YA and Sexism: The virtual vilification of Andrew Smith

Twitter has been blowing up lately over an interview Andrew Smith,  author of YA books such as Winger, Grasshopper Jungle and the Marbury Lens, did for Vice. The article is called, The Failure of Male Societies: Author Andrew Smith Tackles Monsters and Sex. His interview had female bloggers calling him out as a sexist and misogynist.

In particular, it was just one answer. This one:

Q. On the flip side, it sometimes seems like there isn’t much of a way into your books for female readers. Where are all the women in your work?

A: I was raised in a family with four boys, and I absolutely did not know anything about girls at all. I have a daughter now; she’s 17. When she was born, that was the first girl I ever had in my life. I consider myself completely ignorant to all things woman and female. I’m trying to be better though.

 A lot of The Alex Crow is really about the failure of male societies. In all of the story threads, there are examples of male-dominated societies that make critical errors, whether it’s the army that Ariel falls in with at the beginning, or the refugee camp, or Camp Merrie-Seymour for boys, or the doomed arctic expedition, they’re all examples of male societies that think that they’re doing some kind of noble mission, and they’re failing miserably.

 So, that's a big deal, right? OMG! I can't believe he said that!!! Um...right. Women were having a fit because Andrew Smith says he doesn't get women. I tweeted this:

I mean, seriously? Isn't it a well known fact that men don't get women. And honestly, I don't get men, so there's that.

One Tweeter mocked him SEVERAL times. Wow. Um...I just don't know what to say about all that except, you have too much time on your hands.

A blogger stated that it "assumes that men and masculinity are the default settings

for humanity." Really? If that's what that statement is assuming then I'm reading it wrong. She goes on to say that "Saying 'I'm trying' is not the same as trying." She thinks that by supporting Smith and saying he was just being honest "let's those with privilege off the hook." WTF? Can you say, read too much into something? Jesus.

Yet another: "The interpretation is that women are less than human, or at the very least, inherently different from men. That is one of the oldest sexist arguments in the entire world." Uh, how does one one interpret his statement translate into this?


Last one I'll share: "This is an astounding claim to make and one that exacerbates a lot of pernicious misogynistic attitudes, in the publishing industry and society at large." Does it really? Misogynistic? Come on!

Okay, one more, but I don't remember where I read it, but she said something to the effect that "how can he come up with all these fantasy/fiction ideas and not understand women?" I'm paraphrasing of course, but it was something like that. Um, last time I checked, these were two completely different things. Women are carbon based and living. Fantasy books are make believe and pure fiction.

I would call myself a feminist. I'm a huge proponent of women's rights and equality. But I was not offended by this interview in any way.  I truly do think people have nothing better to do than find fault that isn't there.  I think just as some women are more comfortable writing female characters, Andrew Smith is more comfortable writing from the male POV.

This is what I think about Smith's statement.

Andrew Smith:

• was being completely honest with his feelings.
• writes quirky books about boys.
• is writing what he wants to and what he knows and should write because he's brilliant at it.
• says he doesn't get girls, not that he doesn't not want to get girls.(Big. Difference.)

Also: 

• female readers LOVE his books.
• I believe saying your trying is trying.
• We all don't write everything perfectly.
• Most these bloggers took what he said out of context and did not post that 2nd paragraph of his answer, which explains a lot.
• The interviewer set him up to answer in that way.
• Just because you have the imagination to write the way Smith does, does not mean you have insight to everything on the planet.
• If you read the article he also says he grew up with 3 brothers, no sisters and his parents were abusive. The only woman in your life is abusive. So, doesn't it make some sense that Smith doesn't "get" girls.

This was a virtual witch hunt on Twitter. I love Twitter, but I don't like when things like this happen. Especially to good people. I cannot vouch that Smith is "good" but many people defending him know him personally and say as such and I believe them.

Another thing,  why do some writers, and I'm generalizing, I know, but most the bloggers I know also write...anyway, why do some writers feel the need to cut each other down? This business is hard and cruel enough as it is without us fighting each other. Why do we have to seek the worst in our colleagues? We're not really in competition, I mean to a point I guess, but we should be supporting each other, lifting each other up, not keeping each other down.

