I get a little consumed by reader response a couple months before and after one of my books is released, not going to lie. Fall for Anything is in that tender stage where I want everyone to like it. I’ve gone through this with all of my books. Of course you want people to like what you’re putting out there–I think that’s a very natural and human thing to want–but as The Rolling Stones say…

When I decided I’d write with the eye of hopefully getting published, the first thing I did was prepare myself for People Not Liking My Work and the word ‘no.’ Every writer knows this and knows it well–want agent? Want book deal? You’re going to hear the word no in your quest for both–a lot. And yes is never guaranteed.

(Sometimes no is even delivered by a stabby knife that stabs you directly in the heart stabbingly and you just have to try not to bleed all over the furniture while you send your next query and sometimes you’ve just barely stopped bleeding when the next no comes and you’re like HOW AM I STILL ALIVE? HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE?)

What got me through the query stage was reminding myself that fiction is subjective. When Cracked Up to Be sold to St. Martin’s, I immediately started Phase 2 of this line of thinking, which means I thought the same thing but much harder and consequently gave myself forehead wrinkles and headaches. By the time December 23rd, 2008 rolled around–Cracked Up to Be’s release date–I thought I was totally ready for whatever people had to say about Parker Fadley and her bitchy disposition.

Ha ha ha!

I don’t think you can ever truly be prepared to have your work out there, whether people ultimately end up loving it or hating it. Even if you do your absolute best to ignore the stuff people say about yer stuff, it’s hard to be unaware of the fact that people are out there, saying stuff about yer stuff. It’s a nearly impossible concept to wrap your head around. For me, it was much easier to understand in theory, but experiencing it was something else ENTIRELY.

So Cracked Up to Be hopped off the presses and promptly ran face first into one of The Worst Reviews I’ve Ever Received (So Far) and I immediately forgot all of my own advice. The funny thing is, I even had an inkling this review was coming and tried to steel myself for it–fiction is subjective! It is subjectivvve!–but this review took my breath away with its utter loathing of my writing.

The first thing I did was email it to my agent to make sure I wasn’t overreacting. What if it was one of those reviews that was actually not so much mean as it was critically even-handed and I was just too close to my book and not seeing that? My agent and I quickly established this wasn’t the case. That settled, I stepped back from the computer and thought, there! It wasn’t just me! So that’s it! My first really terrible review and I survived!

And then I got REALLY upset!

How to describe it–I kind of felt like I’d shown up at a prom full of a bunch of strangers with my dress tucked into my pantyhose and also I am wearing really, really ugly underwear in this nightmare. I felt very naked and looked at and the people who were looking at me hated what they were seeing and I didn’t even know them!

That’s a really humbling feeling. It’s good to be humbled. But like I said, it’s also a bit overwhelming. After I had My Moment and then My Moment (Extended Version) and then My Moment (Remix) and then My Moment (Extended Version Remix) I did a lot of thinking. I’m a person who Likes Things A Certain Way (read: control freak) and I was quickly learning that I could not control what other people thought of my work. That was quite the personal epiphany.

So was I going to let a bad review be the worst thing that ever happened to me? Well, no. Would I let the expectations surrounding a positive review paralyze my writing? Absolutely not–I have a lot more stories I wanna tell. And then came the mental smackdown: like Jen Trynin said and which I like to remind myself of a lot: “No one deserves anything.”

No one deserves anything, let alone a book deal. I didn’t want to spit in the face of the hard work and luck involved in getting my own or the hard work of people who are in the process of pursuing one. I decided I needed to learn the fine art of compartmentalizing (or ‘sucking it up’ as the Canadians call it).

But how does a writer do that? How do they cope? Well… I don’t know. I don’t like speaking for all writers!

So I can only tell you what this one did.

I am three books into my writing career (hopefully there will be more) and I’ve received my share of reader response–both good and bad. I have been called irresponsible. I’ve received emails that praise my first book in one paragraph and ask me why my second was so terribly written in the next. But I’ve also been told Parker’s story inspired someone to get help. I’ve been told Regina’s enabled a reader to speak up about their own bullying. Someone told me my books made them realize they wanted to write. That’s crazy–but good crazy. In three books, I have learned to view all responses as positive ones–even the negative ones. If you’ve written a book that causes people to react, that’s a very good thing. It’s something I’ve learned not to take lightly.

