Seeing yourself reflected, on some level, in the pages of a book is an incredibly powerful thing. I realized after reading The Chocolate War that I wasn’t looking for answers, I wanted to know people had the same questions. This completely informed the way I chose to approach my work.

The WSJ article is so ugh. I could pick it apart until my fingernails were all torn off and bloody from all the picking and whatnot. I am just going through the article again right now to write this and ugh I can’t. I can’t you guys. Don’t even get me started on the book lists being separated by gender.

Anyways. So many people are tweeting and blogging about this issue and they are saying it all much better than I could. I feel so grateful for books that open my eyes and make me look at/examine things–no matter how big or how small, light or dark, and whether I agree with them or not–in ways I didn’t before. As a writer, I can’t bring myself to sacrifice the kind of honesty that is required to do that for anyone else’s peace of mind and as a reader, I would feel so cheated by any writer who did. I am so thankful for writers who confront the darkness rather than hide from it. I am equally thankful for writers who show us the brighter side of life as well. AND OH MY GOD do you think there are books out there that do BOTH? I bet there are. Wow.

Also Meghan Cox Gurden, it’s okay to give teenagers credit. Although I see how recognizing their intelligence and awesomeness and ability to self-censor and think for themselves might’ve put a damper on your article. Also Wall Street Journal, this is how I feel about you right now:

(There is an international giveaway at the end of this interview. I am just saying.)

Internet, I have been looking forward to this book:

I think Mindi Scott is awesome and I’ve loved following her publication journey. This book released in October, but I was smack in the middle of 80 million (no exaggeration!) different things and I couldn’t sit down and read it until this month and I would not wish a similar fate upon anyone. It was hard. Anyways, it’s always a dangerous thing when I have to wait to read something. I’ll either lose interest in the novel or put it on such a high pedastal, it’s doomed to fail. Not fair, I know, but life isn’t fair and if anyone knows that it is SETH MCCOY.

Freefall follows the life and times of Seth McCoy (or maybe call him Dick), after the death of his best friend, Isaac. Seth and Isaac were part of the same band–The Real McCoys–and they both partied hard. One night, Isaac drinks way too much… and ends up choking to death on his own vomit.

Needless to say, Seth spirals hard. He can’t shake the feeling he’s responsible for Isaac’s death. He’s bored of helping his egocentric friend Daniel supply booze for the rich kids at school who think they’re both trailer trash wastes of space. He often binge drinks before playing gigs to cope with stage fright as well as the general pressure his bandmates pile on him. After bender # whatever, he winds up waking up to dead Isaac’s on-and-off again girlfriend, Kendall.

Oops.

Clearly, things need to change, and that’s when this book begins, with Seth making two positive choices: to stop drinking and commit himself to an intense class schedule so he can graduate. Both of these decisions are the beginning of the rest of his life. In one of the elective classes he attends to boost his grade point average–Interpersonal Communications–he comes face to face with Rosetta, a beautiful girl he may or may not have nearly run over with his car. Thankfully, she gets over it and what follows is a really tender and sharp debut about two similarly wounded people coming together to bring out the best in themselves.

I am happy to report that there was not a trace of fail in the pages of Freefall. It was funny, engaging and romantic and I adored the voice; Seth’s quick wit–spot on and cleverly timed–made me chuckle repeatedly and laughing out loud with a book is always a special thing. Rosetta was a sweet and slightly mysterious love interest and the gradual build of Seth’s relationship with her felt natural. The way she coped with her own tragic past gave Seth new insights on how he could cope with his own, and in both of them, I got the sense of two people who needed each other and were good for each other. Kendall is quite possibly one of my most favourite secondary characters EVER. She stole every scene she was in. I was pretty much rooting for every single one of these people. I wanted them all to be happy.

I loved watching Seth try to discern the best course of action for himself and the people he cared about and his stumbles along the way were so genuine. I adored the sincerity in his screw-ups and his attempts to fix them. That’s another good word for Seth and his story as a whole: it’s sincere. It’s sincere and it’s hopeful, despite the heavy subject matter. Overall, Freefall to me, is the epitome of a feel good novel. I felt good when I read it. I felt good after I finished it. And if you read it–and you should–I think you will too.

Which is why I am giving a copy away! YOU MUST HAVE THIS BOOK, INTERNET. But first, I’m thrilled to say that Mindi Scott totally agreed to let me interview her about its development and being a writer and I hope you enjoy what she had to say as much as I did.

Thank you so much, Courtney!

My journey to publication went like this: I tried NaNoWriMo in 2003, wrote around 20,000 words, and quit. I decided that I wanted to make writing novels a part of my regular life; not just a thing that took over completely the month of November. The following spring, I quit my full-time job and started working part-time so I could write more. Fall 2004, I enrolled in a novel-writing program at the University of Washington where I completed my first manuscript, for which I went on to collect 75 agent rejections. I then wrote the book that become Freefall from August 2006 to February 2008. I spent all of 2008 collecting agent rejections (over 75 this time), and signed with my agent in January 2009. He sold it to Simon Pulse that May and it came out in October 2010.

So, yeah, that’s a pretty passionless paragraph right there. My journey wasn’t quick and it wasn’t easy, but I can be sappy about it now and say that I’m grateful for suffering. I’m a better writer as a result, I adore my agent and editor, and I’m happy, happy, happy that everything turned out this way!

That is not a passionless paragraph at all. As a reader and fan, I’m happy it turned out this way too. :) How does it feel to have your book out there and read and if you could go back in time and tell pre-pub Mindi one thing, what would it be?

It feels exciting, gratifying, overwhelming, terrifying, surreal. Now that the book has been out for three months, sometimes it almost feels kind of . . . normal now. I imagine all the emotions will be out again in full force for a book 2, though.

As far as going back in time, oh man. Time travel gets me all flummoxed. Like, if I went back and gave pre-pub Mindi some encouragement that it will happen eventually, would her misery cease, and thus her hard work? If I gave her friendly suggestions about how to better manage her time (for example), would she be stubborn? I just don’t know what she would do! And if I went back in time to meet her at all, what would that do to the space-time continuum? I mean, I’ve seen Back to the Future! That stuff is tricky.

