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Ponies!

As some of you probably know, I crochet. A lot. And in the last two months I started doing design work, which before then I thought I kind of hated. Because it was hard and I wasn’t passionate about anything enough to *want* to put in the work to get past that stage. And then along came My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I LOVE this show! I’m a proud brony. Or, well, pegasister. I’d been obsessed with this show for some time, and then a friend showed me some pics of crocheted ponies on eBay. And at first I was like, “It would be cool to make stuff like that, but I don’t like designing things.” But I couldn’t stop thinking about them and got really excited about trying my hand at it.

And I did! And it’s been going really well! Designing was hard at first, but now that I’ve learned the basics it’s become super addicting. I’m at the point now where I can sit down with and idea and start making it and have it actually turn out how I pictured. I even made sea ponies from the old 80s show (which I also LOVED, even if, sadly, it doesn’t hold up for me as an adult).

I also got over my laziness/annoyance about uploading and posting pictures, so here are some of my creations (you can see the rest at DeviantArt).

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic characters Rainbow Dash, Pinky Pie, and Rarity as sea ponies:

Fluttershy in her gala dress:

And my newest creations, baby versions of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy:

And I promise I’m still writing, even if ponies have kind of taken over my brain, or at least my apartment, which is now full of pony-colored yarn.

Happy 2012!

2011 was a pretty crazy year. It feels like it dragged on forever and at the same time was a huge whirlwind of hectic chaos that flew right by. I started grad school (a master’s program in Library and Information Science) and spent a week in Syracuse, NY hanging out with other people in the program, who were all amazingly awesome. I had jury duty the day I got back (again!), but thankfully I didn’t actually have to go in.

Writing wise, it’s felt like a pretty slow year, but maybe that’s just the last couple of months talking. I wrote about 90k over three books (not including notes and throwaway material). One of the books I finished, one of them I put on hold indefinitely, and the other is going out on proposal. And while I sold Russian rights for Renegade X–not sure if I ever announced that–and Disney renewed their movie option, I didn’t sell anything new in 2011, just like I didn’t in 2010. In 2010, that was devastating. In 2011, it was frustrating and sometimes discouraging, but I’ve more or less come to terms with it and learned a lot about myself in the process.

Actually, I learned a lot about myself in 2011 and about what makes me happy. I discovered I like having a variety of odd jobs. And I like jobs you sign up for and test into rather than interviewing for. I suck at interviews, but I’m great with tests. I don’t want writing to be the only focus in my life, but I do want to be able to focus on it when I choose to. So I like having my own schedule.

And I never thought self-publishing would make me happy, but in fact I’m ecstatic about it! (In case you missed it, I recently announced that I’m going to be self-pubbing a sequel to Renegade X.) Everyone’s been super supportive of it, and while I still want to be traditionally published as well, getting to work at my own pace and keeping myself as busy as I want to will be a nice complement to traditional pubbing.

I also finally started crocheting plushies for my Etsy shop. which I’d always sort of wanted to do but never really thought I would. And it turns out it’s wonderfully fulfilling. So between the Etsy shop and the self-publishing epiphany, I’ve been really taken by surprise about what makes me happy. I always thought I’d *know* ahead of time what would make me happy, and it’s kind of pleasantly surprising that I was wrong.

So that was my year in a nutshell. I hate making New Year’s resolutions, plus if this year’s taught me anything, it’s that I don’t always know what my goals are, so I won’t make any. But I can tell you I’m looking forward to the new year. I’ll be turning 30 in March and starting a new decade of my life, and I’m ready to embrace it.

BREAKING NEWS about the Renegade X SEQUEL!!!!

I announced some exclusive information about the Renegade X sequel over at Laura’s Review Bookshelf, mainly that there WILL be one. Head over and check out my post to find out what this means for readers and what the book’s about.

Also head over there to enter to win a special annotated copy of The Rise of Renegade X! I’ve gone through a copy of the book and scribbled behind the scenes notes and drawn pictures all over it. It’s the perfect Christmas gift for the Renegade X lover or aspiring writer in your life, if you, you know, aren’t selfish like me and wouldn’t want it for yourself. Three runners up will also win swag packs. The contest runs from now until December 11th, so go check it out!

Here are a few teaser pics of the annotated book:


The first page.


A close-up of the cake building.


Don’t cry, PB&J, you’ll taste even worse if you’re soggy!


Three winners will also win a swag pack like this one!