But I also can’t let any response get in the way of my writing and I think at the end of the day it’s important to write a book YOU, as its creator, love and believe in above all else, because other people’s praise and criticism will only take you so far. You will likely never believe your best review and it’s way too easy to talk yourself into believing your worst. It can also be a dangerous thing to get completely caught up in positive responses and dismiss all your critics as haters…

Ani Difranco has this great song called Tamburitza Lingua. It is pretty depressing but it ends on this great (albeit sad) note: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three two one and kerplooey, you’re done, you’re done for, you’re done for good now tell me did you do did you do all you could? Uhm, like I said, depressing–but worth thinking about in terms of writing. Did you write the story you wanted to? Did you say everything that was in your heart? If you answered ‘yes’ to both of these questions, realize how amazing that is, objectively. It’s a gift and you should take it seriously.

Finally, I could never overstate the importance of WORKING ON SOMETHING NEW. When you’re fully invested in a new story, you’re detaching, on some level, from the last one. Allowing yourself distance from your previous work makes the response it gets feel like not so much of a ‘hit.’

But it’s still intimidating to be judged. Of course it’s scary. And even more comforting: it’s inevitable. NO MATTER WHAT YOU ARE DOING. And in spite of all I’ve written here, as I said–I’m currently in a tender stage of Fall for Anything’s release, where I want everyone to like it. I still have My Moments and their Extended Versions and their Remixes over some of the feedback I get. But I know now it will pass and I try to remember the only thing you can do is let the chips fall where they may and then turn your attention forward.

You HAVE to, or at least I do, because above all, I firmly believe that once a book is released, it’s not mine anymore. I’ve had my time with those characters and now it is over. Such a big part of putting your work out there is letting it go. And I think in this particular case, letting go is just something you have to learn over and over again but that you maybe hopefully get better at the more and more you do it.

Lest you become this Duffy song.

The only problem was I wasn’t sure how I’d frame such an entry. How to Write an Unlikeable Female Protagonist? Uhm, that would be awfully presumptuous of me and besides, I don’t think writing an “unlikeable” girl protagonist is all that different from writing a “likeable” one. Also, there’s the issue that Parker and Regina seem to be more liked than they’re hated, so have I even written an unlikeable protagonist? Or maybe I shouldn’t say readers actually like them, so much as they understand them? Also, if I write unlikeable too much it stops looking like a word and my God that is tragic, why would anyone make me do that to a word.

So THAT is why I haven’t written a blog entry on the topic: the actual writing of an unlikeable main character is less complicated than talking about writing one. But still, I get questions about and relating to the likeability of my female protagonists.

Readers seem to want to know why:

1. I would make Parker and Regina so unlikeable and
2. Do I really believe anyone would suffer their company willingly (like Chris, Jake and Michael) and
3. Do I think readers (or anyone) should like them

These are pretty great questions. If you don’t want to read the rest of this entry, the short answers are 1) because I wanted to 2) yes and 3) that’s up to the reader and there you go.

Before I wrote Cracked Up to Be, I wrote another YA novel. It had two POVs–a boy named Peter and a girl named Margot–and, get this, it was written in third person. The book got me so close to representation, there is a whole story there about how I pulled my hair out, but never mind that.

So it got rejected a lot. And what all the rejections seemed to come down to was that people liked Peter and hated Margot. SURE, there may have been massive other problems with the novel but to cope with the sting of (literally) hundreds of rejections, I needed to pinpoint what they all had in common and then uh, get defensive about it. So Margot was what they had in common. She was cold. They couldn’t connect with her. I took the manuscript out and reevaluted it, wondering if I could make her more ‘likeable’ (whatever that means). But when I read it, I had a problem: I liked her and I didn’t think I could change her.

(Just so you know, Margot spent the first half of the book hating her perfect boyfriend and wanting him to die. Then in the second half he DID and then she was like, “Oh man.” WAT is unloveable about that, I ask you.)

So I did a lot of navel-gazing soul-searching and I just kept getting annoyed because my thoughts decided to circle in this way: WHY DO GIRLS HAVE TO BE NICE ALL THE TIME THEY CAN BE MEAN AND ANGRY AND GENDER STEREOTYPING MUCH ARGH. Just. Like. That. I was bothered that the behaviours that are supported, loved, celebrated or romanticized in male characters would be, I thought, rejected in female characters because we have the perception that girls are sugar and spice and everything nice (er, not that I think wanting your significant other to DIE is an inherently male characteristic).

We are HARD on girls.

And please don’t mistake me: I’m not saying we’re not hard on guys at all, or that male characters aren’t held to their own set of ridiculous standards but I am writing an entry about writing unlikeable female characters, so. Anyway, just imagine a character like Sutter Keely (whom I LOVE) and Holden Caulfield (who I dream of repeatedly punching in the face) as girls. How do you think they would be received?

Or how about: imagine a girl who is outwardly hostile to her love interest, has violent tendencies, invades his personal space, and is just generally inappropriate. Like, you know–stalkery. I see a lot of that lately with male characters, and the implication is I’m supposed to think that’s hot. A lot of people DO think that’s hot in fiction, apparently, but I don’t know that we’d be encouraged to think the same thing if the aggressor in question was female.

