THE 12 YEAR OLD LAWYER

 Hi, my name is Tula.  I come from Planet Wump.  I'm a 12 year old environmental lawyer.  I go around the universe protecting the natural beauty on other planets.  I also have a blog.  Today I'm interviewing MG author, James Mihaley.

So tell me, James, when did you realize you wanted to be a writer?

I was walking in the woods one day and a giant pen landed on my head.  It was about the size of a baseball bat.  I took that as a sign.

What challenges do you face in the writing process, and how do you overcome them?

The biggest challenge is not to get distracted by ESPN or Facebook or Twitter or You Tube or text messages.  The key is to stay focused.  I wrote a poem about it.  

How Artists Ripen

                   Discipline isn’t any fun,

                  but oh, my friend,

                  it’s brighter than the sun.

 

As a young person, who did you look up to most?

 I looked up to dogs and cats.  They never get divorced.  Isn’t that amazing?  There is no such thing as child custody in the animal world.  (I mean kitten or puppy custody.)  You never hear a female cat say to a male cat, “You get him on the weekends.  The rest of the week he’s with me.”

Where do you write your books?

At the bottom of the sea.  My sailing vessel is called ‘The Submarine Of Literary Miracles’.  Poems by Shel Silverstein are painted on its side.  It runs on recycled plastic.  I go around cleaning the bottom of the sea and writing at the same time.  It makes me feel very productive.

What was your favorite thing about school?

The trap door in the cafeteria leading to another galaxy.

What was your least favorite thing about school?

The pencil sharpener that would follow me through the trap door and chase me across other planets.  I don’t like pencils.  I prefer pens.  The pencil sharpener felt insulted by this.  It wanted to grind my fingers and toes.  But eventually I made peace with it.  I introduced it to a female pencil sharpener.  They got married and had baby pencil sharpeners.  I was the best man at the wedding.

What sparked your imagination for You Can’t Have My Planet, But Take My Brother Please? 

I was out walking one day in LA.  People don’t walk in LA, so you feel really strange.  People in cars stare at you like you’re a freak.  “Look.  He’s walking.  What’s wrong with that guy?”  Cops will actually stop you.  “Excuse me, sir.  Why are you walking?”  I tell them it’s because I’m a writer and I get my best thinking done when I’m out walking.  Then the cops apologize and wish me good luck.  So anyway, I was strolling along, seeing all the trash on the streets and the smog in the sky, when suddenly an idea popped into my head.  What if it turned out that we humans were merely renting Earth?  And what if we were about to get evicted because we’re such lousy tenants?  I pictured a sleazy alien realtor planting a For Sale sign on our planet.  All that stuff suddenly appeared in my imagination and it wouldn’t leave me alone.  “Please tell our story!” it said.  “Please!”

So I told it.

What is your favorite planet? 

Earth. I’ve been on 2,356 different planets and I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Earth is the most magnificent.  Roses on other planets don’t bloom like ours do.  Birds in distant galaxies don’t soar as gracefully as ours do.  Tigers in other universes aren’t nearly as majestic.  Also, they have a tendency to smell.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

A professional basketball player on another planet.  I wanted to play hoops with no gravity and do a reverse ‘in your face’ tomahawk dunk on a three headed center.  I dreamt about being a superstar in a galaxy that had popcorn machine robots.  The popcorn popper is right there inside them!  I wanted to play ball in an arena where alien trolls lurked under the bleachers, and I’d have to go rescue the cheerleaders at halftime.

Who is your favorite fictional character?

THE BFG.  How can you not love a giant who practices non-violence? 

What would you do if you couldn’t write?

I would leak words.   Words would leak out of my soul while I stood in line at the supermarket.  I’d leave puddles of words everywhere I went.

HEROES & VILLIANS #2 : Villains Are People Too: Why Understanding Bad is Good

 

Here at Project Middle Grade Mayhem, we're starting an informal series focused on Heroes & Villains in Middle Grade Literature. We'll be sharing some of our favorite examples, maybe some poor examples (and why they didn't work), and writing about and discussing heroes and villains, and why they are so important to story, whose most important aspect has always been character.

