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In the pinnacle of my literary geekiness, I’ve started reading acknowledgements pages in books.

You can learn a lot—how many people it takes to make a book, how many friends contribute and the professionals who supported the writer.

Today, Joie Jager-Hyman tells us about everybody who helped her book get written--proving once and for all that no book is an island. Fat Envelope Frenzy--a non-fiction look at the college application process.

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
I know your writing group played a large role in writing this book. Can you describe that experience? What was the moment or aspect in your book that your writing partner helped you the most? How can writers find these kinds of relationships?

Joie Jager-Hyman:
My writers group helped me at every step of the process. Continue reading...

You can't write a book by yourself.

As I wrote my novel, I counted on a number of writing buddies. Some of them helped me through the messy writing process, some helped me survive various catastrophes, and a couple generous souls helped me with both. 

In the High-School-Yearbook-Of-My-Soul, I would call these people my BLFF--Best Literary Friends Forever.

Last week, two special guests told me about their writing friendship in another one of my lo-fi productions. This week's writer, (Joie Jager-Hyman) met last week's writer (Kate Torgovnick) as part of an ever-growing writers' group in New York City. 

They met at a Crucial Minutiae meeting, and ended up spending a year writing together. Now you can see their books on the shelf--Jager-Hyman's Fat Envelope Frenzy and Torgovnick's Cheer!  Click on the video for the whole story of Best Literary Friends Forever...

Here at The Publishing Spot, we specialize in one thing: practical tips for the working writer.

This site is for writers with dayjobs, families and other commitments. Everytime I meet a published author, I ask them how they managed to write a book with all the distractions that can keep you away from the computer. Today, I asked Joie Jager-Hyman describing how she found time and motivation to write Fat Envelope Frenzy--a non-fiction look at the college application process.

This is my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
While writing this book, your life sounded pretty busy. How did you find time and energy to write your book with such a busy schedule? Any tips for the writers out there with dayjobs and other commitments?

Joie Jager-Hyman:
Unfortunately, there's no magic formula other than to just make the time to write and stick to a schedule. Continue reading...

Write about what you know.

I can't tell you how many writing teachers told me that, and how long it took me to figure it out. It's even more important to think about while planning a non-fiction book. Readers respond to the enthusiasm and expertise of a writer who has actually lived a story.

That's why I picked Joie Jager-Hyman's new non-fiction book, Fat Envelope Frenzy for The Publishing Spot. This former college-admissions officer followed five students from the application process to the final acceptance and rejection letters.

Today she explains how she turned her work-life into a book, part of my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
You have a pretty impressive academic background. How do you turn the theories, statistics and sometimes dull prose of academia into such readable material? On a very practical level, how did you weave these heady concepts into the gripping, human stories of these high school students?

Joie Jager-Hyman:

Making the transition from writing for an academic to a general audience was probably the hardest part of writing this book. Continue reading...

"If I knew nothing about these students, I could ignore the fact that the vast majority of them (about 80 percent of Dartmouth applicants at the time) would eventually be turned away. Like the students themselves, I focused on the positive. I persuaded every high schooler I met to take a chance at applying to the Ivy League."

That's Joie Jager-Hyman describing how she survived as the Assistant Director of Admissions at a highly competitive college. After that experience, she followed five high schoolers from one end of the country to the other as they struggled to get into school.

She recorded that journey in her new non-fiction book, Fat Envelope Frenzy. Today she explains how she chose her characters, and how these important relationships developed. 

This is my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
As readers, we really get wrapped up in the lives of these characters. How did your subjects feel about the intimate portrait you made of them? How did you build and maintain these relationships? Any tips for journalists looking for deep relationships with their subjects without being too intrusive?

Joie Jager-Hyman:
I interviewed about 20 kids before selecting the 5 for this book and only chose students that I truly respected and thought had a decent chance of getting into a top college. Continue reading...

"[I]t is harder today than ever before to get into a selective college. Harvard College turned down almost 21,000 candidates--including thousands of valedictorians and students with perfect SAT scores--in 2006-2007. That same year, Columbia University denied admission to about 16,500 high-achievers. And Stanford University sent out approximately 21,500 rejection letters." 