I think that entire paragraph could turn into a conversation in itself and I’m sure someone can come along and passionately refute what I am saying etc. but I’m just telling you what got me to the point of wanting to write about and then actually writing a character like Parker. I was contemplating double standards, it was making me angry and I decided I wanted to write the meanest, most unlikeable female protagonist I could think of, because nuts to it all. Part of this also falls under the larger umbrella of why I like to write–I am interested in provoking strong responses, whether they’re positive or negative. The last thing I want is for someone to walk away from my books feeling indifferent (I think lots of writers feel this way).

The choice to return to an unlikeable protagonist with Some Girls Are was also informed by everything I’ve detailed above, perhaps even more so because girl-bullying is such a taboo topic. No one wants to believe the extremes girls will go to to make each other miserable. Like Rachel Simmons, I believe that the expectation that girls must be ‘nice’ abets their aggressive behaviour. I think girls can be physically violent (you wouldn’t–or maybe you would–believe how many times I was told by interested parties that if I was writing a book about girl bullies, they could not be physically violent with each other because girls are only aggressive psychologically).

Part of writing Some Girls Are was gathering up all these ideas of how girls are ‘supposed’ to bully each other and wanting to write against them. I’ve talked about why I needed to write Some Girls Are on a personal level, but so much of Some Girls Are grew out from–SPOILERS–the scene with the girls on the side of the road because I was told girls would never, ever behave that way because… girls. Just. Don’t. (Psh.)

Making Regina a former mean girl who grapples with and indulges in and, at points, enjoys her mean girl tendencies (whether it’s right or wrong) was a no-brainer for me. I wanted to make a difficult story more difficult; not only in the interest of challenging readers (hopefully) but to challenge myself. I think having Regina be a nice girl/accidental target would have been an easy, safe choice to make. I identify with Regina a lot but her instinct is different than mine. Exploring that was not always easy, but that is what made it rewarding. That’s what’s in it for me when I make these kinds of choices. That’s a lot, in my opinion.

Do I really believe that anyone would willingly suffer the company of my main characters? Would they really have a Chris, Jake and Michael inserting themselves into their lives? The answers to both of these questions, for me, is yes. I can think of about eighteen million jerks (yes MILLION) I know IN REAL LIFE who are surrounded by incredible support systems, who have love in their lives. I don’t hesitate in my answer. People are complex and it is never as simple as “bad people should have no friends, good people should.” (I don’t think Parker and Regina are bad people, though.) I think it’s realistic, I think it’s possible. Of course!

I sometimes think the reason people approach me with the question is because they (and I do this too) struggle with the idea of who deserves and doesn’t deserve that kind of support… when really, how much someone is given–regardless of how nice they are or aren’t–in terms of love and support isn’t up to us, unless we’re the ones doing the giving.

That is why reader response fascinates me; being told by people exactly what they think Parker and Regina do and don’t deserve is probably one of the most gratifying things I’ve experienced in having these books published. I don’t think anyone is wrong in what they feel about either of those girls, whether they hate them or they don’t. But I love when they feel strongly about it and I love when they feel strongly enough about it to tell me.

Finally, do I think readers should like Parker and Regina? As I said, that’s up to the reader and that’s all there is to it. As I said, I have hopes that people will respond to my work whether they like it or hate it (indifference is what terrifies me!), but the last thing I will do is tell someone how they should respond. There are no “right” or “wrong” ways to feel about Parker and Regina.

So. That is what I have to say about writing unlikeable female protagonists.

OH WAIT! I just read an interview with hilarious comedian Louis CK and he talked about likeability and I wish I’d just smacked this quote up instead of this entry BUT OH WELL, this is what he said:

“Well, I think “likability” is an overused word. I don’t watch people ’cause I like them; I watch them because they’re compelling. Sympathetic is a little different. It’s like I understand this person, and I never know quite what they’re going to do and I’m really interested in what they might do next and they feel real to me. That’s, I think, way more valuable than likable. Likable just thins you out…”

I love that man. UGH he is in Toronto in July and I won’t get to see him! Sob, sob. Wait what were we talking about again?

PS Eddie in Fall For Anything will be my first non-mean girl character. MAYBE SHE WILL BE THE MOST UNLIKEABLE OF THEM ALL! Who knows!

I can’t wait to find out.

It was pretty exciting.

But it was not the most exciting thing that happened to me in the last month (I don’t like those things so much anymore, though). I have missed you, Internet! Thank you for being patient with me while I scrabbled to meet an incredibly intense deadline, fell drastically behind in emailing and blogs and thank you in advance for your continued patience as I scrabble to catch up.