Hah! Good point. Seth is a wonderful character. I loved him. He’s totally sincere and a total riot–his quips had me laughing out loud. You wrote a wonderful guest blog on what it was like to write a guy POV over at Me On Books and I’d like to touch on that topic further, so this question comes in two parts: A. what was the most surprising thing about writing Seth? And B. Who are some of your favourite YA male protagonists written by women?

I’m glad you loved him! Me too! I think the most surprising thing about writing Seth was realizing that I really loved this kid, but that I would not have liked him at all in high school. In a weird way, that realization increased my empathy toward people, in general. For reals! Because, sure, some people out there really are dicks, but many are just going through stuff, you know? Seth showed me that. That’s how swell he is.

Some of my favorite YA male protagonists written by women are Robin from What My Girlfriend Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones, Blake from Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan, Tyler from Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson, and Nick from I Know It’s Over by C.K. Kelly Martin.

Great choices! I love C.K. Kelly Martin’s stuff. The secondary characters in Freefall are very vividly drawn. Kendall is my favourite–she is AWESOME–so I have to know: did her character evolve much from the first to final draft? And if so, how so?

Kendall was pretty much always Kendall, but in the earliest draft, she was Extreme Kendall and Seth’s main antagonist. She was very brash and every single scene in which she appeared was a snark fest. She also despised dead Isaac and didn’t care that Seth knew it. Fire cracker, that girl.

One of my critique partners during that time (author John C. Ford), suggested that Kendall would be better utilized if she actually had her own tie to Isaac. I fought that suggestion at first because I liked Kendall hating on Isaac. But then I decided to make her Isaac’s long-time-girlfriend. When I reworked all her scenes to reflect this very major change, everything fell into place. She was still Kendall, but she went from being this girl who turned up periodically to annoy Seth to someone who turned up to maybe not always annoy him, who was experiencing the same loss as he. It changed everything between them and made Kendall (in my opinion) the most important character in helping Seth come to terms with what happened to Isaac.

I didn’t really have conscious thoughts about balancing these things; I simply included whatever I felt was realistic for my characters. It was important to me that my approach was always honest. Sometimes characters don’t do the honorable thing, but that’s part of what makes them real.

The advice I would give to a writer who wants to explore darker, edgier topics is to go for it and to be real. Don’t force “lessons.” I beg of you! Don’t force anything, actually. It never really works, right?

You’ll get no argument from me. What I liked about Rosetta was that she was quirky and interesting without ever veering into the realm of The Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Was there anything you were conscious of NOT wanting to do/steer clear of while you were developing her?

Aww! Thank you for saying that! One thing that not everyone knows is that Rosetta was originally going to be the star of this novel. Which would have made Seth the love interest. He could have been Rosetta’s Depressed Pixie Dream Boy. Or whatever. :-D

When I made the switch very early on, I realized that Rosetta’s phobia and goals were driving (ha) everything even though I’d given this story to Seth to tell. I decide that I had to stop it. I had to be fair to the narrator I’d chosen and put the major focus on his arc.

So I guess I would say that the things I became most conscious of were not letting Rosetta take over the novel and not making solving her issues the true focus. As much as I might have liked to, putting Rosetta on Seth’s timeline would not have been realistic for her experiences; some problems take more time to solve than others.

I agree with you. I loved the way you handled Rosetta’s arc. What was your favourite scene to write? What was the hardest?

It’s difficult to pick, but one of my favorites to write was actually two shorts scenes (pages 40-45) when Seth walks into Daniel’s place and misinterprets what he’s seeing. I think it’s really the first time we get a sense of the trauma Seth experienced from Isaac’s death and it’s his first major turning point. Obviously, it isn’t a pleasant thing for him to go through, but I’ve always liked it because it’s like you can pin-point that this is where he starts to change. Plus, I love to write intense scenes where characters experience their strongest emotions.

The hardest scenes for me to write were the ones where Seth is hanging out with his band(s). It wasn’t that what was happening was so difficult to put into words; it’s just that I find it a bit torturous to have to maneuver four characters through a scene.

Seth plays in two bands, THE REAL MCCOYS and SCRATCHING AT THE 8-BALL. What do these guys sound like? Can you give us some musical points of reference?

The Real McCoys are rockabilly, whose original roots are the likes of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. I picture their band sounding a little like Rattled Roosters, Reverend Horton Heat, or Season of Nightmares. The latter two are actually psychobilly, not rockabilly, so clearly you shouldn’t listen to me!

In the book, Xander tells Seth that Scratching at the 8-Ball has “a pop-punk sound–heavier on the punk” and Seth tells readers that they have “loud, fast guitars and drums” and were “obviously inspired by old Green Day or the Offspring.” I, personally, picture their music like My Chemical Romance with the vocals of The Graduate (not a pop-punk band). Again, you should probably trust Seth and Xander, though!

Either way–I get new music to check out. :) What five books have influenced you most as a writer, YA or otherwise?

MERMAIDS by Patty Dann
HOMECOMING by Cynthia Voigt
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by JD Salinger
LOOKING FOR ALASKA by John Green
Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus

Right now I’m working on a dark YA about an almost-sixteen-year-old girl who can’t tell the truth out of fear of what it will cost her. As it happens, she is a member of a 21-member dance team and lives with her family of seven. Remember what I said for question #7 about maneuvering lots of people in a scene? Yeah. Wow.

You can find me at MindiScott.com, Twitter, and The Contemps!

Yay! Sounds exciting! Anything else you want to add?

Thank you so much for having me, Courtney, and for asking such thoughtful questions. And for reading my book and getting it and telling others. I’m always gushing because your writing truly inspires me, so this has been an honor. An honor, I say!

The honor is all mine, Mindi! I loved Freefall and I’m excited to be following your career. Thank you so much for your time and for indulging my questions!

What more can I say, people? READ THIS BOOK.

In case you couldn’t tell, it’s great.

