Showing the Real Mindy

Mindy McGinnis stops by Unedited today. She's fabulous and everyone should know it! She's the owner of the awesome blog Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire. You all know when someone stops by we don’t ask the usual questions. That’s right, because I’m an unusual being (once seen as a negative, now viewed as a positive). So let’s get started on all things random. 

Showing the Real Mindy

What guy’s name do you find sexy? 

Jack. It’s a ROMANCING THE STONE thing.

Do you like that manhole covers are always round? If you were to be more creative what shape would you choose and why? 

A triangle. It’ll add to the whole Illuminati mystique.

If Hollywood made a movie about your life, what would be the plot? 

No idea on plot, but I can say genre-wise it would definitely not be a romantic comedy. And it would have be animated. Just cause I say so.

If you were a salad, what kind of dressing would you be? 

Ranch. Yum-yum calories!

If you were forced to steal something, what would it be? 

Why would you choose it? A book. A really old one that there was only one copy of or something. Because I’m qualified to care for it much better than whatever museum it’s in.

One-Word Randoms

Elevator or Escalator: Escalator
Black or Striped Cat: BUH-lack
Writer or Reader: Ouch
Dancer or Singer: Neither
Query or Synopsis: Query!

Pardon our French...

One of my good friends, Mindy McGinnis from the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire blog, has recently escaped the burning pit of submission hell (those of you who have been there, or are there still, know the truth behind that phrase) with a fantastic 2-book contract with Harper Collins, due out in Fall 2013.

Here's Mindy's Publishers Marketplace Announcement:

Mindy McGinnis's NOT A DROP TO DRINK, the story of a teenage girl surviving in a rural America where an ounce of fresh water is worth more than gold and death wanders the countryside as thirst, cholera, and the guns of strangers; when her mother dies in an accident, the girl must decide between defending her pond alone or banding together with a crippled neighbor, a pregnant woman, a filthy orphan, and a teenage boy who awakens feelings she doesn't understand, to Sarah Shumway at Katherine Tegen Books, in a good deal, at auction, in a two-book deal, by Adriann Ranta at Wolf Literary Services (World).

Mindy's not only a talented author, she's also a blogging WIZARD. She's come up with a whole slew of blog series ideas, and finds the funniest and most creative acronyms to represent them. One of my favorites, and most irreverent (but somehow even more fitting for that reason) is the S.H.I.T. (Submission Hell – It’s True) Interview, where she invites authors to talk about their submission journey once they've finally sold.

How much did you know about the submission process before you were out on subs yourself?

I knew quite a bit, due to the excellent crowd over at AgentQuery Connect, quite a few of whom are agented and / or published. I knew what to expect as far as the waiting process, although honestly it wasn’t all that bad in terms of length of time for feedback.

Did anything about the process surprise you?

A little. I had some passes from editors who loved the book but couldn’t get enough enthusiasm from others to actually make an offer. It was odd to think, “Wow, someone important loved this, but that wasn’t enough.” It takes more than one to get that cart rolling.

Did you research the editors you knew had your ms? Do you recommend doing that?

I did. I don’t know that I recommend doing it though, because it’s not like it helped me out in any way. Mostly it just made me antsy. Once I had some offers, THEN I did research. I needed to know what the best fit was going to be.

What was the average amount of time it took to hear back from editors?

Some were SHAZAAM fast, and those were all negative. So, I learned that waiting was a good thing.

What do you think is the best way for an author out on submission to deal with the anxiety?

Stay busy, in all things. I wrote, I cleaned, I read, I blogged. I didn’t let myself think about it.

If you had any rejections, how did you deal with that emotionally? How did this kind of rejection compare to query rejections?

Oh, I had rejections. It definitely hurt more than a query rejection, because it was like, “Not only do I reject your premise, but I reject your WRITING!! BWAA HA HA!!” *throws lightning bolt* OK, not really. My rejections were actually all very complimentary and explanatory about reasons for passing, which I did appreciate.

If you got feedback on a rejection, how did you process it? How do you compare processing an editor’s feedback as compared to a beta reader’s?

It was hard to process because some of it was directly contradictory to feedback I’d received the day before. My agent and I sat down in a phone conversation and culled through all our feedback at one point and we decided that a lot of what we were seeing was personal preference. However, there were one or two consistent points that weren’t working for editors, and we took that seriously.

When you got your YES! how did that feel? How did you find out – email, telephone, smoke signal?

I got my YES over email, as it came in late on a weekday evening. How did it feel? I literally slammed my laptop shut and took the Lord’s name in vain. Then I apologized to both the Lord and the laptop and opened it back up again. The email was still there. I was kind of freaked out. And I literally couldn’t sleep. I was up til 3 AM two nights in a row.

Did you have to wait a period of time before sharing your big news, because of details being ironed out? Was that difficult?

I had my first offer on a Wednesday, then a few more offers came in on Thursday. Adriann and I talked details and decided what the best fit was on Thursday evening, and my Publisher’s Marketplace announcement went up on Sunday. So no, I didn’t have to wait long. I told my family members, and they took my direction to keep it quiet very, very seriously. They whispered whenever they talked to me about it ☺

Listmaker, Listmaker, Make Me A List

I’m slightly OCD. It’s one of the qualifications for librarianship. 

