Living in the NOW - Six Years After Debut, What's Changed?

It’s time for a new interview series… like NOW. No really, actually it’s called NOW (Newly Omniscient Authors). This blog has been publishing since 2011, and some of the earlier posts feel too hopeful dated. To honor the relaunch of the site, I thought I’d invite some of my past guests to read and ruminate on their answers to questions from oh-so-long-ago to see what’s changed between then and now.

Today’s guest is Kate Karyus Quinn, who has been on the blog multiple times in the past, for the SAT (Successful Author Talk) , the SNOB (Second Novel Omnipresent Blues), and the SWAG (Shit We All Generate). Kate was my first guest on the podcast, and today she’s ushering in the NOW.

Kate is the author of multiple YA novels, screwball romantic comedies, and a contributor to multiple anthologies. Her debut, Another Little Piece, came out in 2013.

Has how you think (and talk) about writing and publishing changed, further into your career? 

It’s all over the fucking place. I have felt like a failure far more than I’ve felt like a success. That being said, I think more recently, I’m finally finding a place of greater equilibrium, where I’ve made peace with the fact that Oprah is not going to call and neither is Steven Spielberg and that staying in this business is always gonna require a lot of hustle.  

It’s not just writing. It’s networking. It’s being aware of what’s going on in the publishing industry. It’s looking at all the different ways money making avenues and deciding how many of them you can use to help pay the bills.

I think – like a lot of authors – I wanted the fairy tale. The JK Rowling insane success story. Riches, critical acclaim, AND a fucking theme park. Instead I’ve made a modest amount of money doing something I love, have gotten mixed reviews, and as for the theme park… eh, I’d honestly rather just someone put my name on a library someday.

Let’s about the balance between the creative versus the business side of the industry. Do you think of yourself as an artiste or are you analyzing every aspect of your story for marketability? Has that changed from your early perspective?

I don’t think I’ve ever thought of myself as an artiste. The first book I wrote was romance which is arguably one of the most disrespected genres of them all. So, I never had dreams of writing “the great American novel.” I just wanted to write a book that I’d want to read, because I am first and foremost a reader.

But I guess I’ve realized since then that what I want to read is not always what other people want to read. I went through a bad time a few years back where I was really questioning myself and my writing and I really so very very badly wanted to write something that would break out big. But you can’t manufacture that type of thing – or I couldn’t anyway. And it made me deeply unhappy trying to force it.

Since then I’ve come to a happier place where I realize that I have LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of ideas and I need to pick one that A. I’m excited to write and B. That there’s also a market demand for.

The bloom is off the rose… what’s faded for you, this far out from debut? 

Yes, the bloom is off the rose. When my debut was pubbed I was in my early thirties and now I’m (gasp) officially forty. There are definitely times when I’m at book events with other children’s authors and I feel OLD.

I think there’s also a bit of cynicism that creeps in. And exhaustion. That hustle that I talked about above is tiring. But, as cheesy as it sounds, I think you have to remember to count your blessings and keep working. Even when it feels like there are so many books out there (and OHMYGOD there are SO MANY BOOKS out there!) you have to believe in your little book and believe that the world needs it… which takes a crazy mixture of guts and (let’s be honest) self-regard.

Likewise, is there anything you’ve grown to love (or at least accept) that you never thought you would?

I’ve accepted writing the need to write a good synopsis and blurb and logline. Basically, that I have to not only be able to tell the story, but I also have to be able to tell about the story – which are two really different skills!

I just self-published an adult romantic comedy and I wasn’t getting the sales I wanted, so I decided to rewrite my blurb. I rewrote it. Then I rewrote it again. Then I did it again. And now, finally, many versions later, it is way better.

Really what I’ve realized is that a blurb or synopsis isn’t a book report. The teacher doesn’t want to make sure I read the damn thing. It’s in fact a sales pitch. Which means knowing my audience – ie: don’t tell someone who wants a sports car about the heated seats – tell them about acceleration and let the heated seats be a nice surprise for their bum on a cold winter’s day.

And lastly, what did getting published mean for you and how was it changed (or not changed!) your life? 

The first thing that I ever got published and paid for was a short story in Woman’s World. I was paid $800 for 800 words. I cried when the acceptance letter (snail mail!) arrived. It was the most emotional I ever became – even though the offer for my debut novel was significantly more money and more prestige and more, well, ALL the things (except a theme park… damn it). But that first acceptance was the one that made me believe I wasn’t crazy, that I could do this and make money doing it. And it’s all I’ve ever really wanted to do. So yes, it has changed my life and I truly believe – to steal from Wicked the Musical – I have been changed for good. 

