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In between reading and thinking, cleaning and restoring the house, and trying new recipes out on friends who accept the dare, I am reading the work of yesteryears—the pages upon pages that were never published. What went wrong? What must I not do again as I ponder the possibility of new stories?

Sometimes I find passages, written as fiction, that return me to real life. Here is a boy and the paragraph I wrote for him inside a novel I never published. The place is San Miguel.
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Nothing was neutral in San Miguel.  The place was full of opinions—the murmur of fountains behind padlocked doors, the inscription of grills high on windows, the casual flamboyance of the mariachi men, the coruscation, in the distance, of abandoned mining towns.  The lintels above the ornate doors were carved with news of vanished families, rose spires pierced the sky, the smoke of the helotes carts was weather, and every day a boy wearing a yellow cabled sweater and shiny shoes carried a moose puppet across the cobbles of the town.

 “Where do you think he’s going?"
“I don’t know.”
“What do you think he wants?”
 “Air.”

The failure here? The static quality of the dialogue. Too much like a poem, which is not how real people speak.

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by

Erin Bowman

—

This is a topic I originally discussed on my personal blog, but I still find it incredibly pertinent, so I’ve reworked it for you lovely Pub Crawl readers.

Well over a year ago, I had a lovely Skype chat with one of my writer friends. We got to talking about book ideas and how we both have dozens squirreled away. Some of these ideas are floating around in our minds without an ounce of documentation. Others are a couple bullet points in a word doc. A few are just clever titles in need of characters and plot, while some might already have a handful of chapters captured. Which to focus on next?

I began speculating about the right “follow-up” for my career after the TAKEN series. My writer friend wondered which of her story ideas she should run with while her current novel was queried. She was even kind enough to pitch a few of these ideas to me.

I instantly knew which was most appealing to me as a reader. I knew which sounded the most similar in style/genre to the book she was querying. I knew which was best aligned with current trends. (It’s worth nothing that the story was different for each of these three scenarios.) But screw the trends, right? Never write to trends. And who cares how I react to my friend’s ideas, because guess what? She’s not writing solely for me.

At the end of the day, the only thing you can do is write the story you’re most excited about. The one you find most compelling. The idea that haunts you, keeps you up at night, refuses to be ignored. There’s one story kernel in every batch of ideas that always does this—sort of rises to the top and waves its arms like a madman—so pick that one out of the bunch, and start writing it.

I think we sometimes focus on this “Which book should I write next?” question because our end goal is to share that story with others (aka: Sell The Book). Naturally, if we’re going to face the blank page and spend several long months in WIP-land, we want to make sure we’re at least writing something sellable. Or something that appeals to a friend/agent/editor/teen and so on. We go looking for validation before we even begin.

But I’ve finally learned that this doesn’t matter. At least not as a be-all, end-all. Because here’s the hard truth:

» The novel you query might not get you an agent.

» The novel you put on sub might not get you a book deal.

» The second novel you put on sub might not get you a book deal.

» The novel you submit as your option under contract might get rejected.

» No matter how far into this game you are, there is never a guarantee that the next book you write will be published.

So why the heck wouldn’t you write the book that wants to be written? The one you care most about? The one that you want to tell more than anything in the word, regardless of trends or genre or audience or theme or style or length or similarity to your previous works?

Write the book that’s in your heart and write it exactly as you see it fit.

Do this and you will never regret telling that story, even if it doesn’t get picked up. Because if you’re proud of your novel—if it’s filled with characters you love and a world you created and a story you couldn’t not tell—it will always, always be worth it.

I promise.

—

Erin Bowman is a YA writer, letterpress lover, and Harry Potter enthusiast living in New Hampshire. Her debut novel, TAKEN, is now available from HarperTeen, and FROZEN releases 4/15/14. You can visit her blog (updated occasionally) or find her on twitter (updated obsessively).

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Pepi Moves House

Just completed "Pepi Moves House" e-book five in the series  written by Alarna Gray....Coming Soon! A Toy Dog is for Real Series New Works Program

Characters developed a play written by Marcia Trimble for Boston Children's Theater - New Works Program This is a sequel to Marcia's FREE ebook - Fairytale Moments - Who is Your Giant?

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I started a new project that I'm really excited about, but I need your help.

My favorite thing about the blogging community are the fun and games-- mainly, reading challenges. Because of this, one of my biggest disappointments is when I find out about a cool challenge when I stumble across everyone's wrap-up posts.

In light of this, I started my new project, The Reading Challenges Clearinghouse. This blog will post (and link) to all the reading challenges out there for all types of book blogs. The long ones, the short ones, the serious, and the silly. I'm only blogging about challenges that start August 1, 2009 or after, but the blog has lists of all the challenges going on, and I'll add challenges that started before this month but are still going to those lists.

BUT, I NEED YOUR HELP.

Please, let me know about all your challenges--the ones you're hosting, the ones you're participating in, the ones you've seen in your daily surfing.

Thanks! I hope this new project will serve as a useful tool for all of us who love our challenges!

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I had to come back sometime, so figured today was as good a day as any.

Kind of in limbo on the Gingerbread book; the drawings are done, just waiting for the green light on the finishes. The drawings were well received, so I'm in that 'hurry up and wait' period. Kinda frustrating, but this is not the place to kvetch about that...

Made some changes to the blog, and also my website. With the links, mostly.
Here, I took off the blogroll thingie; as much as I loved it, it was dragging the loading time down, and I also couldn't put as many people as I wanted to. So now I have a list of websites for illustrators and colored pencil people, and blogs for people doing daily painting and crafty things. Half of me wants to take all of it off altogether, because there's no way way to put everyone on there. Someone will always be left out, due to some oversight or other. So if you see a link to yourself, then see it disappear one day, please don't be offended. Its nothing personal. I just can't figure out how to make everyone happy, so rather, I'll make everyone UNhappy. That seems more fair somehow. ha ha

On my website I took off all the links to personal sites altogether! Just wiped them clean. For the same reasons. So if you have a link to me on your site or blog, and I've deleted you, please feel free to delete me in return, I will completely understand!



On a sad note ~ I had to let my little Wendell go a couple of weeks ago. His bladder was finally giving out altogether, and to spare him the inevitable bad end, I let him go peacefully. It was a very sad day. Very sad. He was the most difficult kitty I've ever had; physically, his personality, all of it. But of course I loved him more than I can say. He will be greatly missed.

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