Back by popular demand is editor and author Harrison Demchick. Joining us for a Heroes & Villains guest post, Harrison will bring more of his literary wisdom to our virtual table. -eden

Suppose there's an amulet kept within a cavern situated at the top of the world's tallest mountain. Your hero has spent days scaling the bare face of this mountain, knowing all the while that the fate of all humanity depends on attaining this amulet. She's driven and determined, but as she nears the top, pulling her way up onto a jagged cliff, she finds herself face to face with your villain.

But why is the villain here?

Broadly speaking, there are only two possible answers to that question: He's either here to achieve his own goals or he's here to stop the hero.

Functionally, these may well be the same thing. Either way, he's probably going to do everything in his power to send our hero flying back down the mountain. But in fact, the answer to this question is extremely important, with implications that resonate throughout your entire novel.

Let's look at this another way: Is your antagonist a genuine character, or is he merely an obstacle?

This is a problem faced by many authors operating in genres with a strong hero/villain dynamic. You see this in science fiction and fantasy, and also in mysteries and thrillers. A lot of time has been put into crafting the protagonist, as it should be, given how much of story comes down to that character. The development of the protagonist from start to finish nearly always reflects story arc. The struggle of the hero defines the novel.

But it can't define the villain.

Oftentimes, a villain is crafted purely to be the obstacle in the way of the hero. Whatever the hero wants, the villain doesn't want him to have. Whatever it serves the story for the villain to do, the villain does. And it's clear why this happens. You want your story to have conflict, and the specific cause of conflict is obstacles that stand in the way of the hero achieving her goals.

But for obstacles to resonate as significant and feel authentic, they need to have a reason for being, and that reason is not purely to make things difficult for the hero. When it comes to a villain, if all he does is stand in the way, he will be, at best, a cipher, and quite likely a series of contradictory characteristics and motivations. I've edited a number of novels in which an antagonist kills someone here or reveals himself there purely to generate suspense and conflict with the hero, even though such actions run directly counter to the villain's own goals and motivations. Someone who behaves like that will never feel authentic to the reader, and inevitably that limits conflict.

What this means is that you need to develop your story from two angles. You want to know what the hero does, of course, and what she experiences, but you also need to conceive this story from the perspective of your antagonist. You need to know how he imagines things playing out. You need to keep in mind at all moments what he's trying to accomplish.

You know who's really good at this? Project Mayhem blogger Eden Unger Bowditch.

The great threat in Eden's Young Inventors Guild books is the mysterious Komar Romak. As the editor of these books, I do know the secret of Komar Romak, and while I have been sworn to absolute secrecy, what I can tell you is that Eden knows so much more than she's revealed so far. She knows the history of Komar Romak. She knows the reasons for everything we see. That's what makes Komar Romak such a compelling and persistent threat.

The Young Inventors Guild novels don't include scenes from the villain's perspective. Your novel might—a lot of genre novels do. But regardless of whether or not readers spend any time with your antagonist, you need to do so. You need to put yourself into the head of your villain and understand exactly why he's there near the top of that mountain protecting that amulet. You need to know exactly how doing so furthers his plans, and if it doesn't, then he shouldn't be there.

Obstacles are crucial, and you need them in the way of your protagonist, but your villain is not an obstacle. He's a character—a fleshed-out person of your design. As long as he remains that way, you should have a pretty compelling dynamic on your hands.

Harrison Demchick is an editor with nine years of experience in the publishing industry. Specializing in fiction and memoir, he’s worked with children’s books, young adult books, and adult novels of all sorts, from mysteries to thrillers to chick lit to literary fiction and everything in-between. He’s currently taking clients as a developmental editor with Ambitious Enterprises (www.ambitiousenterprises.com), a creative services boutique. His debut novel, The Listeners, came out December 2012 from Bancroft Press.

STORY'S END giveaway

WINNERS SELECTED: Congratulations to: Dawn Lindsay, viktorija, and Sheena-kay Graham. Check your inbox for an e-mail, and happy reading!  M

I can hardly believe it's time to announce that STORY'S END is now out in paperback.  Hooray!

To celebrate, I'm giving away three signed copies of the paperback.  Enter below anytime between now and midnight PST Friday April 11, and I'll contact the winners shortly thereafter.