I have to say, the best thing about my absence was some stuff happened so I’ve got blog entry material. I HAVE THINGS TO TELL YOU! That doesn’t happen often as we all know.

So the first exciting thing is that Fall For Anything is DONE. Done, done, done! Okay, copy-edits and first pass pages are all on the horizon but it’s pretty much done. When I can share more–plot summary, cover, release date and whatnot, I will. But the main thing is that it’s finished and that is a very nice thing to type. I got chills.

The second exciting thing is I’m thrilled to report Some Girls Are has been nominated for YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults and it is a nominee for their Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers. So cool! And it’s in very good company. And speaking of Some Girls Are, it’s now available for a few e-readers, so if you’ve been waiting for it to come out on the Kindle or the Nook, it’s here…

When I wasn’t working on Fall for Anything (or ‘Eddie’ as I call it 99% of the time, for it’s main character), I was preparing for the OLA’s (Ontario Library Association) Forest of Reading/Festival of Trees. Last October (LAST OCTOBER! Where is time going?) I announced that Cracked Up to Be was nominated for the White Pine Award. On May 12th, the nominees gathered for the Festival of Trees at the Toronto Harbourfront Centre. It’s a HUGE event that takes place over two days and thousands of readers visit and interact with authors.

It was an incredible day. I was up at four AM and on the road shortly thereafter so I could arrive in Toronto by 9:30. When I arrived, I got a badge with my name on it and a green ribbon and I had to note that because I <3 green. I met Pam Bustin first, (the author of Mostly Happy, which went on to win the White Pine–congratulations, Pam!) who is lovely and energetic and then directly after breakfast in the green room, I went to my signing tent which I shared with Susan Juby and Tim Wynne Jones, who were both very friendly and engaging and very cool and looked like they knew what they were doing at all times (which I envied!).

And then it was time to go onstage! Sabrina Jalees MCed the event and she was so hilarious we (mostly) forgot about the cold. And then the authors were paraded (literally!) onstage. Each author was accompanied by two people. One person holding a sign with the authors’ name on it (my sign holder’s name escapes me but she was a really nice girl–thank you!) and your speaker, who introduces you very kindly (thank you, Mel!) and then oh my goodness, the author has to speak. Which I did. And I didn’t fall down or nothin’ so that was awesome.

(Any day I don’t fall on my face is awesome.)

So, in short: a GREAT day. I want to thank everyone who worked hard to make it all possible and to make it run so smoothly. I can only imagine how much planning goes into an event that huge, but from where I was sitting it was flawless. I got to meet so many wonderful librarians and volunteers and readers and authors and I feel truly grateful to be in such a wonderful community.

And then the four hour drive home!

The next day, I gave three talks to teen readers about writing and publishing at a Voices of the Forest event at a local (for me!) education center, along with the wonderful Lesley Livingston, Pam Bustin and Susan Juby. I was incredibly fortunate to have my talks attended by awesome readers and writers who asked great questions and were just–I know I’m using a lot of positive adjectives in this post but they all apply! They were great, cool, awesome, nice. And now I must make use of this space to thank Pearl H., who tirelessly organized the event, but was unable to attend it. THANK YOU, PEARL! I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet.

So that was also a great day. And after the talks, we got the keys locked in the car and had to get a man with a coat hanger to fish them out so that was pretty exciting too.

SO MUCH EXCITEMENT!

Andddd that is what has happened in my neck of the woods since I cruelly abandoned this blog to uhm, do those things (I can’t emphasize enough that if you want up-to-the-minute news, you can get it if you follow me on Twitter). I am so going to spend June reading, relaxing and getting caught up on, well, everything and thinking hard about what book I will write next after Fall For Anything. Also maybe blogging more regularly? (Ha ha ha!)

Basically, I’m briefly deadline and outside-obligations free, so THE WORLD IS MY OYSTER.

And what I would really like to know is–

How are YOU?

So I do the night owl thing and yesterday I woke up (in the afternoon) to a flurry of @ replies on Twitter (my Twitter is active when my blog is not!) and emails and notifications in my inbox asking me WHY WASN’T I AWAKE and when I read why it was so urgent that I be awake, I was not really sure I was awake anymore.

I always make that joke about possibly of being in a coma when I get good news but the thing about that is it isn’t a joke because when I get good news I do really honestly have that fear that I am actually dreaming it and when I wake up it will be very sad. Also I have a fear that because I have received good news something terrible is about to happen to me but ENOUGH about the weird way my brain works.