I will give you a moment to be shocked at the fact that there has only been four days between this post and the last one.

WELL. The Contemps went live yesterday!!!!

The Contemps is a stellar group of 21 YA authors (including Brent Crawford, Lisa Schroeder, Elizabeth Scott, Kirsten Hubbard, Kody Keplinger, Hannah Harrington, Jo Knowles, Mindi Scott, Melissa Walker, Daisy Whitney and Michael Northrop to name just a few) with contemporary novels releasing over the course of the year. We are COMPLETELY dedicated to spreading the word about and spotlighting realistic YA fiction. And not only spotlighting those stories, but sharing our own. So you definitely want to keep your eye on us. But where to look? WELL, just so you know:

And did I mention The Contemps Challenge? If you accept The Contemps Challenge and promise to read at least 18 of the 21 upcoming Contemps books, you will have a chance to WIN ALL 21 OF OUR BOOKS. Pretty sweet, huh? Go here for deets.

So CHECK IT, people. Just check it. I don’t even know how you got this far down in my blog entry because you should’ve clicked away to The Contemps website by now.

But if you stuck around, well.

First pass pages for Fall for Anything came in the mail! I took some pictures to tease you with. Look at this sexy title page!

Now get thee to The Contemps’ website!

My To-Do list got slightly overwhelming this week and when I began to tackle it, I totally wanted to curl up in fetal position. It was TOO MUCH. If I had to face down Daisy’s I would be too busy crying to compose this blog entry and share this interview with her with you. Yes, that’s right! I asked Daisy for an interview and she consented! I’m REALLY excited about this one, because no lie guys, if you love edgy, strongly written YA, you NEED to put her on your radar. And this entry is totally about putting Daisy Whitney on your radar.

So please consider this…

AN INTRODUCTION TO DAISY WHITNEY

Oh Courtney, it’s OK to admit you’ve read it! (Courtney is one of my writing friends and the male love interest in the story has her last name in homage to her fabulousness and her inspiration to me!)

Courtney’s note: YES, I HAVE READ IT. I wasn’t sure if I had to keep it under wraps. But yes, you guys, it is amazing. You will love it when it comes out. I promise. It’s an edgy, powerful read and I can’t wait to read it in its final incarnation! Also I am totally attracted to the love interest with my last name. I feel like that is wrong because that makes us practically related, but oh well. He is HOT. /tangent

THE MOCKINGBIRDS is about an underground, vigilante group of boarding school students who are committed to righting the wrongs of their peers. They are a secret society at a prestigious prep school and they operate as the judge, the jury and the muscle the school can’t be. They take their inspiration from Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, which is the canonical story of justice and right and wrong in American literature. The central case in my novel centers on a date rape at the school. My publisher Little Brown is aiming for a Fall 2010 release date, though that may change.

Fingers-crossed for a Fall 2010 release! But I will eagerly (and impatiently) await whatever the date ultimately turns out to be. What inspired you to write The Mockingbirds?

THE MOCKINGBIRDS took shape over the course of several months from 2008 to 2009 so there were various inspirations along the way, depending largely on where I was in the revision process for the novel. Not to be totally sycophantic, but reading your novel CRACKED UP TO BE last September was the first inspiration. (I strong armed Courtney into sending me an ARC ahead of everyone else!). Your book opened my eyes to all that the young adult genre could be. I had previously been writing women’s fiction. Those early novels are unpublished so I was ready for a change and switching genres to YA turned out to be the best decision. I wanted to write about how we handle things that are difficult, like date rape, bullying, hate speech and what it takes to make a right or a wrong decision, where the shades of gray are and what it means to take a stand.

The funny thing is, the first draft did not include the Mockingbirds at all! The novel was called THE POSTER CHILD and was about a girl who was date raped and the repercussions. It wasn’t until I wrote the words “THE END” that I knew something just wasn’t working with the story and to make it work I needed to create an underground group. That’s when the idea for the Mockingbirds emerged and the inspiration for that came from TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

I remember the early days of brainstorming and I love knowing how the idea evolved. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

This is where I create my “author mythology” right? About how my mom used to find me whiling away the hours writing in my secret notebook, typing out my first novel at age five, reading it to the family at the dining room table, while acting it out with family pets? Suffice to say, that didn’t happen. When I was growing up I wanted to be a Broadway star. The only problem is I can’t sing, dance or act. Then I wanted to be a ski jumper. But I am a complete klutz and I hate cold. Then I went to college to study environmental science and wound up with an art history degree. Finally, when I was 22 I decided to be a journalist. For the next 12 years I had no desire whatsoever to write a novel–though I dabbled with screenplays in the late 90s and wrote two or three very bad ones. In fact, I took great pride in being the only journalist who didn’t want to write the Great American Novel. Then, when I’d finally read enough chick lit, I said in 2006, “I can do this!” And just sat down one day to write a novel. Six months later, I had 115,000 words and the first draft of my first novel. When I wrote the final words for that draft I knew for certain I wanted to be an author.

I love that. It’s like writing found you. What are you most looking forward to about being a YA author?

I think the BEST books being written today are for teens and what I love most is you can write virtually anything – there are no formulas, rules or structures you should follow. You can write romance, fantasy, suspense, humor, quests, high-concept, fantastical, paranormal, edgy, dark, light, weird, and so on. And you can mix and match many of those in one story. Teen readers crave and demand inventiveness and new ways of storytelling, so it’s a treat and a pleasure to write for them.

Well said. In your blog entry announcing your sale, you wrote, “There were many ups and downs on this path to soon-to-be-published-authordom.” What advice would you give to any aspiring authors who are dealing with their own ups and downs and twist and turns?

1. The universe isn’t punishing you when you get rejected. There is no curse against you. It’s just the way it goes–you will get rejected! It is an immutable law. You will also always disagree with why you were rejected.

2. Remember what Randy Pausch said in The Last Lecture: “Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want something.”

3. It’s not easy, it’s not supposed to be easy!

4. The little voice in your head is always right. Trust that little voice. I mean, that voice was crazy enough to tell you to try something as nutty as writing a novel! So when that voice says you need to make a big change or even a little change in your novel, listen to that voice.