Thanks for reading!


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ARC GIVEAWAY: THE ACTUAL & TRUTHFUL ADVENTURES OF BECKY THATCHER

UPDATE: The winner of the ARC is Prerna and the winner of the Tina Wexler critique is Davy! Winners have been contacted. Thanks everyone for your awesome suggestions of fun spin-off characters! I hope you'll check out BECKY THATCHER when she's out in July!

Hey, Project Mayhem! I am so super excited and honored to be giving away an amazing ARC – THE ACTUAL & TRUTHFUL ADVENURES OF BECKY THATCHER by Jessica Lawson, which debuts on July 1^st. I am ALSO thrilled to be giving away a query critique by Jessica’s powerhouse agent, Tina Wexler!! So read on for an interview with both Jess and Tina, and see below for more details on the giveaway of this hilarious and poignant middle grade debut.

PM: Jessica, why do you write middle grade? Is there one quality you think all middle grade books should have?

JESSICA: I’m a nostalgic person by nature, and those middle grade years, 8-12, were some of the happiest of my life. It was also the time that I truly fell in love with books, and still breaks my heart when I walk into the children’s section of the library and know that I’ll never have time to get to know all of the characters there.

In terms of qualities I think all middle grade books should have, I’d say at least a moment or two of humor, an instance or two of adventure, and either an overarching or underlying sense of heart.

PM: Taking on a classic like Tom Sawyer takes some serious ovaries. Tell us about how you arrived at the idea, and how you decided Becky's story needed to be told.

JESSICA: Oh, I don’t know that it needed to be told, but it sure was fun to write. For me, it wasn’t a matter of taking on Twain with the intention that a Tom Sawyer connection would be my “in” with publishing (although I made sure that Samuel Langhorne Clemens was the first person I listed in my acknowledgements for Becky T.). At that point, I’d written quite a few manuscripts so I wasn’t thinking about much other than writing down the story in my head, an idea prompted by revisiting the world of Tom Sawyer while dusting my bookshelf one day.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer caught my eye. I hadn’t read it in years and found myself thinking about Tom and Huck and all the adventures they had together. And I thought about Becky Thatcher, the nicely-dressed, finely-coiffed young girl who represented all that was good and pure to Tom—a girl who was distraught at discovering that Tom had been “engaged” to someone else. At Becky’s age, I was more likely to start a game of let's swipe cookies from the cabinet and make a secret hideaway under the porch than to wear dresses and play at being engaged. Being a tree-climbing, mischief-making, cops-and-robbers-playing kind of girl, I always related more to Tom and Huck than to Becky.

I decided that my version of Becky would be an adventurous young girl in overalls, with a smart mouth and a big heart. I decided that she would face the trials and tribulations of growing up, spit plenty of cherry pits, and be able to appreciate a fine piece of bacon.

For various reasons I set the idea aside for a while, and when I was ready to write this Becky’s story, I jotted down a few sample pages and sent them to CPs like you, Joy, for a voice check. You gave me some great feedback, and off I went. It was the fastest draft I’ve ever written (not that it didn’t need lots of follow-up work!) and became the manuscript that got me an agent and a book deal.

PM: After a long agent search, you landed one of the best around. Any querying tips?

JESSICA: Don’t give up. Don’t give up. Don’t give up. And get excited about the new manuscript you’re writing while you’re querying (because YOU ARE WRITING ANOTHER MANUSCRIPT WHILE QUERYING, AREN’T YOU?).

Don’t be afraid to aim high. Newer agents that are interested in your genres (particularly those associated with established agencies) are wonderful to query because they’re looking to build their lists a bit more, but don’t be afraid to try for agents who have bigger clients and limited interest in acquiring new clients. If they’re open to queries, then they’re still looking to fall in love with new material—maybe your new material!

And don’t be afraid to query an agent who has previously rejected one of your manuscripts. Agents get a ton of submissions and they aren’t going to hold it against you if you’ve submitted 2 or 3 projects that haven’t been a fit.

Jess’s agent search was worth the wait, because she ended up signing with Tina Wexler of ICM, and Tina has graciously agreed to give away a critique of either your query or your first page to one person who comments on this blog post! I asked Tina a couple questions.