This means a lot to me. Being nominated meant a lot to me (thank you to Robin Prehn for the nomination!) and being a finalist was beyond anything I expected. I spilled coffee on myself after I found out Cracked Up to Be won. I was excited and thrilled and shocked and my hands were like AAAAH! [THROWS COFFEE]. I don’t usually love spilling hot coffee on a shirt I am planning to wear for the rest of the day but I did yesterday! Thank you to everyone who has emailed, tweeted and messaged their congrats. You made me cry. Lots.

And I’m humbled. What can I say about authors like Michelle D. Kwasney, Brent Crawford, Natalie Standiford, Julie Halpern, Justina Chen and Laurie Halse Anderson that has not been said? They are a fantastically talented bunch of authors and what they bring to the YA table is inspiring and it makes me want to work harder, to make absolutely sure I’m giving my best when I sit down and write. Honestly, I feel that way looking at all the nominated titles. It is an incredible list of books. In short: YA/kid’s lit authors are freaking awesome and that is that. CONGRATS to all nominees, finalists and winners.

And The Cybils themselves. I cannot IMAGINE what an undertaking it is, but what it does for this community, for books, is incredible. Team Cybils!: you are a wonderful bunch of people and your time and your passion makes all the difference. It must be hard, but also fun. But also HARD. Thanks in particular to the YA Fiction Panel. 2009 was a great year for YA books and I came out of it with a lot of favourites, personally, so I can’t begin to guess what the judging and selection process feels like (and that goes for every panel), and to do it all in a limited amount of time, ohmygoodness basically. I hope you are patting yourself on the back right now. Also putting your feet up and indulging in something DELIGHTFUL. As a reader and writer, thank you for the work you do.

And not to be nostalgic every time I bring up the Cybils but, as I said earlier in the year, I will never be able to articulate how much of a driving force the YA blogosphere was in my own pursuit of publication. Once I knew I was writing YA–something I’d always loved to read–blogs like Bookshelves of Doom and Little Willow’s Bildungsroman (my very first book blogs–I will never forget this!) were my introduction to this community…

And though I lurked for quite a long time, Willow and Leila’s passion and interest and opinions of books for and about YA audiences helped inform ME as someone who wanted to write those books, and directed me to other bloggers who were also passionate and interested and informative. This helped me connect, to work hard, and that made a significant difference for me and my writing and it continues to, and when I think of the Cybils, I always think of this. I love the way the the book blogging community has evolved and continues to inform and connect and engage readers and writers out of a sheer love of books. I have a great deal of respect for it.

Thank you.

And now back to writing, but I do not know how I am going to make my characters miserable when I am feeling so happy.

THIS COULD BE A PROBLEM.

HOLD ON, COURTNEY. BACK THE TRUCK UP, you are saying. THAT AS EXTRAORDINARY. HOW DID THIS COME TO BE?

Well, Internet, I will tell you.

First, I am a big fan of Survivor. SINCE SEASON ONE. And then some people invented Twitter. Flash forward to I don’t know how many years it has been, to January 7th, 2010. I had just woken up from a nap. It was a day like any other, except it was not quite day. It was early evening. It was an early evening like any other. I logged into Twitter and checked my @ replies, where Adele of Persnickety Snark (who is also having a blogoversary celebration which I contributed to here–happy anniversary, Adele!) tells me that JEFF PROBST now has a twitter.

I immediately made it my new goal in life to get Jeff Probst to tweet hello to me on Twitter. And questioned how that could happen. And THEN! The wonderful Catt AKA The Dreamer Reader tweeted to get the ball rolling.

And then I questioned whether or not Twitter would make a dream come true (SPOILER: IT DOES).

MEANWHILE, Scott Tracey (whose novel WITCH EYES, which I can’t wait to read, comes out in 2011 from Flux) dubbed my new goal in life Project #sayhitocourtney. And then so many wonderful folks chimed in, asking Jeff Probst to say hello to me (THANK YOU WONDERFUL FOLKS).

CAN YOU BELIEVE THE AMAZINGNESS OF TWITTER? I always have. May this story make you doubters see the light.

And then I think an hour went by.

(TOTAL ELAPSED TIME: AN HOUR)

… And then, THIS MAN, Internet:

Photographic proof:






WHAT? YOU WOULD LIKE A CLOSER VIEW, YOU SAY?

HERE IS A CLOSER VIEW:

Internet, between THAT and the release of this:

So Some Girls Are had an incredible release week and I have to thank everyone who tweeted, Facebooked, emailed, called, and blogged about it. To wake up to that was totally overwhelming and I don’t think I can say thank you enough. THANK YOU! Quite a few reviews of Some Girls Are came in this week and I promised I’d do a round-up in my blog entry. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read it and review it:

I really hope I am not missing anyone. If I am, accept my apologies as it has been Quite a Week and don’t hesitate to let me know and I’ll add it here ASAP! As always, I put all reviews on the Some Girls Are page and try to stay on top of sharing them on my Facebook Page.