Those are a few depressing statistics from Joie Jager-Hyman's new non-fiction book about the mind-numbing struggle to get into an Ivy League school. In Fat Envelope Frenzy, she followed five students from the application process to the final acceptance and rejection letters.

Jager-Hyman is our special guest this week, explaining how she used her experience as a college admissions officer to pitch, research write and promote this captivating book. 

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
How did you go about proposing this book? What did you do to make your idea stand out in the field of college-prep books? Any advice for journalists looking to propose a larger project?

Joie Jager-Hyman:
I hadn't seen any books that talked about the college application process from the students' point of view, so I guess I'd tell other writers to look for something that hasn't been done. Continue reading...
 

Debut Author of the Month: Crissa-Jean Chappell...

YA novelist Crissa-Jean Chappell's debut Total Constant Order, which was just released from HarperCollins, focuses on Fin, a teen who's got a lot to deal with. She's recently relocated to Florida, started at a new school, and her parents split up. And all these things put Fin's OCD in overdrive.

Chappell, who grew up in Miami, holds an MFA in screenwriting and an interdisciplinary PhD in film theory, philosophy, and literature. In addition to writing, she also teaches creative writing and cinema studies at Miami International University of Art and Design. Here she talks about writing her first novel, finding her agent, blogging and more and offers some advice to unpublished writers.

You've published a number of short stories and your debut book Total Constant Order started as a short story collection. Tell me about that evolution--what led you from short stories to novels?

My first "books" were 90-minute audio cassettes that I mailed to my cousin in Massachusetts. I'd write the epic script and act out the voices, not to mention the music (my totally awesome ghetto blaster, cranked to ear-piercing decibels in the background) and the cheesy sound effects--footsteps, falling rocks, etc. Sometimes I would Zip-loc my tape-recorder in a plastic bag and splash around in the pool. (Kids, don't try this at home).

In college, my creative writing professors focused on short stories. I grew used to thinking in terms of shorter formats, much like my old-school cassettes, and the thought of writing a full-length novel terrified me. I started out writing a collection of interconnected short stories. After a series of false starts, I threw that project out the window and began working on Total Constant Order, featuring Frances Isabelle Nash (Fin for short), a character that I had created years ago.

Total Constant Order was sold at auction to HarperCollins imprint Katherine Tegen Books. How did you find your agent Kate Lee (of ICM), who orchestrated said auction?

I met my agent in a very postmodern way: over the Internet. At the time, I had grown frustrated with licking stamps, sending out snail-mail queries, and receiving rejection letters months later. I decided to kick-start my agent-quest and fire off a round of emails. Kate responded to my cyber-query in a flash. I didn't realize that she had a reputation as the "agent to the bloggers." To this day, we correspond primarily through email.

What was the publication process like for you? From reading your 21 Steps to Publishing a Novel, it sounds long/exhausting/exciting. What would you say surprised you the most?

After working as a freelance journalist, where everything moves at light speed, I've learned that the book-publishing business is turtle-paced by comparison. My book was sold back in 2005 and it's finally hitting the shelves two years later. I've learned that it takes time to establish a marketing plan for a first-time author. HarperCollins has been so cool about sharing the process with me. For example, an author usually has little say in the cover design of their book, but they listened to my suggestions and I'm thrilled with the result.

Fin, your main character, talks about having a voice in her head "ordering me to listen." As a writer, do you have such a voice guiding you?

I bet most writers would admit, "Yeah. I hear voices in my head." I hear the sound of my characters talking to me. They spill their guts and whisper their darkest secrets. That's what makes writing so much fun. It's like dreaming with your eyes open. Every morning, I roll out of bed and stumble over to the computer and plug myself into an imaginary world. When I was a kid, I used to keep Trapper Keepers full of descriptions and drawings of my "invisible" friends. I still think about them and wonder what they're doing.

Tell us a little more about Fin and your book.