5. Revise relentlessly and ruthlessly.

6. Don’t be a weenie when people give you criticism. It’s usually in your best interest.

7. Don’t rely on your boyfriend or your mom for the only feedback. Find other writers who also aspire to be published and become critique partners.

8. Find the agent who is right for you and then trust your agent–don’t micromanage her!

9. Offer sacrifices to the Gods of Publishing every day.

10. Email me and I will tell you my story to cheer you up, which involves several unpubbed manuscripts and gobs of rejections!

That is fried gold, right there. Name some of your favourite YA releases!

Besides CRACKED UP TO BE (Courtney’s note: aw), I loved IF I STAY by Gayle Forman. The writing and characters are beautiful. Elizabeth Scott writes the best boys and kissing scenes and I loved PERFECT YOU! Sarah Ockler is a lyrical writer and her novel TWENTY BOY SUMMER is romantic, poignant and perfect. Lisa Schroeder’s FAR FROM YOU is a wonderful and inventive novel, all the more so because it’s written in verse. I also loved INEXCUSABLE by Chris Lynch. It’s raw and powerful and amazingly well-written. And I enjoy Suzanne Young’s series THE NAUGHTY LIST, coming out in February. Oh, BEAUTIFUL by Amy Reed is beautiful (October release)!

FANTASTIC list. Where can readers find updates on The Mockingbirds’ road to publication and keep up with you on the web?

I hope readers will visit my site DaisyWhitney.com, where I’ve begun blogging regularly about writing and the path to publication. I will be building out the author section of the site, so for now you’ll find a lot of info on my other life as a media reporter. But rest assured, I have big, grand plans for fabulous website tie-ins, promotions and videos to help tell the story of THE MOCKINGBIRDS and my main site will always lead to the book info.


I’ve had her site bookmarked forever, so I’m way ahead of the game. Just sayin’.

THANK YOU, Daisy, for the interview!

And seriously, guys. She’s an author you need to watch. I’m looking forward to following every step of the publication process of The Mockingbirds and I hope you are too! And is it too early to make a call like this? I don’t think so: The Mockingbirds is going to be a HIT and I can’t wait until everyone reads it… because then I can talk about it with them!!!

BECAUSE NOT TALKING ABOUT IT IS SO HARD. SERIOUSLY. IT’S AWESOME. I WILL END THIS ENTRY BEFORE I SAY MORE. Also: dsdlkfksdf!!! *impatient noises*




* image of Daisy from her website, Mockingbird & Harper Lee cover from Wikipedia.

So anyone else read that Wall Street Journal article about how teens are JUST NOW, IN THE NAUGHTIES, gravitating to “grimmer?” YA fiction?

I want to make some clever kind of comment about how The Chocolate War is a book from the future that came out in the past or something, but I don’t think that makes sense ALSO, it’s 3:25 in the morning and I am tired so you gotta catch me some slack (also, if you want a variety of recently released, grim YA fiction to be SPOILED for you, go read the article and shake a fist!).

Anyways. Because it is 3:25 am in the morning and I am tired, longer blog entry later. Related: anyone got a blog topic for me? Because I am in short supply lately.

It’s becoming a real problem.

And just because:

Eee.

FYI, I updated my Novels page. It now includes a master list of reviews and interviews for Cracked Up to Be. While I was compiling the list, I got a little overwhelmed in a very good way.

Dear Book Blogging community,
you have been so sweet to me.
If we ever meet in person, sparkles are on me.
~*Courtney*~

So today’s blog enry is going to be about books i r lookin forward 2 reedin. If you recall, I threatened to write this blog entry when I made my return to regular blogging and I always make good on my threats. Also, given how much I love talking about books and how much I love anticipating things (see paragraph one), I think marrying the two topics is pretty genius on my part. Give me a gold star!

Anyway, this is not one of those Strictly Upcoming Releases Lists. Some of these books are already out. It’s a books i r lookin forward 2 reedin that MAY OR MAY NOT ALREADY BE OUT list, because I feel that adds an element of suspense. WHICH ONES ARE OUT? WHICH ONES ARE COMING OUT?

DUM DUM DUM.

This is too much segue for an entry that is supposed to be a list, isn’t it.

So, without further ado (and in alphabetical order by title)!:

The Boys are Back in Town by Christopher Golden

Well. I have a feeling once you read one Christopher Golden novel, you’ll want to read them all. I read his awesome YA zombie novel Soulless last year, thanks to Little Willow, and I couldn’t leave it at that. The Boys Are Back in Town is not a YA novel, but the summary sounds awesome. It’s about a guy named Will, who is prepping for his tenth high school reunion. When he gets there, he finds out one of his friends died a few years ago. THE VERY SAME FRIEND WHO CONTACTED HIM JUST A FEW DAYS BEFORE. And that’s not all that’s changed; the present conflicts with the past, new memories are replaced by old ones–so what’s real and what’s not? I wouldn’t know because I haven’t read it yet, but I can’t WAIT to find out and I bet you can’t either unless you already know. The Boys are Back in Town is OUT NOW, so if you need to know what the deal is with Will ASAP, it only takes one trip to your local indie! Go, go, go!

Dani Noir by Nova Ren Suma

First, check out this summary from the amazing Dani Noir website:

“Fade-in on thirteen-year-old Dani Callanzano. It’s the summer before eighth grade, and Dani’s stuck in her nowhere mountain town with only her favorite noir mysteries at the Little Art Movie Theatre to keep her company. But when a big secret invades the scene in real life, Dani decides to bring the truth to light. Armed with a vivid imagination, a flair for the dramatic, and her knowledge of all things Rita Hayworth, Dani sets out to solve the mystery, and learns more about herself than she ever thought she could. All she knows is someone’s been lying and thinks they can get away with it. And it all has something to do with a girl in polka-dot tights…”

Polka-dots? A protagonist who loves noir mysteries and Rita Hayworth? YES. I AM SO THERE. It had me at ‘fade-in’, to be honest. Okay, now check out the cover, bigger, because–oh my God, you guys, I would frame and hang it on my wall. I think it’s gorgeous and full of atmosphere. You can FEEL the scene. Fittingly cinematic.

