On the heels of reading the list of Olivier nominees (Mark Rylance! Spring Awakening! The Royal Court!!) I'm really missing London. And the theatre. And London theatre. The US tour of Spring is coming to Dallas, but the remaining fourth balcony ticket costs $120. Riiiight.

STUPID TEXAS.

Anyway, focusing on the positive. While Texas might be the land of morons at the post office who talk about the government stealing their jobs and the totally horrifying town of my birth to which I return for a week starting tomorrow, it's also home to the Austin SCBWI, which is surprisingly awesome.

At the conference last week, Lisa Strauss gave a great and charming talk that I failed to take notes for, but thanks to my new Austin bestie Amy Russell, I now have some.

( Write Like an Author, Revise Like an Editor )


This really rang true for me, because along with setting myself a daily word count, it was deciding to stop editing as a I wrote that allowed to finally begin making real progress at writing novels. I used to write sixty really well polished pages and never get past that, but when I sat down and told myself I wasn't going to edit at all during the first draft of Doomed First Novel, just keep writing shitty page after shitty page until the story was done, I finished it in four months. And now, as tempting as it can be some time to want to go back and polish or re-write, I can't imagine being successful in actually finishing a draft any other way.

It's not a book I'm writing, it's a draft. That took me awhile.

So if you're still editing as you go, stop it! I know it's hard, but it's totally worth it in the end.

Yeah, so, this is a mostly a post for me to show you my Very Pretty Print Preview.



Print Preview is my favourite thing maybe in the whole world. Whilst working on my master's dissertation, I'd probably look at it every six or seven minutes. I highly recommend it.

Also, can we talk about this?



Guys, I know I use the word "like" a lot on my blog. I like (ha!) to think that I do it consciously and in a charmingly ironic kind of way. BUT WHY IS IT ALL BIG IN THE MIDDLE OF MY WORDLE? I either have a serious simile problem, or my devout little Rebekah has, like, morphed into a Valley Girl behind my back. Throw another word onto the pile of words to scrub out later, jeeeez.

Lastly, darlings, a question. I have a character who has a name, only I can't decide what it is. I literally change it mid-sentence sometimes. According to wordle, I've used one version 48 times and the other 52 times.

So, dear flist, I turn to you to settle the argument.

Poll #1521039 His Stupid Name Already
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

Matthew Stephens, mopey emo kid with a heart of gold, goes by WHAT?

Hey guys! If you missed my first cookie giveaway, do not despair. The inimitable wrldpossibility is hosting one (a better one, frankly) at her blog Never-True Tales. You should all check it out and also subscribe to her blog, 'cause it's great.

In the spirit of that, I'm going to teach you all how to make my Drama-Rama Toffee.

I perfected (and renamed) this family recipe senior year of college as way to excuse myself from my housemates' on-going relationship crisiseses. It requires an extended period of concentration, so it gave me the perfect pretext to say:

( Can't talk now! Too busy stirring! )

Pop the toffee into the refrigerator to cool, cut, and voila! Your candy will be way more popular than you are, and you'll have managed to avoid talking to your crazy, crazy housemates for almost a whole hour.

So most of the time I totally feel like I'm faking this whole writing thing. I'm not as talented as real writers, I don't want it as bad, I don't work for it as hard. I put up a decent front, but, really, who the hell do I think I'm fooling? I suspect a lot of people feel this way, but in a typical ego-centric fashion, I assume no one feels it as much as I do.

On Saturday I had two critiques of the first ten pages of my work-in-progress by two published authors. As you can see from my post the night before, I was kind of freaking out about it. I mixed 'critique' up with 'pitch' in my head and got myself thinking that they would be expecting ten pages from a finished manuscript ready for querying, which mine certainly is not, and who the hell was I to take away a critique possibility from a real writer who was ready for it with my shitty ten pages from my shitty, shitty unfinished first draft.

So, I went into my first critique kind of expecting to get yelled at. Not that I ACTUALLY thought Jennifer Ziegler (who's latest is How Not to Be Popular) was going to yell at me, but in my head that was the nightmare scenario I kept playing out.