For the past two years, I've been secretly writing as my main character, 15-year-old Fin, in a Diaryland blog called "Sunshine State." I didn't want to write about myself (What I ate for breakfast. Or: What I bought at the grocery store). There's a lot of pressure on authors to blog as a way of reaching out to their readers. I'm a big fan of Megan McCafferty's "retro blog," in which she posts hilarious snippets of her high-school diary. Sarah Dessen's Livejournal features her favorite TV obsessions. I also love Blake Nelson's minimalist musings on his subway encounters with Prada-clad rock bands or the Zenlike nature of cows, etc. But I'm too shy to reveal large chunks of my private self: so I've kept an online journal under my real name, which is mostly about my publishing journey (because I'm obsessive and I like to keep track of things). At the same time, I've been blogging as Fin as my alter-ego in cyberspace.

At first, I shunned the idea of blogging. I shrugged it off as a distraction. Then, as Fin's readers began to respond to the stories, drawings and pictures I posted online, I realized that it is a valuable experience. Instead of sitting in my room, pecking away on a keyboard, I was connecting to people in an interactive universe. Writers live a very solitary life. For once, I didn't feel so alone.

You said that in college you were known as "the-chick-who-writes-about- teenagers." Why do you think you're drawn to creating teen characters? Why do you feel that "teenagers are the most interesting people on the planet"?

I still don't feel "grown up." In a kid's point of view, a day moves by slowly. They're always experiencing new things. Adults often complain that a week will fly by and they barely notice. I believe that it's easy to fall into a routine as you grow older...the daily grind of driving to work and all the responsibilities that fall on a person's shoulders. Sometimes when I talk to adults, it seems like their world has become so small. They chat about their jobs, the car they just bought, their mortgage, etc. As a college professor, I spend my days talking to teenagers. They haven't quite learned how to hide themselves yet. They blurt out their thoughts and opinions. They're desperate to have someone listen and take them seriously. (I get the feeling that they're used to being shooed away). I never grow tired of listening to them.

You've said Total Constant Order is based your own experience with OCD and that you are displeased with how the disorder is portrayed in the media. Why do you think it's misunderstood?

It's difficult to portray obsessive-compulsive disorder in TV or film because the action is primarily taking place inside the character's mind. Fin feels like a volcano. On the outside, she is sitting quietly at her desk. On the inside, she is ready to blow up. Thayer feels the same way when he takes Ritalin. I wanted to show that OCD is not a punchline to a joke. It's not about funny rituals: like tapping a light switch or counting footsteps. It's about feeling as if your life has slipped out of your control. I think that many teenagers can relate to that experience.

One review said that Miami is like a character in your novel (certainly a more interesting Miami character than the one in a certain David Caruso program). Here's another chance to tell us how Real Miami and TV Miami differ.

Miami must be the most misunderstood city in the United States. Those postcard-images of palm trees, pink flamingoes and sunny beaches are a mirage. Most often, you get a glimpse of a few neon-soaked avenues on South Beach (which is an island) and not the city itself. I wanted to depict the "real Miami," from the cookie-cutter McMansions of the Kendall suburbs to the graffiti-splattered industrial wasteland of downtown, the manatees hovering in canals and the hip-hop kids with the souped-up Hondas, fast food joints like Pollo Tropical, and Cuban coffee stands, a schizophrenic mix of urban sprawl and primal swamps. That's the Miami I know.

Megan McCafferty told you the YA community is filled with kindred spirits who remain forever teen, and it's important to help each other out. In that spirit, any favorite YA novelists you'd like to mention?

The blogging authors that I've mentioned are some of my favorites. I grew up devouring a lot of sci-fi and fantasy (think: Ursula K. Le Guin and Zilpha Keatley Snyder). In fact, the video game based on Snyder's Below the Root was one of my first experiences in thinking about interactivity and the way we read books.

(One more question since you don't like odd numbers). If you could give unpublished writers two pieces of advice, what would you tell them?

Everybody has a different story about their path to publication. If you listen to those stories, you'll hear a lot of conflicting information. I've learned that rules are meant to be broken (For example, many literary agencies say, "Don't query via email," and yet, that's how I met my agent). I was also told that teens don't like to read a lot of description. After hearing this a few times in my rejection letters from literary agents, I cut out some of my descriptive paragraphs. Then, when I met my agent, she encouraged me to put back what I had deleted. So my two cents would be: Write the book you want to read. And don't give up, no matter how many times you hear the words, "Not for me." Maybe it's not for them. It's for somebody else.