This vilification of Smith forced him to shut down his Twitter and Facebook. I hope it's only temporary because I like seeing his posts and I really do think he's brilliant. - even if he doesn't "get" girls.

Monday Monkey Madness: Helping Out Your Favorite Writers

Photo by Michael Elliott

There are many ways in which you can help your favorite writers get their books the attention they deserve. This is especially helpful to those authors who don't have the big blockbuster series that have major backing from their publishers.

Two ways are through Amazon.com: reviewing and tagging. 

If a book gets a certain amount of reviews, Amazon will give it better visibility on their site which will result in better sales.

You could also tag the book. This is close to the bottom of the product page, labeled under 'Tags Customers Associate With This Product'. You can agree with tags already in place or add your own. You're allowed up to 15 tags. This will also give the book better visibility.

So, if there is a small quiet book, *cough* Never Eighteen *cough* that you really enjoyed, consider doing this to help the author get the word out about the book.

Have a great Monday.

Insanely Yours,

Megan   

Done!

I finally finished my rewrite of An Unbalanced Line.  But I'm not done. I made some notes on the manuscript along the way, which I want to fix, then I print it out and read it aloud. Reading aloud helps me get the voice and dialogue right and it also is useful for finding little mistakes, typos, punctuation problems.

Then I do revisions.

The step after that, I get some beta readers. I usually pick four or five people. A couple readers, a couple writers, and I have one friend who is a writer and an excellent editor. 

After that, I do another set of revisions, then maybe another. I do as many as it takes to get it to a place that I feel is good enough to send to agents.

How do you get feedback on your work? Who do you count on to give an unbiased opinion? Do you read aloud?

I'm interested in other writer's process.

The Query Process.

I'm deathly scared. I've sent another query out today. I'm sick to my stomach. I know the feeling will pass shortly, but I always feel this way after I hit the submit button.

For those of you who've not yet made it to the query process, let me give you a rundown. A query is nothing more than a one page letter. It should state book title, genre, and word count.

Then you need to summarize your book in a way that gives them a feel for your writing and makes it pop off the page.

Any credentials, list them. Of course first time writer don't normally have any, so there's that.

Lastly, you need to personalize the letter. Tell the agent why you chose to write to them. This tells them that you know who they are, what they represent, who they've sold.

That's it. You're done. Most of them don't want to even see a page of your work. They judge you on that one page letter, so you better make it good.

This is why I'm sick to my stomach. I think finding an agent is the hardest part of the business. Writing, awesome, revision, not as fun, but a necessary evil. Getting published? I only have one experience with that and it was less than two weeks. But it took me a long time to find an agent. Over a year for the superhero book, which is now being transformed into something else. Probably about six months with Never Eighteen.

Be prepared. Thicken your skin. You will get rejected. Don't take it personally, agents get thousands of queries a year, have piles of manuscripts on their desks to read, plus have to represent the clients they already have.

If you're getting ready or are already in the process, good luck. If you could send some good vibes my way too, I'd sure appreciate it.

Inspiring the young

Last night I had an author gig with J Anderson Coats ( The Wicked and the Just), Helen Landalf (Flyaway), and Carole Estby Dagg (The Year We Were Famous) at the Everett Public Library.  While attendance wasn't epic, the audience was engaged, especially a fourteen year old girl who was in attendance.

After our moderator was finished asking questions, this young girl (her name was either Maggie or Katie, I can't remember which) asked question after question about our writing styles, writers who inspire, etc etc. She honestly asked the most questions of anyone.

And even though her mom made a comment to us about, "oh yeah, we've met some successful writers..."

Um.

...this young girl was excited and endearing. And this is one of the reasons I love to do these types of visits. Inspire people to read, inspire people to write, inspire them to never give up on their dreams.

Even if I'm not yet "successful" lol.