And I have to fangirl Nova here, for a second. She’s a talent, one of the most inspiring and hard-working writers that I know. I feel very privileged to be able to call her a friend. Dani Noir is her debut tween novel and it’s coming out (mark your calendars) September 22, 2009. I cannot WAIT to have a copy of this book on my shelves. I also can’t wait to have another copy I can put on my wall.

Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t say “could” hang on my walls–I said WOULD.

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

Do I really need to say anything about this one?

Evermore by Alyson Noel

The first in Alyson’s new Immortals series, Evermore, is about a girl named Ever with a tragic past who can see auras and hear people’s thoughts. Then she meets a mysterious, gorgeous guy named Damen Auguste (insert character name love here), who seems to know more about Ever’s gifts than she does herself. Who is he? What is he?

I cannot WAIT to read this one. I have it! It’s out! I am staring at it right now. Has anyone ever talked about the cover? I mean, people have–but the tulip is glossy! I spent an embarrassing amount of time running my hand over it in the bookstore but it’s SO COOL! Even more cool: Evermore hit #3 on the NYT Bestseller list AND it’s been optioned for a television series. Alyson Noel is an amazing writer–Saving Zoe is one of my favourite novels–and this, coupled with the rave reviews I’ve been hearing, leaves me no doubt I’m going to enjoy this book.

One Lonely Degree by C.K. Kelly Martin

C.K.’s debut novel, I Know It’s Over, blew me away. I think she offers a new and important voice in YA literature and she’s one of my favourite YA authors. I’ve been looking forward to this book for so long I’m surprised the anticipation hasn’t rendered me comatose. I seriously am. Thank God it didn’t, though, because then I would’ve missed a peek at the (amazing) first two chapters. Check out the summary:

“Finn has always felt out of place, but suddenly her world is unraveling. It started with The Party. And Adam Porter. And the night in September that changed everything. The only person who knows about that night is Audrey—Finn’s best friend, her witness to everything, and the one person Finn trusts implicitly. So when Finn’s childhood friend Jersy moves back to town—reckless, beautiful Jersy, all lips and eyes and hair so soft you’d want to dip your fingers into it if you weren’t careful—Finn gives her blessing for Audrey to date him. How could she possibly say no to Audrey? With Audrey gone for the summer, though, Finn finds herself spending more and more time with Jersy, and for the first time in her life, something feels right. But Finn can’t be the girl who does this to her best friend…can she?”

WANT! I want to read this so badly! It’s coming out May 26th, 2009. And check out that beautiful cover. C.K.’s covers are among my favourites in the YA scene.

The Season by Sarah MacLean

This book comes out March 1st, 2009. That is like FIVE DAYS FROM NOW. You know what is really unfair, though? It’s been out for most of February in The States. I’ve been unable to find an early copy in Canada. God, my life is cruel. Anyway, I am super-excited for The Season. That cover is so lush and gorgeous. Set in Regency London, it’s about Lady Alexandra Stafford, who is preparing for the London Season so she can get married. Alex is so not into romance, but sign her up for adventure, please! And me too! From the summary:

“Between sumptuous balls, lavish dinner parties and country weekends, Alex, along with her two best friends, Ella and Vivi, manages to get entangled in her biggest scrape yet. When the Earl of Blackmoor is killed in a puzzling accident, Alex decides to help his son, the brooding and devilishly handsome Gavin, uncover the truth. It’s a mystery brimming with espionage, murder, and suspicion. As she and Gavin grow closer, will Alex’s heart be stolen in the process?”

I’m always up for reading about male characters who are described as ‘devilishly handsome’, I must say. And I’m looking forward to immersing myself in this book as soon as Canada gets it. And, lucky me: I will be reviewing The Season and interviewing Sarah after I’ve read it! Which means you guys should totally read it too and we can book club it, oh yeah.

Aaand, please note, all of the book titles are linked to their GoodReads page (which also have various purchase links). I love GoodReads, and if I might get on ~*my soapbox*~ for a minute, word-of-mouth is a great way to support the authors you dig, online and offline. Sooo if any of these books interest you in the way they’ve interested me, consider adding them to your GoodReads To-Read List, or to your LibraryThing shelf! Because every time a person spreads some Book Love, Edward saves a unicorn.

Or maybe you would.

BUT! Before you do! I just have to say this is a really cool moment for me because waaay before I got an agent or ever had a book coming out, I lurked at Bildungsroman ALL the time. I still do (minus the lurking). It’s right at the heart of the Children’s/YA Lit scene and was and continues to be such a huge resource for me as both a writer and a reader (if you write or read YA, you need to visit Little Willow’s site regularly, seriously). Little Willow gives 1000% to the community and sending her Cracked Up to Be was a very humbling moment for me. ALSO! She pointed me in the direction of one of the most awesome zombie novels EVAR and when you can point a huge critical zombie fan to a non-disappointing zombie work of fiction, that is practically the equivalent of saving their lives. From a zombie.

So you see my debts to Little Willow are great.

And my latest guestblog is up at The Swivet and it’s about writing YA. You can read that here. Check out the first comment! My knight in a blue shirt totally commented! Or at least I choose to believe he did. I am kind of thinking it might not actually be him because, you know. He didn’t ask for my phone number.

Anyway, this feels like a lot of Courtney on one Internet, so I will try not to push it with this blog entry and go back to revising with my one good eye. Happy Monday, peoples!

For those of you keeping track at home: 63/270 pages revised.

Here is a video that pretty much sums up how I feel about revisions most of the time:

Exciting news: C.K. Kelly Martin released her book trailer for One Lonely Degree. Oh my God, you guys. I can’t wait for this book. Check it out. It’s freaking awesome. I love the breaths and I love the “should I?”–it’s like, BAM!

