Interview With Elana Johnson & A Query That Worked

I'm lucky (or cunning) enough to have lured yet another successful writer over to my blog for an SAT - Successful Author Talk. SAT authors have conquered the query, slain the synopsis and attained the pinnacle of published. How'd they do it? Let's ask 'em!

Elana Johnson’s debut novel, POSSESSION, came out on June 7 from Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster). Her popular ebook, From the Query to the Call, is also available for download. School teacher by day, Query Ninja by night, you can find her online at her personal blog or her website. She is a co-organizer of the popular online children's conference WriteOnCon, a founding author of the Query Tracker blog and a contributing author of the League of Extraordinary Writers.

Are you a Planner or Pantster?

Pantser, through and through. Though I like the term “discovery writer” over pantser. ☺

How long does it typically take you to write a novel, start to finish?

Less than 30 days for the first draft. Once I’m drafting, I’m DRAFTING, you know? It’s the revising/editing process that takes months.

Do you work on one project at a time, or are you a multi tasker?

One project at a time. In my younger writing days, I could write one project and edit another. Now, I focus on one thing at a time. I don’t have enough hours in the day to do more than that.

Did you have to overcome any fears that first time you sat down to write?

Are you kidding? Absolutely! I still have to overcome the I-Suck Monster every single time I sit down to write. I don’t think that ever goes away, and if it does, I need the secret!

How many trunked books (if any) did you have before you were agented?

Well, depends on what you mean by “trunked.” I had queried and shelved one novel. Possession was my third novel, but my second one was so bad, I didn’t even try to fix it and query. Same for #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9 and #10. I was finishing my 11th novel when I signed with my agent. By the way, novels #4-10 all stink.

Have you ever quit on an ms, and how did you know it was time?

Yes, see answer above. For my queried novel, I knew it wasn’t the one, but it was my first novel, and I managed to push that feeling away. I queried a lot of agents, and basically had no choice but to shelve it.
For the other novels (#4-10), some of them have potential, but would need to be completely rewritten from blank pages. Some of them are finished, but with huge holes and fatal flaws. I do have about 3 partially finished novels. As a discovery writers, sometimes you find yourself in a corner you can’t get out of…

Who is your agent and how did you get that "Yes!" out of them?

My agent is Michelle Andelman at Regal Literary, and I cold queried her with my query letter + ten pages. She requested the full, and things progressed from there. So I’m a slush pile success story!

How long did you query before landing your agent?

I queried my first book for 8 months. I queried Possession for 8 months. I sent 189 queries for POSSESSION, and over 50 partials/fulls.

Any advice to aspiring writers out there on conquering query hell?

Don your thick skin, find someone who can (hold your hand) cheer you on, and go for it.

How did that feel, the first time you saw your book for sale?

Amazing! Utterly amazing! I literally couldn’t stop smiling.

How much input do you have on cover art?

Not much, as is pretty typical. It’s a good thing I loved it!

What's something you learned from the process that surprised you?

Things happen much slower than I would like, but they DO happen! I mean, we all know publishing is notorious for being slow. But I never actually thought things would happen, and THEY DID. That was surprising.

How much of your own marketing do you?  

I’d like to think I do a lot of marketing. I have a blog, where I post five days a week. I also blog once a week for The League of Extraordinary Writers, a debut dystopian/science fiction blog. I also organize WriteOnCon, a free online writer’s conference, and I started out blogging for QueryTracker in late 2008. So I’ve been doing the whole platform-social-media thing for a while now. I tweet too, and I have a Facebook fanpage that I maintain.

When do you build your platform? After an agent? Or should you be working before?

I definitely think before. Like I said, I started with QT in late 2008, and I didn’t sign with my agent until November 2009, and my book didn’t come out until mid-2011. But no matter when you start, just start!

Do you think social media helps build your readership?

Definitely! You never know who’s going to retweet something you said, or blog about something you said, or whatever. And that goes out to their readership, and theirs, and theirs… So yeah. Cast your net wide, and don’t burn bridges.

Elana was kind enough to share her winning query for POSSESSION, below:

I used different versions. Sometimes shorter and sometimes longer. Sometimes I compared it to THE GIVER and sometimes to UGLIES. But here’s the one I sent to Ms. Andelman, who later offered representation:

I believe you would be interested in my young adult novel, POSSESSION.

In a world where Thinkers brainwash the population and Rules are not meant to be broken, fifteen-year-old Violet Schoenfeld does a hell of a job shattering them to pieces.