How much is too much marketing

Someone posted this link on facebook today: http://heyauthor.tumblr.com/ . I found it very funny, but it is telling. As writer's are we promoting ourselves too much. Yes, normally we are a bunch of narcissists, and we are trying to get our work out there to the masses, but as far as social networking goes, are we bombarding the internet with too much "hey buy my book" and not enough, "I'm just a real person, here's my life"

I admit, I don't Tweet all that much. I just don't have the time. And I do try to interact with people on there, but I feel like I'm lost because I'm just not on there enough, though I would like to be more. So yeah, I Tweet writing stuff. I also promote friends writing stuff. I also asks questions which no one seems to answer (because I just honestly think I'm not on there enough.

And I have heard that when social marketing like 25% should be marketing, the rest, just real life stuff. Or something like that. Don't quote me. So maybe I'm screwing up on my Twitter.

However, on Facebook, I think I'm doing it right. I have my personal page, and then I have an author page. So on my author page I write all about my author stuff. On my personal page, I mostly write about life, but if there is important writer stuff, like an event, or an awesome review, yeah, I share it.

I don't do much else as far as social marketing goes. I Tumble, which I've hardly done, and yeah, I've used it for writing, but I only have two posts. I Youtube, but that's pretty  much about writing too and people know it. When I veered off to life, people stopped watching me :( So I'm going to get back to a writing Vlog. Soon. Hopefully.

So, what do you think? Do you think writers go overboard when social networking? Or do you think it's just part of the biz? Would you unfriend/unfollow a writer who did nothing but tout their writing?

Never Eighteen Half Year Birthday Contest!!!!!

First, let me say, it's been a wild ride. Never Eighteen has been selling pretty good, especially here in the Pacific Northwest where the book is set. But I've actually sold copies all over the world.

It started out tricky, as the night of my release party we had a major snow storm, which kept some people away. We also started a little early, so people could get home earlier, of course, this pissed others off. Also, a box of books didn't come in because of the snow. Luckily I had a couple boxes of my own in my car, but we still ran out. There were a couple other snafus, but I told myself, especially after hearing about the snow, it is what it is.

I've done 1 Skype school visit to Illinois, 3 library visits, 6 book store events, 7 interviews (not counting blog interviews), 14 school visits, and many more online events and had fun with every one of them.

I've lost an agent. I've struggled to write a second book. It took me over a year, which is unprecedented for me. I don't have a second book deal, nor do I have any foreign rights sold for Never Eighteen. I've spent just about every dime I have marketing Never Eighteen. Those are the frustrating things about the business.

I've met tons of cool readers, writers, librarians, bookstore owners, teachers. I love those connections so much.

And that's pretty much how my last six months have gone.

Okay, I've figured out the contest. For Never Eighteen's Half birthday I want you to tell me in the comments below, 6 things on your bucket list. I will pick the winner. What will you win? A signed copy of Never Eighteen, a CD of some of the songs on the playlist in the back of the book, and swag. Always swag!!!

photo by Charlie Wolf

Here are some of the things on my bucket list.

1. Take my kids to NYC
2. Go to Australia
3. Apologize to people I need to apologize to and welcome anyone who thinks I've wronged them to step forward and talk to me.
4. Thank all the people in my life you has helped me along the way.
5. Participate in a triathlon
6. Yeah, throw the big party.

Your turn. Six things on your bucket list.

Monkey Madness Monday

Yes, it is Monkey Madness Monday!!  I've turned over a new leaf. (again) of course I had some serious motivation this time.  I was watching some of the old chronicle videos I've done, and i was skinny.  I want to be that girl again without all the mental problems. :)

So this weekend was my last hurrah, I ate pizza and last night had some Francis Ford Coppola wine.  I also got on the elliptical twice and just finished Jillian Michaels yoga torture this morning.

Back to the good carbs and fiber.  I even ate breakfast this morning ( I never do).  I am going to lose this weight before my release.  Holidays be damned!

Life is getting more normal, school soccer is over, I'm almost done with my to-do list for my release other than party details.  Life is good.

What goals are you shooting for before the end of the years?

T is for Talk: Conference Talk

While I can't give you details of each class, because the talks are the property of each faculty member at the conference, I can give you a little idea of the sessions I took and the basic concept behind them, and also what else went on.