*cracks knuckles*

I have become one of those people that waves a book in another person’s face while loudly proclaiming, “THIS BOOK IS IMPORTANT!”

But that is what happens when someone writes an Important Book, which is exactly what C.K. Kelly Martin did when she wrote I Know It’s Over, which is the book I have been waving in everyone’s face and calling important, so technically it is all her fault.

People: THIS BOOK IS IMPORTANT!

Now stay with me. I know calling a book ‘important’ immediately causes eyebrows to raise, especially if you are a cynical reader like me. It is likely that, at least once in your life, you have been led astray by this declaration and ended up reading something that scarred you for life. For me, that book was Heaven by V.C. Andrews when I was like, 11. I don’t believe anyone should have to go through what I went through, so now you know that when I say a book is important, I AM NOT MESSING AROUND. I don’t call just any book important. I bring the word out selectively. I bring it out for edgy, honest debuts like C.K.’s.

After a warning from another review, I picked up an advance copy of I Know It’s Over prepared to be totally heartbroken. I might have even been looking forward to it. As much as I thought I was prepared for this book, I totally wasn’t. It doesn’t just break your heart–that’s putting it too mildly–this book will rip your heart out of your chest and then dry ice it and then smash it into smithereens and then direct you to the cupboard where the glue is so you can then begin the process of pasting the pieces of your old heart into a NEW heart.

The good news: it’s so worth it.

I Know It’s Over is a book about a teenager named Nick and his intense, all-consuming relationship with a girl named Sasha. The two are so full of each other they can hardly breathe. When they break up, Sasha citing a need for space, Nick is devastated. It’s not what he wants and he struggles to understand how it’s something she could. And then Sasha comes back–not to tell Nick she wants to get back together… but to tell him she’s pregnant. Together but not, they must figure out what to do, how to cope and how to continue after the decision is made.

This is one YA novel that really impressed me. It tackles some big issues–teen pregnancy, sex, sexuality–but never once feels like an Issue Book. Martin never once goes for a melodramatic or heavy-handed approach, nor does she have an agenda, which is sure to make people on either side of the fence mad.

Nick is one of the most memorable male protagonists I’ve read in a long time. His observations are candid and devastating. He’s a frustrated, 16-year-old guy, struggling with his own perceptions of himself and other people’s perceptions of him. Martin drives home the fact that it’s tough just to be a teenager, let alone one that is about to go through the things that Nick goes through. She’s also excellent at taking down walls between characters and reader. If you don’t know these people, you will. I think that familiarity is especially important, considering the book’s subject matter. The writing is frank, brutal, beautiful and emotionally confrontational. I’m sure it’ll force people to ask questions they don’t want to ask. After reading I Know It’s Over, I’m convinced there’s nothing Martin won’t say and that’s good. That’s what I want on my YA shelf. That’s what I want on EVERY YA shelf.

As you can see, I Know It’s Over blew me away and I expect good things for this book. C.K., who tackles the tough issues on her blog as fearlessly as she tackles them in her book, agreed to do an interview with me a bit ago and I’m totally thrilled and honoured to have her here. So check it out–her answers are worth it–and scroll down to find out how YOU can win a copy of I Know It’s Over. You know you wanna.

Can you tell us about I Know It’s Over’s journey to publication?

It’s been a long one. I finished the book in April 2003 and sent it on to my agent at the time, who was underwhelmed by it. The agent’s ideas for fixing the novel were incompatible with what I wanted for I Know It’s Over and I just felt so strongly about it that I knew I couldn’t follow through. We did some emailing back and forth on the topic but the bottom line was that the agent also felt strongly so we parted ways. I finished a couple other books while looking for a new agent and at one point entered both I Know It’s Over and One Lonely Degree in the Delacorte Press Contest. I received rejections for them both on the same day at the end of April which felt devastating at the time.

By then I was working on yet another young adult novel, and sending out queries for the various books, but it was I Know It’s Over that landed me my current agent in England. She’s absolutely fantastic and seemed to take the rejections the novel garnered in the U.K. as personally as I did. In the end it seemed my writing was a little “too North American” for the British market, at least for an unknown writer (I certainly hope that’s not always the case!). But my agent was so determined that she teamed up with a U.S. agent to shop it in the States and that agent found my book the perfect home with Random House. My editor and I were totally on the same wavelength as far as I Know It’s Over goes so it was entirely worth the wait to get the right agents and editor involved. I really felt that everything my editor suggested made I Know It’s Over a stronger version of the book I’d wanted to write.

Now that’s a happy ending. Many people are willing to compromise their work and don’t come out better for it. It takes guts to stick with your vision. What is your writing process like?

This is probably backwards from the way lots of writers do it but I always start with a title that intrigues me and then begin to fill in the character and plot details. At first I just let ideas and the voices of potential characters percolate (usually while lying in bed at night). After I have a better idea of who the main character is and what he or she is dealing with I start to make notes here and there and do research. When I’m satisfied that I know who and what I’m dealing with I begin to outline. That outline is subject to change once I’m actually writing and know the characters still better but I usually don’t veer away from it too far.

Nick has a fantastic voice; it’s very raw, very real. People can sometimes be critical of female authors writing male characters. At any point–before writing, while writing, or after writing I Know It’s Over–did you worry about that? Especially in light of the subject matter?

I think anytime an author’s writing about someone who isn’t an exact replica of themselves they have to worry about authenticity but I never specifically worried about writing from the point of view of a male character. It was just really important that I got Nick’s specific voice right…so thank you! Personally, I think the sexes share more similarities than differences but that society does its best to cram us into male and female moulds. So I think as a writer you have to, on some level at least, understand the various societal expectations inflicting themselves on diverse personalities. For instance, because Nick is male society will generally try to discourage him from outwardly displaying as wide a range of emotions (vulnerability, sadness, fear etc. are still emotions society isn’t as accepting of in males as in females) as if he was a girl. (As an aside, C. J. Pascoe wrote a really great book called Dude, You’re a Fag about how high school guys police masculinity amongst their peers.) Of course, gender is only one thing that exerts an influence on a person – there’s also race, class, nationality, family, friends, religion, personal history etc., etc. and your own basic personality.