Wednesday WOLF - Mortgage

I've got a collection of random information in my brain that makes me an awesome Trivial Pursuit partner, but is completely useless when it comes to real world application. Like say, job applications. I thought I'd share some of this random crap with you in the form of another acronym-ific series. I give you - Word Origins from Left Field - that's right, the WOLF Er... ignore the fact that the "from" doesn't fit.

Did you know that the word mortgage is from the French, literally meaning death pledge? I don’t know if this means that you’re not expected to own your house until you’re nearly dead, or if your bank can collect payments in the after life, but I would definitely check the fine print, just in case.

This makes me very curious about what student loans translates to in French…

G.S. Prendergast On Dreams As Inspiration

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today’s guest is Gabrielle Prendergast who writes picture books and middle grade and YA contemporary and historical as Gabrielle Prendergast. Her science fiction and fantasy is published as G.S. Prendergast. She has won the Monte Miller Award, the Westchester Fiction Award and The BC Book Prize as well as being nominated or short listed for numerous other honors.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

The series I’m just finishing up now with COLD FALLING WHITE (November 2019 from Simon & Schuster BFYR) started with a dream. But even though the book is about an alien invasion, there were no aliens in the dream. It was mainly a feeling. In the dream an injured girl was being carried up stairs over several levels. She didn’t know the man who was carrying her—he was kind of just a shadowy figure—but she was terrified of him, as though he represented something dangerous and violent.

And yet she wasn’t sure if she was being kidnapped or rescued, if she was threatened or protected. For a long time I didn’t know what to do with this very amorphous idea. I thought for a while that the man might be in a crime gang or something. But then one day I thought about writing about an alien invasion and I thought “That’s it! The man is an alien!” I know there are quite a few books and movies about alien invasions but I thought I could do something different with it. That’s where ZERO REPEAT FOREVER was born.  

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

One thing I struggled with through multiple drafts was when to start the story. In my first draft the story started over a hundred years after the aliens, the Nahx, invaded. The next draft started fifteen years after the invasion. Then I tried five years after the invasion. Finally I realized that I could start the story the day of the invasion! My key issue was that I needed my human protagonist, Raven, to have a deep fear, hatred and mistrust for the Nahx. I had thought this was something that might be ingrained into her community but I realized that in situations of war, the fear and hatred would grow very quickly. 

The other breakthrough I had was to tell half the story from the point of view of the one of the Nahx, Eighth. Once those two things were in place I “pantsed” the rest of the story because the plot came from these two characters learning to trust each other and fighting their way out of danger. 

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

Yes! For a long time I envisioned a kind of push and pull relationship between Raven and her dead boyfriend’s twin, Topher. But as I wrote I discovered that was NOT what was happening. No spoilers but much is revealed in the sequel! Also major plot and even premise issues are often first revealed to me just as I finish the first draft.

When I wrote ZERO REPEAT FOREVER I didn’t figure out what the Nahx were actually doing on Earth until I wrote the last few scenes of book 2! And characters reveal things as I write. When I was writing AUDACIOUS, the love interest. Sam, revealed on the page as I wrote that his name was actually Samir and that he was Muslim! Suddenly I had all this research to do. But it fit the story so well, given the main character’s, Ella, is losing her faith.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by? 

Another manuscript I’m just finishing up came from a dream. I also wrote an award winning screenplay based on a dream. I usually have at least one really usable story dream every six months or so. Some of them become books or stories. Some don’t. But they are entertaining. Many of them are very epic and visually stunning, and complete with character names and minute details. Sometimes they even come with a title!

I also get ideas from misreading things sometimes. Or things my daughter says. She was the inspiration for PANDAS ON THE EAST SIDE because she babbled something along those lines when she was about five.

I have a database (actually just a Word document) 23 pages long with ideas waiting to be brought to life. I’ll never get to them all!

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating? 

I dabble with a few of them. One of the first things I do is try to write what amounts to the query letter. If that’s easy, then it’s a good idea to work on. Queries are easy to write if a story has a clear premise and genre and a strong and obvious protagonist. After that I might pitch a couple of them to my agent. I take her advice about what she thinks sounds interesting and sellable.

 I usually have a few things percolating at once, to a maximum of seven. In the past my hit rate has been pretty good with getting the majority of those seven to publication one way or another.

I have 5 cats (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting? 

I don’t have pets in the house because I’m allergic, but I do have two pet chickens that live in the yard. Sometimes if I’m feeling uninspired I’ll go out and dig up worms with them. Mostly though, I like complete silence and solitude to write. I’m driven mad by my husband and daughter coming in and out, my husband taking business calls, the radio on, music. I could never write in a coffee shop. I have been known to write in my car outside my daughter’s music lessons though.