First there was an Editor/Agent/Art director panel, which was pretty informative.  People on the panel included Lionel Bender, Justin Chanda, Sarah Davies, Martha Mihalick, Joe Monti, Anne Moore, Timothy Travaglini, Liz Waniewski, Tina Wexler, and Marietta Zacker (you're going to have to look them up)

Then was keynote address by Deborah Wiles, which was amazing.  She talked about writing from your head, your heart, and your imagination and shared some personal stories and how they translated to content in her books.

My first breakout session was labeled as Marketing Mania: To the Bookshelf-The Sometimes Hidden Path, the speaker was agent Joe Monti.  It wasn't really was I thought it was going to be.  I thought it would talk more about Marketing, but it talked mainly about the process before that, what to expect between the time a book is signed to how it gets to the shelves.

My second session was Collaborative Marketing: Strength in Numbers by Roseanne Parry.  She was part of the Class of 2k9, and gave a lot of great information I can use with 2k12.  One of my favorite sessions.

Next session was How Far is Too Far in Teen Lit by Brent Hartinger.  I think he is an amazing person, and we happened to attend the same high school, though he was two years out by the time he got there.  This is what I took from that class:  I'm going to write what I want and let my agent figure out if it's too edgy.  You can go pretty far these days in edgy YA, and would be with good company.

I already told you I missed a few keynotes, which I really would have liked to see, but shit happens.

Sunday my first session was Five Ways to Make Your Character Sparkle by Kevin Emerson.  Great workshop about character development.  Kevin was very funny.  This was the session that I got up and read my stuff.  It was scary.

Next session, Writing From Anger by E. Lockhart.  Not what I expected, but it was interesting.

Next was Character Driven Stories by Liz Waniewski.  This was very helpful.  Most of the stuff I've written is character driven, and she gave us a worksheet to help us shape our characters, that was based on what she looks for when reading a manuscript.

There was another panel.  Local success stories. I'm not going to remember them all I think, but some of them were Carole Dagg, Caridad Ferrer, Craig Orback, Wendy Wahman, Jim Whiting, Jesse Joshua Watson, and Dori Yang.

There was also book signings.  I got a book signed by Holly Black and Brent Hartinger.

And then I nearly collapsed, so I left before the last keynote.

All in all a fun, informative weekend I would highly suggest to anyone.  There is no limit on educating yourself, and continuing to work on your craft.

Tooting the Horn Tuesday: Auction for Japan

If you don't already know this, there are a group of YA writers who have been pulled together by Write Hope.  Write Hope was begun by kidlit writer who were devastated by the disaster in Japan.  There goal is to raise money for the Save the Children emergency relief fund by holding an auction, which is happening right now..

Many of us have donated signed books, swag, critiques, Skype chats, and more for their auction.  There is some great stuff there.  Please, check it out by clicking here.

I donated a query critique, I know Gae Polisner, Julia Karr, and Carrie Harris have donated, and I'm sure many of your favorite authors have.

Next, I want to wish good luck to those who have entered ABNA, as the next round of cuts take place today.  But for those who don't make the cuts, don't give up.  Be vigilant in your pursuit.  If throw in the towel, you'll never get there.


Then there's me.  After two not so raving reviews of Never Eighteen on Good reads (they weren't horrible, I guess), I was happy to see a four star.  It said, "...Such a wonderful, sad story that was full of hope... Megan Bostic nailed all the emotions...I feel wrung out, but in a good way"

I want to thank Pam for that because she lifted my spirits. :)
 
That's it for today.  Be sure to check out the auction.  There are new items posted a few times throughout the day.

It's Launch Time, Baby!!!

That's right.  The Class of 2K11 has officially launched.  If you don't know about the 2k classes, they've  been around since 2007.  The author of one of my favorite YA books, Jay Asher was a 2ker.  We are a group of debut Young Adult and Middle Grade writers using synergy to help each other promote our books and ideas.

Our website is full of information about our group, our books.  We'll be blogging weekly.  You can find out how to book us for in person or Skype visits, AND you can join our street team.