The secret to success, as demonstrated by my cats.

I was watching my two cats fight yesterday. Teisel, the big one that looks like an ocelot, refuses to attack unless he’s *perfectly* calculated exactly how he’s going to do it. When he’s going to pounce, where he’s going to bite, and, most importantly, whether or not he thinks he’ll be successful. He only wants to attack if he’s going to win. But he loses every fight.

Kitten (the black one in the pic–you can see his eyes–who isn’t actually a kitten anymore, but the name totally stuck), on the other hand, has a completely different fighting style. He’s quick and bold. He makes lots of frequent attacks, even if a good percentage of them never make contact. He tackles and lunges and snaps his jaws at Teisel, not bothering to calculate whether he’ll actually hit him or not. Like I said, a lot of them don’t actually find their mark. You could say his attacks fail a lot, though it’s obvious he doesn’t see it that way. And yet, he kicks Teisel’s ass every time.

I think you can see where I’m going with this, because it applies not just to cat fights, but to writing. When writing a book, a lot of writers subscribe to Teisel’s methods. They don’t want to fail or be embarrassed or have anything go wrong so badly that they meticulously plan, and calculate, and make sure their attempt is going to be *perfect,* whether that means taking years to painstakingly craft their first book – because they want their first book to be good enough to get published, so they won’t have any “failures” – or if it means never submitting any books until they think it’s a “sure thing.” But Teisel hardly ever gets any attacks in. And when he does, no matter how perfectly he thinks he’s calculated everything, it’s never a sure thing. Sometimes he makes contact, sure, but never as much as Kitten does, and he always loses. And it’s obvious he always feels embarrassed and angry and like a failure.

Kitten’s method takes more guts. His first attempt might not be successful, and even if it is, it takes more than one attack to win a fight. But he doesn’t waste time worrying about failure–I don’t think Kitten even has a concept of what failure is (though Teisel is very conscious of it). Kitten attacks often, not waiting for the right time or calculating how to win without making any mistakes. In fact, technically he makes lots of mistakes, but never as big of a mistake as Teisel, who’s too cautious to make a move. Kitten wins every fight (seriously, EVERY fight, and they tackle each other pretty often), not just because he’s not afraid to make mistakes or fail, but because he doesn’t even see his mistakes as being mistakes.

They’re just part of the process of kicking ass.

And so, if mistakes are necessary to win, does that really make them mistakes? At the end of a fight, Teisel’s attacks might have made 100% contact, whereas Kitten’s are more like 50%, and yet it’s clear who feels like a loser. I’m not even saying that Kitten feels like a winner, because he doesn’t really care. He just wants to have fun. It’s Teisel, the one who cares so much about failing that he’ll never take a chance, who sets himself up for disappointment

There isn’t just one “The One”

I have to preface this post with a little story. Once upon a time, about 6 years and 6 books ago, I read Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel, and it changed my life. No, seriously, it did. And I’m not big on how-to books when it comes to writing. But that’s a post for a different day. Anyway, I read that book, and it’s companion workbook, and did all the exercises. And the book I was working on was SO much better than anything I’d written before, and I loved it SO hard.

So, so hard, you guys.

And I even sent in the first page to Miss Snark’s first page critique, and, while it wasn’t her genre, she thought it was good. I did not get Snarked, I got approval. And when I finished the book and sent it out, I got my first ever requests from agents. One for a partial, and one for a partial and THEN for a full! This was it. I was so in love with that book and its characters, and it was much better than anything else I’d ever written, and it was actually getting requests, which no book of mine had ever done before. It was definitely The One.

But you can probably guess how this story ends, since the book in question is not the one that got published. No, the partial and the full got rejected. With form rejections. And more form rejections came in from agent after agent, until I had about 50 of them. I revised my query letter a million times and drove everyone nuts with it. Eventually, I had to admit that this book was not going to be The One, and it broke my freakin’ heart.

It took a long time to get over it. I know because even after publishing another book, I’m still not over it. Not completely. Obviously, I’ve moved on, but there is still a tiny sliver of me that holds me back from ever loving a book so wholeheartedly again. Because I believed in it, and I was stupid. And it messed me up.

But that’s not the end of the story either, so bear with me. Because, you see, I have this tendency when a book “fails” to tell myself that book is dumb and not any good, so I can let go and move on. And since I’m never exactly sure what it was about the book that supposedly failed, the types of characters and the things that happened in the book become unofficially off-limits. What. this book was fantasy and it sucked? Don’t write fantasy anymore, duh! And this character you loved that had X, Y, and Z qualities? Don’t write about X, Y, and Z qualities, obviously.