I certainly don’t consider myself an expert on female points of view just because I’m female. I don’t even consider myself an automatic expert on the point of view of a late thirties, Canadian woman with a film school background who lived in Ireland for several years. A character like that, while sharing my basic profile info, could potentially be as unlike me as Nick is.

VERY well said. I liked Sasha a lot. Sometimes she frustrated me, as she did Nick, but she also kept pulling me in–as she did with Nick. It was truly excellent. Nick knows Sasha better than anyone else does and definitely knows her more intimately than anyone else does, but still struggles to get a handle on her at times. What was it like writing Sasha through Nick’s eyes? Did she end up surprising you, or did you know more about her than you ever let Nick know?

I think Nick and I know the same things about Sasha but that I just realized a lot of them before he did, like when they have the condom accident. He doesn’t guess she’s upset about it but once he finds out I think on some level he’s not really surprised. One of the things my editor had me concentrate on when revising was making sure Sasha was a likeable character. In some ways she’s more mature than Nick and I guess at times that could make her (along with the difficult situation that she’s going through) seem impatient with him but the relationship is just as intense for her as it is for Nick. Hopefully that comes across.

I think it definitely does. There is no way people are going to feel indifferently about I Know It’s Over. You approached a sensitive topic very frankly and the book lacks an agenda–one of my favourite things about it–because it’s too busy being honest. I suspect this will inevitably make someone on either side of the fence angry. How do you prepare yourself for that, if at all?

So far I’ve been tremendously lucky and everyone I’ve heard from has really liked the book but I’m very conscious of the fact that inevitably some people won’t enjoy it (whether because of views they hold or other reasons) and have been more or less repeating that fact to myself in preparation. Having said that, I don’t think I’m really prepared at all! I feel very protective of the characters in the sense that I don’t want people to judge them harshly for some of the things they do.

It’s scary having characters out there, being read and judged, when you’ve been with them so long! You live in Canada (Canada represent!) and I Know It’s Over is set in Canada. Was there ever any question of setting the book in Canada? Did you hesitate to do so at all?

I always knew Nick was a Canadian guy and I imagined Courtland (his fictional hometown) as being similar in size and character to Barrie about a decade ago. Most of my books are set in southern Ontario suburbs; I guess because I’m very familiar with what it’s like to live in a southern Ontario suburb. It never even occurred to me to set I Know It’s Over someplace else.

I loved the narrative time leaps. Present, past, present. What made you decide to structure the book that way?

I Know It’s Over initially started out as a short story. Basically the first chapter was the entire story and after sending it out to one or two places I realized there was virtually no market for YA stories. I didn’t want to give up on the story and I started wondering what would happen after Nick learns Sasha is pregnant but also what the story of them pre-pregnancy was. So it seemed to make sense to get Sasha’s revelation out there, then explain the back story and finally catch up with the present. I’m not sure if it would’ve occurred to me to go with that structure if I didn’t have that first chapter already completed.

I mentioned before that I Know It’s Over doesn’t have an agenda, which I love, but what I find really spectacular about it is that this book features no shortage options, which is important. The characters consider them all: Plan B, counseling, talking to parents, abortion, carrying to term, school day care–it’s all there and even better, it’s not there in a Public Service Announcement type way. Were you ever worried about giving off the PSA vibe?

It’s definitely something I worried about because any public service announcement feel would really mess with the authenticity. Any time I was in the neighbourhood of a PSA vibe my editor pointed it out to me, which was invaluable and really helped with the books I’ve written since too. It’s an easy trap to fall into (because we’ve all seen it so many times) and I think I’m a lot more conscious of where those borders are now. I don’t want to write morality tales; I want to write about real life, which is way more complicated.

Very true. What is one YA book you think everyone should have on their shelves?

This is a tough question and I’ve been running through titles repeatedly in my head… Because I’m only naming one I feel like it has to be important and speak to everyone so I’m going to say Life is Funny by E.R. Frank. She captures such a wide range of character voices in that book. It’s incredibly honest and bursting with energy. It has so much to say, in such a raw way, that I think it would impact anyone who reads it.

I will definitely keep my eye out for it in the bookstore. Okay, super serious question time: you have been BITTEN BY A ZOMBIE. What is the last thing you want to do before you turn into a walking corpse?

This is indeed a grave question. I love zombie movies but at the same time am totally freaked out by zombies (especially the ones who run instead of lumber) so I’m pretty sure during an outbreak I’d be amongst the first to get bitten. I just know I’d panic! But afterwards, realizing my time as a human is limited, the zombie fear wouldn’t be quite as acute so I think I’d fight, with everything I had, on the side of whatever humans are left. If there was no way left to fight and I was with family and friends I’d probably sit around with them and babble about how much I love them all. Either way I’d be looking for a way to off myself before the zombie transformation. I don’t want to be a zombie!

A+ Answer. Me neither. I just want to run from them while looking awesome. In your acknowledgments, you thank your brother ‘for sharing his knowledge of Canada’s favorite sport.’ So is he the Leafs fan, or are you?

I’m really not much of a sports fan but my brother and my dad are huge Habs fans. I think my brother (who at one point was an assistant couch for a hockey team of fourteen and fifteen year olds) would bristle at the mere suggestion that he could be a Leafs fan! I can’t remember how this came about but somehow even I have a Montreal Canadiens jersey. When I wore it while living in Dublin it was like a magnet for other Canadians.

Aaah! I am a Habs fan too!!! Yay! No disrespect to your brother meant. ;) If you could see I Know It’s Over unleashed on the world in another medium–film, graphic novel, television series, play, musical etc. which one would you choose and why?

I love graphic novels so that would be cool but since I was a film major and am addicted to good movies I have to pick film. It would be amazing to see an indie movie adaptation of I Know It’s Over with somebody like Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know) or John Carney (Once) directing. Movies are so immediate; I’d love to see the book brought to life like that. While watching In Treatment I have to confess that I kept thinking about how great Mia Wasikowska would be as Sasha. She blew me away.