Oh, I almost forgot, we're hosting some AWESOME contests.  The first one is HUGE!!!  You like winning, right?  And prizes?  Then you should definitely visit our site.

I'm giddy with excitement.  Can you tell?

Megan

Celebrity Writers

A fellow blogger, Kaitlyn Cole, sent me an email and a link to the article 10 Celebrity Writers Actually Worth Reading.

Now, I've talked about celebrity writers before, and you know, they make me none too happy. This is because I don't think they have to struggle like us "nobody" writers. I'm sure they don't have to query 100 agents to find someone to represent them. Don't have to go through rejection after rejection from publishers. And every time one of their books gets published, it means one of ours doesn't.

Mostly, I'm sure, and I could be wrong, but I don't think they write their own books.

That said, I appreciate the list above and this is why: the people listed there are actual writers (most of them). They're the most brilliant minds in comedy and screenplays. So, I guess what I'm saying is, it's nice to know that some of the celebrities out there taking our book deals have talent.

Makes it not sting so bad.

non sequitur: I want to wish all my friends still in the ABNA contest the best of luck today. I'm rooting for you.

Road Trip

I've talked about friendships quite a bit on my blog here. I think it's because friendships are strange to me. I do not like people as a general rule :), but I do have friendships and they're important to me for a variety reasons. You have your different circle of friendships. Mine can pretty much be divided in two: high school friends and writing friends. When I talk about my high school friends it not only means those I went to high school with, but those I met during high school through work, friends whatever.

And you do different thing with those different friends. There are those you go to coffee or lunch with. Those you go out to drinks with. Those you invite to dinner. Those you watch sports with. You keep the talk light with some, you go deeper with those you trust with your secrets.

And it's actually the same with my writing friends. I have those I talk to just about every day, those I'm in a writing group with. There are those who you trust to read your work, and those whose work you will read.

And of course you have those friends you know you'll occasionally butt heads with. Those you will never fight with. Those who make you happy, those who make you crazy. Those who will be honest with you no matter how much it might hurt.

The dynamics are complex.

So anyway, I went on a road trip this last weekend with my best friends from high school. Excluding an occasional dinner, I really haven't spent any major (or minor) time with these ladies since about 1989. And this is what is so great about friendships like these, it was like no time had passed between us at all. Not an awkward moment lingered. We chatted, laughed, as if we hung out all the time. And I loved it. And although these two women and I have gone down three very different paths, I still love them and always will.

Sometimes you can go back. :)

"Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose." ~ Tennessee Williams

Top Four Ways to Get Through NaNoWriMo: # 2 Shutting Down Social Networking Sites

Don't kill the messenger.

I can't get through the day without my Facebook. But seriously, if you're going to write 1,700 words a day, 50,000 in a month, you have got to kick the Facebook, Myspace, Hi5, or whatever your socially networking site of choice is habit.

You may think you'll be able to just keep it open in the background, for a little distraction here and there. But I'm telling you, that distraction will turn into a couple hours, and when it's 4:00 pm and your family is going to get home soon, and you've only written 200 words, you'll regret it.

You'll go through withdrawals for sure if you're as addicted as I am. You'll miss the chat, the posts, the pictures, your mafia wars, vampire wars, farmville, whatever it is you do on there all day. In the end it will be worth it.

Warn everyone you know as well, so they don't go reporting you as a missing person.

I almost forgot, if you want to register for NaNoWriMo click here.

If you want to buddy up with me, here's my profile page.

Yes, I get that this is yet another social networking site, but it's one that's supposed to keep you on track with your writing. So just enter your word count and move on. Nothing more to see there. :)

Good luck.

Writers vs. Agents: Weighing In

There has been a lot of talk lately about how agents are killing the publishing industry. The point being, that they reject us before even taking the time to read our work, therefore, keeping some great literature off the book shelves.

This is true, no doubt about it. But, there are two sides to this coin that need to be addressed. Ours, the writer's, certainly, but we need to take a step back and take a look at what these literary agents go through also.