( Imagine, then, my UTTER ASTONISHMENT when the first words out of Jennifer's mouth were: )

My second critique was about a half an hour later, and now I didn't know what the hell to expect. On the one hand, I had just gotten the best critique ever in the history of ever. On the other hand, I was still kind of afraid Shana Burg (of A Thousand Never Evers) was going to call me out as a faker and yell at me for wasting her time.

( But when I sat down for the critique, she said THE EXACT SAME THING JENNIFER HAD. )

Needless to say, I was not expecting any of that. In the course of an hour, by conception of myself as a writer was completely rocked to the core. It turns out I may actually be kind of good at this, and that had never seriously occurred to me before. Wouldn't it be cool if it turned out to be true?? If I'm not a total faker after all?

(Sometimes I feel like if I could get published it would redeem the tragic disaster that has been my twenties, and although that's not, like, the world's most noble or sensible motivation, it's still true.)

So now I'm more anxious than ever to get this draft done. I'm thinking of declaring February Finish My Novel Month (or FiMyNoMo, in the vein of NaNoWriMo, NaNoRevisMo, NaNoBloMo, NoNoBlogO, and about a thousand other derivations), but I'm debating it, because I don't want to sacrifice quality, such as it is, for speed. (Also, I'm pretty freakin' lazy sometimes.)

Still feel like a fake, though. I wonder if that's just my neurosis or a more universal experience? I'm betting Stephen King feels pretty confident in his identity as "writer" but what about the rest of us? Does it take a publishing contract to feel real?

Okay. So, yesterday I went to the Austin Regional SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) conference, and, being me, I took lots of notes. Here are the highlights.

Honestly, the first thing I thought as I walked into the UU church the conference was being held in was "am I back in high school??" I spotted the head cheerleader immediately, even before I realized she's one of the most prominent YA authors in the area. There was a kind of constant glancing aside at her and subtle (and not so subtle) obsequious gestures in her direction.

There was a the drama girl who tried waaaaay too hard to be cool and noticed. There were various cliques who were attached at the hip all day. There were the odd few of us new kids who just kind of hovered on the edges of the crowd, looking either for a way in or an exit.



Ironic, no? Maybe they're just trying to help us connect to our target audience.

Anyway, as the day went on I more and more got the sense that the Austin SCBWI is actually a pretty supportive and welcoming group and would be a great community once you start to know people in it, but it was tres uncomfortable for me during the conference downtimes when I was mentally sent back to my days of being the new kid in school with no friends.

Here are some highlights of the day.

( The first speaker was editor-turned-agent Mark McVeigh, and he was a riot. )

Then there was Kirby Lawson, who won a Newberry two years ago for Hattie Big Sky, about a sixteen year old girl who becomes a homesteader in Montana during World War One. I read this book a couple of days ago, not knowing that Lawson was going to be a speaker at the conference. I thought a story about a girl with nothing who struck out on her own to build a life for herself would be inspiring to me, recently kicked out of my country and homeless and jobless. Of course, the ending of the book totally TRAUMATIZED ME and I spent TWO HOURS CRYING after finishing it.

( I'm trying not to hold that against Lawson, though. )

Then there was lunch, and if you thought the awkward pre-conference milling about was bad and high-school like, well. As we all remember, Lunch Room Politics was probably the most harrowing things about high school. Personally, I always took my lunch to the band hall to eat with other band refugees. When I was an upperclassman I became the student choir director, which meant I got a SET OF KEYS to the choir room, so I ate in there in front of a computer playing Snood. It was awesome.



In that spirit, I skipped out on the group lunch. Bad, I know. I should have tried to make friends or network, but it was just entirely too much pressure for me. I drove to a Wendy's down the street and watched 30 Rock on my phone. It was my first conference! I needed to leave room to grow during the next one!

( Next up was everyone's favourite agent blogger and imaginary boyfriend (or is that just me?): Nathan Bransford. )

Next up was editor-turned-author Lisa Strauss, who was hilarious and about fourteen different kinds of cool. Although I've not read her newest, Umbrella Summer, if it's half as charming as she is, I highly recommend you guys all go out and buy it. I'm gonna.

