least, the Operation Awesome orange owl now has a name...

Ha! I'm Robert Pattinson!

Which Harry Potter Character are you?

CEDRIC DIGGORY

Popular, intelligent, loyal, good looking. Some of the many things that describe you. You know what you want in life and how to achieve your goals. You put on a brave facade, but underneath are scared of the same things many others are. You strive to achieve your best and wont accept anything lower. You are extremely loyal to your friends and wouldn't do anything to hurt another person. Because you are seemingly good at everything, people will dislike you for being so 'perfect'.

Find yours here.

And don't miss all the fun going on at Operation Awesome. Kristal breaks down deadlines for:

1) NAMING THE ORANGE OWL (Perceval and Oliver Awesome are currently tied)

2) WINNING THE WHITE TWILIGHT SAGA LIMITED EDITION

3) GETTING YOUR PITCH READY FOR OUR NOVEMBER 1st MYSTERY AGENT CONTEST

Hurry over to the Operation Awesome blog for deets. And Happy Halloween Weekend, my friends!

Look up your ancestors, give the gift of sugary goodness, and pretend to be something out of a novel (or children's cartoon)! That's what I plan on doing! ;)

Stress Barometer about to BUST!

I might die of stress in November, just to warn you all. If I don't blog for seven straight days, call the blog authorities and have them check my apartment. No, don't do that. I'm sure my husband will notice if I die and he can take care of it. Just have the facebook people memorialize my blog. The epithet should read:

Here lies Katrina Lantz.

She overdid it during Nanowrimo.

You think I'm being dramatic, but I just got the hiccups.

THE HICCUPS!

This is serious, people. I think I need a stress reliever. 

I'm going to make a list of things that might relieve this barometric pressure:

1. Write from prompts to warm up for Nanowrimo.

2. Do the dishes/laundry/toy-cleanup so my space will be zen.

3. Go to the park with the kids and get some fresh air.

4. Close down the computer and read one of my awesome sidebar books.

5. Yoga, yoga, yoga, yoga, yoga.

6. Dress the kids up in their Halloween costumes and take pictures 

(they'll be Diego and Boots)

Now that I have a list of nice things to do, I feel better already. 

Just to prove I'm going to do it, I'll start right here where you can see. Here's my writing from a prompt:

The Brazilian jungle heat soaked me in sweat, a billboard broadcasting my humanity.

My jaw trembled. “How many of you are there?”

The motherless little girl with dark but icy skin and rust colored eyes circled me. A playful grin made her look almost harmless, but the precise and agile way she moved past fallen logs and grass-thick ferns told another story.

I’d read the legends of her kind, half human and half monster—legends that brought me to her territory in a pre-college voyage of self-discovery. I wanted adventure, so why couldn’t I stop shaking?

“Don’t worry,” she giggled. “My bites aren’t venomous. Can’t vouch for that Jararaca, though.”

Following her tiny, perfect finger to the branch behind me, I barely registered the brown triangle pattern and yellow slit eyes before the snake charged.

In a flash so fast I thought I’d died, rust colored circles replaced the black slits. A deep breath promised I was still alive. There crouched my little girl guide, draining the snake’s cold blood dry.

No book prepared me for the wrenching pain in my stomach at the sight of her feasting. I keeled over, wretching into the bright green leaves of a Yellow Jaboticaba.

Ah. I really do feel SO MUCH BETTER! Hiccups? Gone. I'm not lying.

You can play the Twilight fan fic contest, too. The prizes are gorgeous.

Also, a few quick links: 

Elana's Query Ninja Chat transcripts are available. Awesome advice!

Janice Hardy, author of THE SHIFTER, talks about Fantasy

Two days left to vote to name Operation Awesome's orange owl! (in the sidebar)

This Thursday feels like a Friday

That's how happy I am today. It feels like Friday even though it's Thursday, probably because I am so, so, so looking forward to the Operation Awesome chat tonight with special guest Elana Johnson (aka Query Ninja).

And you guys, she's nervous, so she'll need lots of you to show up with nice things to say about her gorgeous new book, POSSESSION.

In preparation for tonight's chat (9pm EST at the Operation Awesome blog), Marieke has posted a perfectly timed and very helpful interview with Elana Johnson ABOUT...

(you guessed it)

QUERIES!