My job as a writer:

1. Write the best book possible, than edit said book until it's the best I think it can be.
2. Write a query letter that will wow agents.
3. Write a synopsis for those agents that require them (personally my least favorite part of the process)
4. Tirelessly research agents to find the ones that will be interested in your novel. Luckily there are websites out there like agentquery.com to help with such tasks.
5. Begin sending out queries. And when we do this, we have to change our beautiful query letter a bit every time to personalize it for whichever agent you are querying. Where they can send us form rejections, we cannot send form queries. Bad form.
6. Track queries sent with excel, or another great source, querytracker.com (thanks Ian for that)
7. Wait
8. Wait
9. Wait

Okay, those last three may be an exaggeration, in some cases. Many of those agents that take e-mail queries will get back to you within a couple of days. Some of course do not. Frankly, I don't know why every agent hasn't moved into the technology age. It's much quicker (maybe this is the problem) and it is better for the environment. I always begin with e-mail queries, and if those don't pan out, move on to those agents that still only take snail mail.

Okay, now that we've sent our queries, we start receiving rejections or requests. If you receive requests, you now have to customize your ms for each agent, as some want ten pages, some fifty pages, some three chapters.

If you are only receiving rejections, it's time to go back and revise your query letter to make it stand out from the crowd.

All the while we are doing the querying, most of us are either still editing the ms in question, or have begun a new project. So there you have it, the life of a writer. Forgive me if I've forgotten anything.

Okay, this is my take on the agent's job:

1. Receive query letter
2. Send rejection

That's it. Okay I'm just kidding.

1. Receive queries, which I'm sure they receive thousands a week or at least a month. I don't know for sure, someone can chime in here and tell me.
2. Read through queries and seperate the good from the bad. When I say good from bad, I'm saying, those that aren't well written, or those that don't peak their interest, or those whose subject matter, genre, etc, don't interest them.
3. Send rejections to those you don't want. At this point, form rejection is fine, you probably haven't even looked at the work, which is sad, because someone may have a brilliant novel, but be crap when it comes to writing a query. I also understand that because they receive so many, they don't have time to look at every single ms they get queries on.
4. Go through queries again and filter out more.
5. Send more rejections
6. Request partials or fulls on those that peak your interest.
7. Put those requested in a slush pile, get to them while you can because you are still looking through queries, attending conferences, reading your current clients new work, contacting publishers trying to get current clients a book deal, and reading through contracts of said deals.
8. Read through slush pile that never ends.
9. Find ones you like
10. Request edits
11. Sign to contract
12. Get to work on getting your new client published, all while still doing all of the above.

Okay, I'm sure that's generalized, but I can see where agents are busy, and can't read every piece of literature that every writer wants to send them. Plus, not every writer that sends queries are good writers, even though they think they are (I'm really hoping I'm not one of them).

What bothers me is the ones that do not respond at all. I know they are busy, but you have an assistant or intern that more than likely can send out rejections, don't you? Or, and even though I hate these, have time to press a button to send out a form rejection.

Also, if you request a partial or a full and end up rejecting it, this is where I think you could give a little more thought to your rejection. I don't mind hearing you didn't like the voice, or weren't drawn in, though I would like a little more insight as to where I went wrong. But please, at least, include my name and the name of my novel in the rejection. At least then I know you took the time to insert a little personalization into it.

Personally, I think agents are needed, especially if you want to be published by one of the big houses. Without them, your work will never cross the desks of Scholastic, Harper Collins, Randoms House, Penguin, etc.

Even many small presses require work to be agented.

So, can we really cast blame to the agents, when the publishers won't even look at your work without one? Can we blame them because they have to be selective in what they choose to represent? No. I don't think we can. Of course this means that some really great literature won't get published. This much is true.

I do think we should be able to expect a little more understanding and respect for the work we've done to query them. I think we deserve at least the 3x5 card saying, "sorry for the impersonal nature of this note but..." I mean, when they query a publisher for a client, I'm sure they at least get a nice letter saying, "sorry, but..." Shouldn't we be able to expect that much in turn?