I was also lucky enough to share release dates with Lisa Schroeder and Dia Reeves, whose novels Chasing Brooklyn and Bleeding Violet, respectively, also came out. I am looking forward to reading Bleeding Violet and I devoured and LOVED Chasing Brooklyn–it was brilliant! I posted my review on GoodReads here.

So that is how epic my week has been, Internet! Next week won’t compare. Sad but true.

I want to tell you about Annika. Annika, who is awesome/wry/hilarious/clever/cool (or AWHCC for short), and who also has an AWHCC blog right here, HAD A BABY. Annika and I originally shared release dates. Her, for her little girl and me for Some Girls Are. Annika clearly won this race because uhm sharing release dates also makes it a race? Or maybe because when you have a baby this adorable, YOU WIN. EVERYTHING. Anyway, this is BRILLIANT NEWS, INTERNET! And I am so happy for her and her family. Congratulations Annika, Will and big brother Sam and welcome Grace! In truth, I think these four people are strong contenders for Coolest Family on This Planet right now, and I mean that.

Hmm.

DEAR ANNIKA, WILL, SAM & GRACE,

Leave a little cool for the rest of us, Gawd.

Love, the Internet

DEAR INTERNET,

On January 1st, 2010, I woke up and discovered that this book:

I was majorly shocked. When I first found out Cracked Up to Be was nominated (and many thanks to Robin Prehn who nominated it in the first place–thank you so much, Robin!), I blogged a bit about how I felt about the Cybils and why Children’s and Young Adult book bloggers are so important here. To be on the longlist was exciting and this is just beyond…. beyond! Beyond anything I expected and I truly cannot believe it at all. Cracked Up to Be is in some incredibly humbling company. Thanks to Team Cybils ’09 for all their hard work! They do an incredible job. My favourite part of the Cybils is that it’s a fantastic representation of the passion and care that makes this community so amazing to be part of.

So that was a really nice way to ring in the new year, to say the least.

GUESS WHAT ELSE, INTERNET! Tomorrow, this book comes out:

Do you know, I cannot believe THAT either. January is turning out to be quite unbelievable. It feels like yesterday I was in the throes of a massive revision for Some Girls Are. It really, really does. I don’t know what to say about that, but January 5th was the day I clung onto when I was quite certain Regina’s story would never see an end, whilst my editor and my agent and my wonderful friends and family insisted that it would. In the event that the 5th flies past me–as all days seem to have been doing lately–I just want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has been so supportive and encouraging every step of the way and if you read it (and I really think you should and I am ENTIRELY UNBIASED), I hope you enjoy it.

Even though “enjoy” seems like a really strange word when it comes to a book like Some Girls Are. I hope you CRINGE. CRINGE LIKE YOU HAVE NEVER CRINGED BEFORE. But I hope you like it while you are hopefully cringing like you never cringed before.

Related news: I uploaded the last of the video teasers to my youtube account, and you can watch them all on a playlist right here.

Happy 2010, internet! I think it is going to be a good year!

Love,
Courtney

Life is hectic! I am typing this at 12:27 am and in like 15 hours, I will begin preparations for my Christmas Eve dinner menu. On the 23rd. I could probably make it less work if I enlisted more people to help me, but that’s impossible because it’s less fun when you have to share the glory of an amazing meal with someone else. JUST JOKING.

… Or am I?

In the time since I last wrote, Internet, Some Girls Are got a starred review from Publishers Weekly! I was stunned. They called it a “very real story,” that is “frightening and effective,” also, “every emotion is palpable.” I still am stunned, actually. PW also said I took mean girl stuff to a “a new level of nasty” and I have to admit I am DYING to put that on my business cards that don’t actually exist, but only if I can put it like this:

Courtney Summers: “A new level of nast[a]y.” – Publishers Weekly

Can I do that? Probably not, right? Mostly because I am looking at it now and I am not sure it makes sense in that context, but oh well. Some Girls Are has also been getting a positive reception around the blogosphere, which I am really thrilled about. I have been diligently posting them on my Facebook page (there are also some giveaways happening right now, heads up!) and to the Some Girls Are page on site, if you want to check them out.

In Cracked Up to Be news, two things. First: it’s now available audible! As soon as I discovered this I… signed up for an audible account and bought it. NOT GONNA LIE, I wanted to hear it. It seems like a majority of authors who have their books released on audio can’t listen to them but uh, I quickly discovered I am not one of those authors! I listened to it. I listened to it A LOT. You guys, Parker is kind of really mean! And that this is a revelation for me surely means Khristine Hvam did an EXCELLENT job with the narration and made a terrific Parker. If audio books are your thing, CUTB is now an option.