PM: Tina, what intrigued you about Jess's query?

TINA: I have always been interested in retellings that give voice to a character—and specifically a female character—who played a bit part or was overlooked in the original version of the story. So Jessica’s pitch, putting Becky Thatcher front and center, immediately appealed to me. Also, her query perfectly captured Becky’s voice, and it had such spark. How could I resist?

PM: Why did you decide to offer rep after reading the manuscript? What do you love about BECKY?

TINA: I offered representation because this adventure story, with its spunky girl protagonist and great sense of humor, spoke to my heart. Yes, there’s plenty of hilarious mischief-making, but underneath the dangerous fun is a story of a girl struggling with the loss of her brother. That emotional grounding is what I’m looking for in everything I represent. It’s what makes me fall in love with a character, what made me fall in love with Becky. It’s why I’m a reader, and why I think other readers will really connect with the book.

(Check that out! BECKY is being released in a boxed set with a couple books by some guy named Twain!)

And you will, you guys. You really will fall in love with Becky (and the amazing art by Iacopo Bruno)! I’m so excited to share an ARC of THE ACTUAL AND TRUTHFUL ADVENTURES OF BECKY THATCHER with one commenter on this post. I planned to do one of those giveaways where you get entries for following and liking and adding Jess, but she was insistent that no one have to jump through hoops. ‘Cause she’s sweet like that. (But you definitely should follow her and like her and add her, because you do not want to miss Becky when she comes out!) So all you have to do is leave a comment! (Though we do ask that you follow Project Mayhem to be eligible.) 

To be entered to win the ARC, tell us which side character in a classic MG book you’d like to see get their own spin-off novel, and make sure we have a way to contact you. If you want to be entered for the critique, mention that in your comment, too! On April 11^th, I’ll pick one winner for the ARC and one winner for the Tina Wexler critique. I’ll update this blog post then and notify the lucky winners!

Thanks so much, Jess and Tina!!

From Concept to Contract

As I peered over my shoulder at the twisted, ten-year path that led to my first book deal, I paused and thought something understated like, “Okay, this is really happening.” Below, I’ll paint my journey with a broad brush, year-by-year, to give a long-view. It’s easy to be discouraged day-to-day when you receive rejection after rejection, or are creatively stalled while writing. I’ve been in both of those places multiple times.

Everyone’s writing journey is unique, and I’m sharing part of mine in the hopes that whenever you’re considering giving up, instead, you’ll take a breath and keep going.

2002. I had an idea for a story, which I chewed on for a couple of years as I rode my bike to and from work.

2004. I started writing my story down on notebook paper.

2006. I finished a meandering first draft and erroneously thought it was pretty good.

2007. I took a writing class and wrote and revised a second book that got some attention at a writer’s conference and made me realize that my first book needed work and revised it.

2008. I wrote and revised a third book that resulted in several offers of representation from agents (queried over 100) and I signed with one who was not successful in selling the book. Meanwhile, I kept rewriting my first book.

2009. I wrote and revised a fourth book that I have yet to put out to the world beyond my critique partners and I kept rewriting my first book.

2010. I wrote and revised a fifth book and did a major revision on my first book. My first book took second prize in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association's Annual Contest.

2011. I parted ways with my first agent, queried my fifth book (again queried over 100) and obtained representation from my current agent, Amy Tipton.

2012. As she tried to sell my fifth book, I suggested we work on my first book together and get it ready for submission. As my fifth book climbed to the editorial boards of a few houses but did not result in any offers, we did two major revisions of my first book.

2013. My agent started subbing my first book while my fifth book was still on submission. We got an offer on my first book in November from Move Books, which I accepted.

2014. I’m in the middle of revisions with Move Books on a novel I started writing in 2004.

So, what does all this mean???

Like most publishing stories, it shows that you never know what will happen or why, or when you and your story will be in the right place at the right time.

Sure, you have to make choices about what story to work on, when to put a story away, when to start a new one, what craft books to read, what conferences to attend, what goals to set for yourself, when to submit and for how long, and a zillion other things related to your writing life.

 One of the keys is to keep making those decisions.

Don’t give up.