I didn't take notes of what she said, because she was so consistently witty and funny that I recorded her talk on my phone (I know, bad). Unfortunately, it's barely audible and I HATE NO NOTES (karma!). I'm going to break out my headphones, crank up the volume, and see what I can salvage, but the gist of her talk was that you have to be both a writer and an editor. Writers are kind to themselves and uncritical of their work, while editors are ruthless with every word. And you should never, ever be an editor when you're trying to write, or be a writer when you're trying to edit.

She had funny hats to illustrate the difference.



And that was it. Afterwards there was an autograph party, where I got Kirby Lawson to sign my copy of Hattie Big Sky, which was still slightly soppy from my previous reading. Then I went home and fell pretty much instantly to sleep because OH MY GOD I WOKE UP AT 5:30 AM I CAN'T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I DID THAT.

Coming up: what happened during my critiques. And NO, I didn't get a publishing deal. It was exciting, but not that exciting, people.

I'm going to write a more detailed post about the SCBWI conference in the morning when I'm not quite so comatose, but let me summarize the experience as this:

OMGOMGOMG.

YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENED.

So tomorrow I'm going to the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrator's conference here in Austin. It's a big deal, basically everyone writing-minded in the area is going to be there, along with big award winning writers like Jacqueline Kelly of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and the super awesome Super Agent Nathan Bransford.

I REALLY DON'T WANT TO GO.

This may come as a shock to some of you, but dragging my ass out to Cedar Park at 7:00am (!! Dudes, I chose to work in the theatre for a reason!) to make awesomely awkward small talk with strangers (or, more likely, hover on the edge of the room pretending to be answering some Very Urgent text messages) for eight or nine hours isn't my ideal way to spend a day.

But I'm doing it, because it should help me grow and blah blah blah. This is what real wannabe author types do. And I'm cautiously optimistic that it won't be completely painful. I expect to, at the very least, hear some great advice and maybe even meet a few people. It could be really fun and helpful, and I hope it is.

I'm also having two critiques done of the first ten pages of Breakout Second Novel by two different published authors. This, strangely, doesn't worry me nearly as much as the mingling. But yes, also a little nerve-inducing, especially since these are essentially first draft pages that have been cleaned up as best as I could and not from a manuscript that's anywhere near query ready.

All that being said, if anyone wants to text or twitter me at any point, FEEL FREE. REALLY.

So, my stepmother's opening a shop, I offered to make some cookies for the launch night, and she was like THAT'S GREAT I'LL TAKE THREE HUNDRED MADE WITH THE WORLD'S MOST EXPENSIVE INGREDIENTS. Ooookay. I have been baking for days, and the end is not yet in sight. I have icing, like, permanently in my hair.

On that note, I'm picking winners tomorrow for my cookie giveaway tomorrow, so drop me a comment to enter if you haven't already.

--

Unrelatedly, after reading an impassioned call for the use of alpha readers on Natalie Whipple's blog, I realized that such a thing would probably be very helpful for me right now, given some of the difficulties I've been having with this draft.

So, er, anyone interested?

You'd be reading my first draft in installments as I write it, and what I'd be looking for would be feedback on big picture stuff. Is the world convincing, is this character's actions believable, is there a big gaping plot hole I'm too addled to notice. Some light cheerleading and/or whip-cracking would also be welcome.

I'm currently accepting applications and will pay in reciprocal alpha services, cookies, or sexual favours.

You guys know how I bake when I'm bored and/or stressed? Well being unemployed in a strange new city means I'm plenty of both all the time.

So I started at Etsy store called Sneaky Sweet.

In it I'm selling the hand-decorated sugar cookies I've shown you guys examples of from time to time, as well as a fair amount of vegan and gluten-free goods since I'm trying to fit in with all the crazy hippies around me.

To get the ball rolling I've decided to send out free samples to some of you fine people (sorry, States-dwellers only for right now, I'm unemployed!).

So if you want some free cookies or candy or brownies, just leave me a comment saying so. I'm going to use a number generator to pick ten people at random, and all I ask in return is that if you like what I send you, you say so on your blog/Twitter/Facebook/whatever.

Sound good?