And the second thing is that a year ago today Cracked Up to Be was released!

That is really, really crazy when I think about it. In the entry I wrote when it was released, I said, “Preparing Cracked Up to Be for publication was a bigger adventure than I could have anticipated or hoped for. Thank you for that.” And now, 365 days later, I can tell you having Cracked Up to Be out in the world was a bigger adventure than I could have anticipated or hope for too, and I thank you for that as well. Seriously, THANK YOU. I can’t really express how I feel about but I think this gif comes close:

So last Friday, there was an Editor Appreciation Day! Friday was a blur of holiday season related crazyness, so while I regret not being able to post my editor appreciation ON the day, I think it’s sort of fitting to do it on the one year anniversary of Cracked Up to Be’s release.

I can’t tell you what an impact my editor, Sara Goodman, has had on my writing. I’ve had the extreme good fortune to work with her on two books now, and her insights always give me the opportunity to improve myself. It is incredibly exciting to work with someone who brings out the absolute best in you. Her enthusiasm and passion for the written word is contagious and the way she listens and communicates is a thing to behold. Also, during Some Girls Are edits, she would not let me pass off a few subpar pages as my attempt at being “post-modern.” See? Sara doesn’t let me get away with stuff like that! Seriously, Sara is a GREAT editor and I appreciate her more for this than this paragraph can convey. Thank you, Sara. You are awesome.

In other news, I’ve been lucky in the reading department. One good book after the other! Check out my GoodReads reviews for these awesome books and then immediately go forth and add them to your To-Read Lists: The Line by Teri Hall, All Unquiet Things by Anna Jarzab and Imagining Canadian Literature: The Selected Letters of Jack McClelland.

And finally, before I post this and start preparing to prepare for the next few Christmassy days:

St. Martin’s Press did a GREAT job.

And on that note–at 1:21 am in the morning–HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU AND YOURS, INTERNET!

I will be back here, blogging, when I am done stuffing my face with the food what I made with the rest of my family! Ah, holidays.

My agent’s guidance, support, cheerleading, keen eye, belief in my work, patience, listening, savvy, passion and communication has made all the difference in this crazy/overwhelming/fantastic business of writing. Cracked Up to Be was going to be my last attempt at trying to get published before going on hiatus and looking into more practical pursuits. I didn’t want to stop, but I was really starting to think seeing my books on shelves wasn’t in the cards…

I remember querying my agent, I remember getting the full request in my inbox, I remember getting her email about wanting to discuss representation. My heart totally stopped. I remember that initial phone conversation, hanging up and telling my mom, “I want Amy to be my agent.” And very shortly after that, she was. Two years later, here we are!

I will always be grateful for my agent’s belief in Parker’s story, in Regina’s story, in the books I’m working on now. I wrote and dreamed of being published. Amy was obviously instrumental in making that dream a reality. She put my books into the hands of an incredible editor, who I also love working with, and now those books are being read, which is something I may never quite believe but will always be so grateful for. It’s changed my life! That alone makes it really hard to articulate just how much I love working with my agent and how much I appreciate her. What words could do someone who has made that kind of positive impact justice? None. But I will tell you that one of my absolutely favourite parts about finishing Some Girls Are was putting Amy’s name on the dedication line.

Amy, thank you for all the hard work you do on my behalf.

For a list of participating blogs, check out this entry at Lisa and Laura’s blog, and to all those hard-working, awesome agents out there, this is for you:

Uhm.

Today, the 2010 OLA Forest of Reading nominees were announced and Cracked Up to Be is one of them.

It is a nominee for The White Pine Award.

When I found out, I was like what wait wait wait what what WHAT what what WAT.

And then I refreshed the nominees page a lot, just waiting for the cover image of Parker on the bench to somehow disappear. Because, to be honest, I did not get a lot of sleep last night so I wasn’t entirely convinced what I was seeing was real. Maybe someone had hacked my computer?

But then I got confirmation from my publisher that it WAS real.

And then I was like what wait wait wait what what WHAT what what WAT.

And I have been so completely shocked and thrilled and just like WHAT REALLY about it ever since, I don’t know what else to say.

OH WAIT, ok, I got my sister to pinch me a couple of times and nothing happened, so I feel relatively certain this is not a dream. But I do kind of worry that I am in a coma and this is one of those coma realities AND HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE IN ONE OF THOSE?

DOES ANYONE KNOW.

!!!

Jake and Parker go out on a date and Parker tells him she wasn’t raped.