After committing her eighth crime (walking in the park after dark with a boy, gasp!), Vi is taken to the Green, a group of Thinkers who control the Goodgrounds. She’s found unrehabilitatable (yeah, she doesn’t think it’s a word either) and exiled to the Badlands—until she demonstrates her brainwashing abilities. That earns her a one-way trip to appear before the Association of Directors.

Yeah, right. Like that’s gonna happen. She busts out of prison with sexy Bad boy Jag Barque, who also has no intention of fulfilling his lame sentence.

Dodging Greenies and hovercopters, dealing with absent-father issues, and coming to terms with feelings for an ex-boyfriend—and Jag as a possible new one—leave Vi little time for much else. Which is too damn bad, because she’s more important than she realizes. When secrets about her “dead” sister and not-so-missing father hit the fan, Vi must make a choice: control or be controlled.

A dystopian novel for young adults, POSSESSION is complete at 75,000 words. Fans of Michael Grant’s GONE and Suzanne Collins’ THE HUNGER GAMES will enjoy similar elements, and a strong teen voice.

I am an elementary school teacher by day and a contributing author to the QueryTracker blog by night. If you would like to consider POSSESSION, I’d be happy to forward the complete manuscript to you. I have included the first ten pages of the manuscript in the body of this email.

Thank you for your time,

Elana Johnson

Leaves of Three, Let it Be

Any country girl knows what poison ivy looks like, and we've got handy-dandy, rhyming, old-world adages to remind us if we forget.

But there are a few things that most people don't know about poison ivy:
1) It can think, it can plot, and it is smarter than you
2) It has zombie qualities; if you kill it, it will still infect you
3) It wants to reproduce with human women, to make human ivy babies
4) If you let a goat graze on poison ivy in the spring, and you drink the goat's milk, you won't get poison ivy that season.

I don't have goats anymore, so I have yet to try out that last bit of country wisdom, but the first three I can attest to.

My big old farmhouse clocks in at around a century old, and I've got a couple azaleas in the front yard that might be able to claim the same. They're big. Bigger than me. Bigger than my car. So I thought, hey, I'll cut those back a bit, and clean out the poison ivy creeping all through it. Good thought.

While wearing shorts. Bad thought.

I cut it down, tossed the little wilted, poisonous remnants, and then (it appears) proceeded to sit on them at some point during the day as I circumvented the azalea. Oops.  Long story short, those leafy little buggers have a heck of a reach on them, and I've got poison ivy in places that it's not kosher to scratch in public.

So, does anyone have a goat that grazed on poison ivy in the spring?  That would be really helpful.

Musings from the Slush Pile With Julie Anne Lindsey

’ve ran across a lot of really awesome people, and culled an enormous amount of information from blogs. As I raided my brain – yes, I picture myself on the prow of a Viking ship, approaching my own gray matter – for more people I’d like to interview, it repeatedly offered up names of bloggers. And so, my readers, I give you the third series; Bloggers of Awesome. Yeah, it’s the BOA. Even more special - this is a WoW! Edition of the BOA - We're Ohio Writers! Yeah - cause we grow 'em here.

Today's guest is Julie Anne Lindsey, whose blog offers great advice, tips, and tricks for aspiring writers at all stages.  As an only child she always had plenty of time to people watch and make things up. When she didn’t think she could make a living at the latter, her love of people led her to a BA in Psychology instead. A few years and three kids later, she discovered the thrill of writing. Writing lets her harness her seemingly endless supply of energy and enthusiasm and create something of value in the wake.

You run an excellent blog over at Musings From the Slush Pile.  What made you decide to take the approach you do on your blog?

I give all credit to my Hubsy. I started blogging last year to help me establish a web presence, but I had no idea what to talk about. I planned to use the blog to document my trials, successes and failures on the quest for publication, but who wants to read that? Hubsy said I spent so much time reading about the publishing industry and the craft of writing, I should blog about that stuff. I wasn’t sold on the idea. I thought it was pretty pretentious, but as it turns out, it’s convenient for others to find all that random writing information in one place. So, I crawl the net in search of writing wisdom, then I blog my brains out. It keeps me learning and accountable, plus I get to have fun, show my personality and talk about something I love. WINNING LOL

I know a lot of aspiring writers who are intimidated by the idea of blogging.  They want to, but they are worried it will cut into their (already precious) writing time.  How do you recommend one be both a successful blogger and writer?

Hmm. My approach is: Consume vats of coffee and stop sleeping. I mean sleeping? What’s THAT about? How am I supposed to get anything done if I’m sleeping? Psh. Right? Alright, that is what I do, but I don’t recommend it. I’ve lost serious brainpower this way.