Ooh, good picks. I imagine when you sit down to write a book about teen pregnancy, there are a million things you know you DON’T want to do. What didn’t you want this story to be? What cliches did you try to avoid?

Like we talked about earlier, I didn’t want it to be some kind of morality tale. I don’t want readers to feel like I’m punishing Nick and Sasha for having sex in the first place (sometimes things go wrong, even when you’re careful) and I didn’t want the book to force Sasha toward certain options; I wanted her to have a genuine choice. Also sex can be messy and awkward, especially when you’re new to it so I wanted to be true to that and not have Nick and Sasha be perfect at it from the beginning, even though they’re crazy about each other. It was important to me that Sasha and Nick’s parents reacted to the pregnancy in realistic ways, not just by being disappointed and/or angry.

I loved how you portrayed the parents. Later in the book, when Nick is in the car with his father, talking about Sasha’s decision, he says: “That wasn’t my choice.” It ripped my heart right out of my chest. The whole story is so heartbreaking and reading it was hard, but, as I said, worth it. I can only imagine how it was to write it. Did you ever waver or feel the siren call of a happier ending while penning the most difficult parts? (Curse those evil, siren-calling happy endings!)

I really don’t see how the book could’ve gone any other way and still been true to the characters. So while I felt emotionally drained towards the end of it I never felt a pull to take the story in another direction. I think an unrealistic happy ending would feel much less satisfying than a realistic but not as happy one. However, after writing another emotionally tough book with One Lonely Degree, I did feel compelled to write something lighter in tone. Hence, The Lighter Side of Life and Death.

Speaking of your next books, can you tell us a little about your upcoming releases, One Lonely Degree and The Lighter Side of Life and Death, coming out May 2009 and 2010, respectively? I am totally camping outside the bookstore on their release dates, by the way.

One Lonely Degree is about a fifteen year old girl named Finn who feels like an outsider in a world of pack animals. That feeling intensifies when something bad happens to her at a party. She withdraws further, leaning heavily on her best friend, Audrey, who is the only one aside from Finn who knows what happened that night. Then an old childhood friend of Finn’s reappears. Finn is drawn to him but not ready to have those kinds of feelings. Eventually he starts going out with Audrey, which isn’t such a bad situation for Finn because he becomes like a second best friend to her. But then Audrey gets sent away for the summer, leaving Finn to watch her parents’ marriage fall apart and still struggling with her feelings about what happened at the party. Finn automatically turns to her old friend, which makes things even more complicated because she still has feelings for him.

The Lighter Side of Life and Death is about a sixteen year old guy who is having the best night of his life when the book opens. Mason’s just delivered an incredible performance in the school play, basked in celebratory afterglow vibes at the party of the year and lost his virginity to one of his best friends, who he’s had a crush on for years. He’s sure this will mean good things for them in the future but when he sees her next she’s embarrassed about the drunken incident and just wants to forget and move on. It soon becomes clear their friendship is shot, as is his friendship with his other best friend who has a thing for the same girl. Meanwhile Mason’s future stepmom moves into the house with her kids and one of them absolutely can’t stand him. It seems like he’s specializing in collecting enemies until he hits it off with a twenty-four year old woman at his future stepmom’s engagement shower. She’s involved with someone else and he still has feelings for his former best friend but that doesn’t stop them from getting tangled up together.

Okay, I’m camping outside the bookstore now. Thank you for the interview, C.K. I loved your book and appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions!

Thanks so much for having me, Courtney. I’ve been looking forward to this interview with you for months!




I Know It’s Over comes out in about 15 days. 15 DAYS. Pre-order the book from your local indie today and anticipate its arrival. And then read it and then lean back in your seat when you’re done and murmur quietly to yourself, “That Courtney sure wasn’t fooling when she said this was an Important Book. I will never doubt her again.” I mean, if you did doubt me, which you shouldn’t. And then tell me about it because I love feeling smug. But before you do all that, visit C.K.’s website for a wealth of info about her and her books, because it’s awesome.

Now, as promised, here’s the part where I tell you how you can win a copy of I Know It’s Over for yourself.

C.K. is holding a contest over on her website and entering is super painless. Give it a go because not only will you get a SIGNED copy of I Know It’s Over if you win, you’ll also get an IKIO poster, a canvas or tote bag (your choice), a Magic 8 Ball and an advance copy of One Lonely Degree when it’s available. In the interest of full disclosure and my journalistic integrity, it sort of pained me to tell you all that because I totally entered and if you do it to will just decrease my odds of winning, but since I was lucky enough to get an early read on IKIO, I GUESS it’s not fair that I should have it all.

[pained]

Congrats on your debut, C.K.! You’re an author I’m keeping my eye on.


jacket photograph copyright © 2008 by Ali Smith

I hope book trailers will be an enduring trend. I think they’re exciting. I think they’re exciting because, by nature, I’m a visual person and–as a consumer–I like the way book trailers sell to me. I also think of them as exciting because book trailers can be daring and gorgeous and inspiring and provoking WHILE still selling you something. It all depends on the execution. So I think I am saying they can be art! Yes, I believe I am. Am I giving book trailers too much credit? WHO KNOWS.

Maybe it would help to know that I think the Sony Bravia ads are stunning and that this Liberty Mutual ad gets me every single time. I’m not going to begrudge them their brilliance (or what I feel is brilliance–art is subjective, yo) just because they’re trying to get me to buy a television and life insurance respectively. I get something out of them (ie I enjoyed them) and I appreciate how they’ve done what they’re trying to do. I feel the same about a good book trailer.

Anyway, here are some of my favourite book trailers and why. If you are an author interested in making a book trailer for your book, or someone who would like to get into the business of making book trailers, everything I say about them is something you should TAKE TO HEART, as we all know I am the final word on EVERYTHING.

(On that note, BLACKOUT SHOULD HAVE BEEN BRITNEY’S COMEBACK CD AND I AM STILL SAD IT WASN’T BECAUSE GOD IT’S SO GOOD.)