Kids, don’t be like me. Because lately I’ve been rethinking this policy, and of course it is stupid, not my ideas. And the book that was supposed to be The One and turned out to be The One that sucked and betrayed me and broke my heart? Well, it was flawed, but maybe it was my writing that was so flawed, and the only reason it got any requests at all was because of how great the characters and ideas were. Or at least how passionate I was about them.

I don’t make a habit of resurrecting old books, because they’re hard enough to let go of as it is, and I’ve found it usually better to move on and not look back. But the other day–okay, maybe more like a month or so ago–this book popped into my head again, and I just knew how I would rewrite it if I was working on it again. The words for the new opening filled my head, and I started writing. And it was good. Really good. My critique partner thinks it’s awesome, and hopefully my agent will, too. And hopefully somewhere down the line a publisher will love it, and then maybe lots of people will have the chance to love it. And maybe it wasn’t meant to be The One that got published first, but it could still be The One that takes off or The One that makes a bestseller list. Or just The One that makes somebody feel good when they’re having a crappy day.

My point is, a writing career isn’t about any one book. And just because this book I loved so much wasn’t first doesn’t mean it has to come in in last place.

Boy Books

Hi, my name is Chelsea, and I write boy books. Even though I’m a girl and even though boy books aren’t necessarily flying off the shelves. But you knew that already.

There was a big kerfluffle lately, as a lot of you probably heard about, started when the NYT posted this article, about the lack of YA boy books out there and, consequently, the lack of boy readers. There have been a lot of good posts made by other authors about this, so I don’t want to get into the article so much as I want to talk about boy books in general. Especially since I’m a girl and I write them and that’s not exactly the norm.

I don’t really think of my books as boy books or girl books. They’re just, you know, MY BOOKS, and the ones I actually enjoy writing tend to have 1st person guy narrators. I don’t sit down and think, “Ah, I’m going to write a boy book! For boys! Now, what do they need to read about? What would I want to read if I was a boy?” Psh. Seriously, I write what *I* like reading. I’ve actually been surprised at how many girls have thought they wouldn’t like Renegade X–but totally loved it once they started reading–because it’s got a male protagonist. O__o I mean, I’m a girl, so I tend to write about guys that girls will love, while still being real boys. I write stories that I hope resonate with both genders, that are full of adventure and romance and snappy dialogue.

I can’t say how many boys are reading YA or not, but I can say most of my fan mail and reader comments are from boys, usually teenagers, while most of the public reviews are written by girls. I don’t know if this means girls are just more public about their opinions, or if it means boys don’t have enough books to bother making a review site. That’s not to say that girls don’t write to me, or that guys never write reviews, because they do. But girls have told me that they relate to Damien and his dilemmas in the book, and guys have told me they saw my book at the store and grabbed it off the shelf. So, yes, girls can relate to male protagonists (while also finding them swoon worthy), and guys are going to the book store, even to the YA section. They’re also going to the library.

It would be cool if there were more boy books out there, because I’d like to read them. (And I wouldn’t mind if I never got another rejection letter stating that a male protagonist makes a book unsaleable.) I’d also like if there were more dystopians (yes, really, especially actiony ones like The Maze Runner), and more horror. Definitely more horror. Double points for a dystopian horror with a male MC, plenty of action, and a romantic subplot.

My crazy summer is over at last!

Or at least it’s almost over. I have ONE MORE DAY of my temporary day job, and then I’m finished. I survived all the craziness of starting grad school, going to the week long summer residency at Syracuse (and almost not being able to get my plane ticket because financial aid took so long to come), coming home to jury duty (thankfully I never got called in), working a full time job while finishing up classes, and dealing with a tax issue that almost prevented me from getting financial aid. *PHEW*

And did I mention finding out that the Renegade X paperback got cancelled? There was that, too. And then there was also a brief scare where I thought there weren’t going to be any more Monstrumologist books, but luckily they came through!

So there were good things this summer, too, like Disney renewing the film option. And I got a new critique partner, who’s been giving me wonderful feedback and also giving me the swift kick in the pants I needed to get back on track and start writing every day. I’ve been putting in two hours a day five days a week (though I’ll admit to slacking during the past two weeks of day job exhaustion), and that’s worked wonders on my productivity levels. I have a book out on sub, and I’ve got two more that I’m working on. And the residency at Syracuse was amazing. It was one of the best experiences of my life! I made a ton of new friends, got inspired by teachers passionate about their work, and visited their special collections section of the library. Which was, ZOMG, the best thing ever.