Blogging takes 30 minutes or less per day if you stick to a basic 500 word post. If you have a couple hours once a week, say 9 or 10 pm till you faceplant on the keyboard for example, you can write up a week worth of posts and schedule them. OR post once a week. You don’t have to do it every day. There are no rules…that I know of..so if you get a ticket or something, I plead blonde-at-heart.

You also do a lot of posting about books.  You're a big reader - do you set aside time for that?

For me reading and writing go in binges. I’ve spent months on end with my nose in a book, promising to definitely get back to writing as soon as I read one more title. Then there are times like now when I’m in writer mode and it’s going to take something really delish to pull me out. Actually, I can tell you what will do it. I saw a tweeter say she was reading the ARC of Sophie Jordan’s Vanish. Holy smokes I fell off the couch. I devoured the first in that series Firelight. I tweeted how jealous I was and she said she’d put it in the mail when she finished. SQUEEE! So it’s in the mail now and when it arrives, all word counts will halt until further notice. I am a greedy YA reader. I want it all and if I get the opportunity to read an awesome YA, my life stops. Wow, that sounds just super sad, but it’s still true. Ha!

Let's talk about your writing for a little bit.  What's your genre, or do you jump around?  What led you to this genre?

Hmm. I am a genre jumper. I know how amateurish that sounds to some agents and editors, but again-true anyway. For example, I have a contemporary YA mystery with an agent now. I also have two short sweet romance novellas coming in 2012. The first title, Bloom, will launch a new imprint from the Turquoise Morning Press. I’m hoping to turn those into a series for the line. *We shall see.* LOL Then I also have contracted a three book saga with kNight Romance Publishing. The Killer Confections Saga is a humorous women’s fiction series. The first book, Death by Chocolate, will be on shelves in August 2012. I write the stories who demand the most attention, I guess.

Do you use beta readers, and if so, where do you find them?

Absolutely! I always use beta readers. I run things a few chapters at a time through my critique group – which btw is made of awesome. I also have a few writer friends I met online who I trade pages with, plus I print things sometimes and give to my mother in law. She and her girlfriends love to read and they pass my pages around. Believe me, by the time I’m ready to submit something it’s been combed over. These guys catch every dot and tittle, and they will not allow any funny business in the plot. If something doesn’t line up or they don’t think it fits a character’s personality to do or say it…I will hear about it.  

What other websites / resources can you recommend for writers?

Twitter! I love twitter so much. I met my critique group on twitter. I met some of my closest friends on twitter. There are amazing hashtags I follow like #amwriting to see what other writers are up to or to pose a question to writers. I jump in on #askeditor anytime I see it happening. I love #YAlitchat to get the latest scoop on the YA biz. Hashtags are awesome. I tweet with some of my favorite YA authors and watch what publishers are saying. Also I tweet for the sake of tweeting. I love talking with people, especially people as excited about reading, writing and blogging as I am. I’ve even met betas like this by tweeting  a shout out to say “Hey, I have this manuscript. Anyone want to read it?” Twitter is an incredible resource for writers at any stage. Seriously, I could go on and on about all the ways twitter has improved my life as a writer J

Any words of inspiration for aspiring writers that aren't clichéd like the ones I give?

Oh, I’m definitely from the school of  “grab the bull by the horns.” If it is your dream to write, then DO IT. Do it do it do it DO IT! No one is ever going to chase your dreams for you. Never-ever-never. My grandma used to tell me “Can’t never could do anything.” It used to tick me off, but I get it now and I go for it. You should go for it, whatever “it” is to you. It’s yours to claim. But I guarantee you can’t claim it without a little effort.

Now, here’s a trick I use to keep me motivated and to put my crazy energy to good use. The toughest part of writing can be the waiting and the rejections. Believe me, both will never end. Even if you become the next Stephenie Meyer, you’re going to get rejected by someone, readers, other writers, reporters. Rejections keep coming. That’s life, crumbling cookie and all that. Also, the waaaaiting. Oh the waiting kiiiiillllls me. You wait to get an agent, wait for agent to edit, wait for agent to get requests by editors, wait for editors to accept, wait for your turn to work with the editor, wait for your cover art, wait for your release date, wait wait wait wait wait.

My advice for this is: keep writing. Instead of checking your email 10,000 times a day, write. Plot a new work. Start a new work. Enter shorts in contests, or anthologies. Write a novella for a small press. Guest blog around the web. Stay busy and the rejections don’t sting as much because there are all those positive things coming in, and the time will fly because you’re busy! Stay busy. Busy busy busy = good.

Thanks so much for having me today! I had a blast talking about my blog and writing and hopefully someone smiled. Thank you Mindy!!!