Which turned into this scene from the book (pg. 88):

I scramble for napkins and sop up the golden-brown liquid even though a janitor will clean it up.
“Were you raped?”
I stare at him. “What? Is that some kind of come on?”

I found this quote:

Forgive many things in others; nothing in yourself – Ausonius

Which I know I saved when I was seeking title inspiration.

The Cracked Up to Be playlist, which I was 99% sure I lost when my old laptop died earlier this year, was also preserved (yay!). Here are some selections from that:

Cat Power – Metal Heart
Damien Rice – Rootless Tree
Elliott Smith – Between the Bars
Golden Palominos – Little Suicides
Matthew Good Band – Anti-Pop
Moby – When It’s Cold I’d Like to Die
Placebo – Running Up That Hill
Rilo Kiley – The Good That Won’t Come Out
Violent Femmes – Kiss Off

SO MUCH ANGST!

Once I realized Parker was going to have a dog, I made these “extensive” dog notes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dog_breeds
Harrier
Jack Russell Terrier
Treeing Walker Coonhound

Bailey turned out to be a Harrier. This is a Harrier:

image courtesy Wikipedia

Finding herself under the constant surveillance of her parents, teachers, ex-boyfriend and former cheerleading captain, Parker must find a new path

Finding herself under the constant supervision of her parents, teachers, ex-boyfriend and former cheerleading captain, Parker must

It’s not as easy as you’d think to get rid of everyone in your life.

After that disasterous party at the end of junior year, Parker Fadley

since that disasterous party before

A disasterous party before the start of senior year causes Parker Fadley to re

These lines eventually became my query letter. Please note that I realized I’d spelled ‘disastrous’ wrong about… haflway through my querying process. EMBARRASSMENT. Anyway, after I saw these lines, I went into my inbox to find the query letter that I sent my agent and happily noted I’d spelled ‘disastrous’ correctly in the one I sent her to her. PHEW.

Now there are LOTS of good blogs out there that break down how to write an effective query letter (Query Shark, anyone?), so I am not going to turn this into a tutorial, but here is the query letter I sent out to agents (specifcally the one I sent out to my agent):

Dear Amy Tipton,

I read in your agent profile that you’re interested in young adult fiction and am querying you regarding my novel, Cracked Up to Be, an edgy, upper YA, complete at about 59,000 words.

After a disastrous party at the end of junior year, Perfect Parker Fadley decides the popular scene is stupid at best, boring at worst and senior year is an ideal time to call it quits. Never one to give less than 100% of herself in any situation, Parker goes from ‘the girl who has everything’ to ‘that chick with nothing’ in spectacular fashion–and life couldn’t be better.

But try explaining that to everyone else. When will people finally get it that yes, Parker meant to quit the cheerleading squad and relinquish captaining duties to her considerably less talented rival, Becky Halprin? And of course she wanted to end her relationship with Chris Ellory, the hottest guy in school. Falling so far behind in her homework that not graduating has since become a very real possibility? Well… everything except the Possibly Not Graduating part was totally on purpose.

When her wilder antics are misinterpreted as a cry for help, Parker finds herself under the constant supervision of her parents, teachers and peers. Forced to toe the line between the life she knew and the life she wants, Parker must convince them she’s back on track without jeopardizing everything she’s worked so hard to give up. It takes a little ingenuity, but it’s nothing she can’t handle.

… That is until Jake Gardner, Mr. Painfully Sincere of Senior Year, takes a disconcerting interest in Parker and her past. It’s not that his intentions aren’t good–they could’ve made a great couple in another lifetime–but his innocent questions (like who in their right mind gives up the perks of being popular?) threaten to reveal a secret Parker doesn’t want anyone to find out. Like what really happened at that party last year vs. what everyone thinks happened–and how her new approach to life isn’t so much a choice as it is a punishment.

To keep the truth from surfacing, Parker has to scramble to maintain her carefully orchestrated downfall while doing her best to avoid a real one.

My name is Courtney Summers and [bio stuff]. While Cracked Up to Be has not been sent to any houses, I am currently querying other agents at this time. A full manuscript is available upon request.

Thank you for your time and consideration!

Sincerely,
Courtney Summers

DUM DUM DUM. Doesn’t that look alarmingly long all blockquoted and formatted in this blog? It looks more reasonable in my inbox. Some guidelines might say it is about 10 paragraphs too long, but oh well. Regardless, that is the query that worked for me. And looking at it now, I truly believe it is important for every query letter to close with an exclamation mark. After I sent this, Amy requested the full and the rest is sparkly history! Sparklestory?

In closing, here is a Twilight gif that I enjoy very much and stole from who knows where. PROBABLY ohnotheydidnt. I love those guys.