I specifically signed up for a distance program so I wouldn’t have to move, but then they went and showed me their collection of 4,000 year old clay tablets, and an old map book written in Latin where what would eventually be the U.S. is a giant blob, and a piece of papyrus from Cleopatra’s time, and many more amazing artifacts, most of them written in either Latin or French (when they weren’t in English). Um, dude, I totally have a background in that. And the school totally has a certificate option where you combine library classes with museum classes and get qualified to work with these objects. There’s just one catch–most of the classes are only available at the school.

You can guess what I’m thinking about doing next year.

And as for the cancellation of the Renegade X paperback, it’s unfortunate, obviously, but I’d like to say that I have the best fans ever. The responses I’ve gotten to this book have been SO wonderful, whether it’s been through positive reviews or from readers emailing me to tell me how much they loved Damien’s story. And having that kind of support makes this business so much easier to deal with, so if you love a book, tell the author.

And if you love Renegade X and want to help spread the word, you can blog about it, post a review on Amazon, or even just tell your friends. And you know what else? Tell your library, especially if they don’t already have a copy. You don’t have to spend money to support a book. Obviously sales are awesome, but spreading information is just as important, and it’s free.

So if you loved the book, tell your friends. And if you hated it, tell your enemies. ;)

Syracuse

I leave for Syracuse, NY TOMORROW night. I’m flying through the night and getting there in the morning–fun, I know–and then I have the rest of the day to rest and get settled before classes start on Saturday. I’m going to be there for a week long residency, with 8 hours of class a day, plus homework in the evenings. O__o I’ll be staying in the dorms, which I’ve never done before, so that will be a new experience. (You never what experiences will matter later or be helpful…)

I’ve loaded up my Nook with lots of library books, some rereads, and a bunch of samples from B&N. This will be my first time travelling with my Nook, and I’ve got an 8 hour trip on the way there and 12 hours on the way back, so I’m thankful I can carry enough reading material to cover that! I know last year when I was coming back from BEA, where I got a bunch of free books, I brought three or four with me on the plane and still had to scramble during a layover in SF to find another one. Which turned out to be a good thing because I found the 2nd Dexter book and bought it and got hooked. I’d seen the show, but didn’t know what to expect from the books. But they’re AWESOME. And they go in different directions than the show. I won’t spoil anything, but I will say that the show doesn’t parallel the books all that much (though I can’t speak for the first one because I still haven’t read it yet–I get the impression it’s pretty similar to the first season, though there are some big differences) and they have their own story lines and a great voice–well worth reading.

Did you know that Chameleon Circuit released a new album yesterday? If you haven’t heard of them, they write songs about Dr. Who and they’re amazing. Their first album was good, and their new one, Still Got Legs, just blows me away. I can’t stop listening to it. You can listen to the whole thing for free here.

New Theme

So you might notice I changed WP themes. I feel like this one’s easier to read and more pleasing to the eye. And it looks like a notebook!!! What is it about website themes that look like notebooks being so appealing? If I handed you a real notebook and was like, “Here, this is my journal, you want to read it?” you’d probably go O__o and run the other way. But anyhow, I’ve been so frustrated by WordPress lately, but I think I’ve got everything updated now and maybe stuff will actually work, like automatically posting to twitter when there’s a new blog post. And maybe accepting it when I try and install new themes.

I’m taking a break from rereading the Percy Jackson books to reread the Pretty Little Liars series, since the new book is coming out, like, on TUESDAY. OMG. I am so excited for these new books, you don’t even know. And yeah, I know the books could have ended after the 8th one and been done, but I can’t get enough of Sara Shepard’s writing, and I am so addicted to these books. If you haven’t read them, the description that got my interest was that it’s like Desperate Housewives for teens. And it is.

Today I went for a walk and found a giant middle school that was actually half middle school, half high school. Facing one way, it’s a middle school, and facing the other way, it’s a high school. They both have different names and seem to be separate entities that meet in the middle, like CatDog. And speaking of things that are half one thing and half another, I also saw a cat whose front half was short haired and whose back half was long haired. We stared for a while, each of us perplexed by the other, no doubt.