I'll go now, so you can skip on over and read that awesome interview.

p.s. any non-fiction writers reading this will find my CP Michelle McLean's non-fiction query advice extremely helpful. She writes both fiction and non-fiction, and her new book Homework Helpers: Essays and Term Papers releases in January 2011.

Generation Gap and Keeping it Fresh for Young Readers

Kids and teens today don't live in quite the same world today's YA and middle grade authors remember. Case in point:

Conan the Librarian would be lost on them...



from UHF, a Weird Al Yankovic movie

Most, in fact, don't know the Dewey Decimal system or how to use a card catalog. Why should they, when everything is on computers?

Check out this list of things that are different for this fall's incoming class of college freshman, the class of 2014. A few I picked out from their collection:

1. Few in the class know how to write in cursive.

12. Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry. 

19. They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone. 

46. Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.

55. Rock bands have always played at presidential inaugural parties. 

64. The U.S, Canada, and Mexico have always agreed to trade freely.

71. The nation has never approved of the job Congress is doing.

74. They've always been able to blast off with the Sci-Fi (SYFY) Channel. 

Just something to keep in mind when you're writing something you think is hilarious that references Dirty Harry or tangling phone cards or [insert your favorite childhood TV show here]--your readers might not get the joke. And if teen readers won't get it, savvy literary agents reading your pages will catch it, too. Yet another great reason to...

a) do your research

   1) google everything

   2) subscribe to a teen mag

   3) watch kiddie or teen-targeted TV shows (and then google those shows to find out what teens think about them)

   4) spy on teenagers (but don't be creepy) I just mean to do what few adults seem to do, which is listen to what teenagers have to say

b) run your work through beta readers or critique partners

I'm not extremely old (okay, I'm 27), but my high school experience was very different from today's high school experience. Schools were only just beginning to have bomb drills and lock-down drills to manage the risk of high school bombings/shootings (part of my decision to homeschool, actually--in Columbine's aftermath, those drills were terrifying). Twitter and facebook weren't mega-- myspace was. Ebay was still new and shiny. Craigslist wasn't around, that I know of.

Things change, and if your audience is the rising generation, it will pay to pay attention.

Okay, memory lane time. What's changed since you were in high school?

p.s. I miss Weird Al.

Why You Need a Stellar Query

Lindsay's post on Operation Awesome today is all about the publication process, with a few funny videos to illustrate her points about querying--how we think it ought to work and how it makes us feel when it doesn't quite work that way.

She says:

We set aside time in our day, our lives, to spend time with the people in our imaginations. We nurture them, love them and then want to set them free to make their own way in the world of agents and publishers. 

One day we hope readers fall in love with them like we have. Maybe our words will even inspire them to write as well. 

So to help get our words out there we have the awesome query chat with Elana Johnson tomorrow. So join us at 9pm EST on the 28th of October.

I'm very excited about this chat and you should be, too. Take a second to visit Elana's blog and you'll see why. Her fun/real/quirky way of writing makes complicated/scary things like query writing and query sending feel a lot less scary and complicated.

The author of FROM THE QUERY TO THE CALL, Elana's spent more time than the average writer analyzing what works and what doesn't in query letters. Her amazingly beautiful book, POSSESSION, is coming out next year from Simon & Schuster. She's been through this process herself and understands how difficult it can be to condense your 300-page novel into a one-page sales pitch that will get those first few pages read.

As someone who is currently querying a finished novel, I'm especially interested in picking Elana's brain (but not in the zombie way--eww). Honestly, most of my rejections have come before agents even read a partial sample of my book, and I'm guessing that's the way it is for most writers (judging by how many rejections agents estimate they send out weekly). Ultimately, you are responsible for selling your book, from querying agents to telling your neighbors where they can get a copy, and everything in between. An agent can help a lot, but the query is where you start.

Elana Johnson will help you with that. Tomorrow. 9pm EST.

Be there or eat squares (that's how that saying goes, right?)

If you'd like a reminder, sign up for that nifty little service here.

Emy Shin's ARC Giveaway (MATCHED by Ally Condie)

Gorgeous, isn't it?

Emy Shin is giving away an ARC of this awesome YA dystopian novel, and I'm  hoping to win. But you should enter, too! If you win, I'll be totally excited for you. I also might turn the color of that bubble. 

Enter on her blog.

Even if you already have this one, you ought to head over to check out Emy's new blog. She used to blog as Sandy Shin, so be sure to follow her to her new online residence. :)