OK, not really, but I find that the hyper-responsibility side effects are valuable in all three venues of my life – home, work, and writing career.

I could spend every hour of each day on one of these aspects, but that would mean the other two falter and die. The first type of death means that no one in my household eats or has clean clothes. The second would translate into a pile of books on the bookcart and hundreds of cranky, panicked teenagers. The third means no forward motion towards my goal of publication. None. No new blog posts, no networking tweets, no AQC downtime, and definitely no additional word count on the WIP.

None of these things are acceptable.

So I give a little to all three each day, and the only way to keep myself straight on what needs to be done is by taking a very simple, yet highly effective time-management step. I make lists.

I use a Stickies program on my laptop to manage my three-ring circus. The yellow sticky lists my household duties for the day, which I try to manage one thing at a time. Monday is vacuuming, Tuesday dusting, dishes are done every other day and laundry waits for the weekend. The pink sticky directs my attention to the most pressing needs in the workplace, listed by priority. The wall above my desk serves as a big-picture amalgamation of stickies telling me what needs to be accomplished long term. 

Interesting genetic factoid: my sister (also a co-worker) pointed out that the wall above our Dad’s desk at the homestead looks exactly the same.

And lastly, my green sticky tells me what I need to be doing in writing-career land. And it doesn’t say – HEY YOU! WRITE A BOOK! There are many ways to keep the literary brain cranking, and I need quiet and uninterrupted stretches of time to nail down that WIP.

So what does the green sticky say?

It has links to various web pages that are helping me out with my research, so that I can easily hit up information during short downtimes. There are reminders about critiques that I need to get back to betas, ideas for blog posts, names of people I want to contact for interviews, and titles of books that I want to read and review.

Sounds like a lot, but all of those little steps are furthering me down the path of my writing career, and they can be addressed during the brief moments during the day that chance sometimes allots to me. I guess in the end that’s the secret to my time-management; knowing to address the little goals during little moments, and constantly reminding myself that the big goal for the evening is to crack out another 1k.

The other secret isn’t such a secret – don’t be lazy.

Sure, I’d rather watch Firefly reruns sometimes, but I’m reminded of a sports t-shirt I had in high school that read – “Whenever you are not practicing, somewhere, your opponent is, and when you meet, s/he will win.”

I might not actually wear a t-shirt that says, “Somewhere another writer wants to watch Firefly too, but they’re writing instead. And they’re published.”

But you get the idea.

Mindy McGinnis In Queryland

Today is a conversation with a Queen Blogger (kinda like a queen bee but virtual). She moderates on Agent Query, contributes to The Write Angle and has her own blog she somehow manages to keep updated without breaking a sweat. If you've spent any time in Queryland, you've run into her and probably benefited from her advice/encouragement.

Because she knows a LOT about Queryland. She was a resident there for TEN - yes, that's 1-0 - years. She puts the 'e' in perseverance, she shames the Energizer bunny, she never quits...she's Mindy McGinnis!! *cymbals, confetti, happy dance*

Ten years is a whole lot of perseverance. Why didn't you quit?

Short answer: Because I knew I didn’t suck. Long answer: But that doesn’t mean I didn’t have periods when I was completely convinced I sucked. Humility is a must for a writer. I can’t tell you how many agent interviews I’ve read where they say that cocky writers are almost always bad writers, and a cocky query goes into the trash before they even get to the pages. So in a way, it’s a great thing that I went through a decade of rejections on multiple mss. I needed to learn that lesson. 

Conviction played a huge part in my decision to push through the sh*t and keep going. Writing is what I do. I double-majored in English Literature and Religion, which made me pretty popular when it came to decoding LOST but other than that I’m not a useful person. My brain is a fun place, but ultimately, not a practical one.

Talk about the MS that landed you an agent. How was it different from the others?

There were a few factors at work. I’m definitely a much better writer than I was, so the ms itself was stronger. But also the market was in my favor, as it’s a dystopian title, and I also managed to totally click with Adriann Ranta over the phone so it was a big rolling ball of positive happiness that week. NOT A DROP TO DRINK is about a time in the near future when our freshwater resources have been exhausted, and people will literally kill for a drink. It’s bleak and realistic, no magic, creatures, or sci-fi elements, which sets it apart from a lot of dystopian. Adriann liked that about it, and hopefully an editor will too.

Is the writing life different with an agent? In other words, is the pot of gold really at the end of that rainbow??

At first it felt odd, I admit, when I sat down to write after being agented. I thought, “OK Mindy, this actually matters now.” But once the fingers started moving across the keyboard I was still me, agented or not. The thing that is awesome about being agented is that you don’t have to agonize some decisions quite as much. For example, if I think, “Oh man, I don’t know if this plot twist is going to totally sink the whole ms,” I can answer that with, “If it does, Adriann will tell me and we can fix it together.” Having a professional in your corner makes your corner a more comfortable place.

You are a super blogger - you have your own and you contribute to another (From the Write Angle) as well as serve as a site moderator for the writing community at AgentQuery Connect. What kind of time does that require? 

Great question. I started up Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire intending to post once a week, but my brain is an active place, so it turned into three times a week, and now I’m posting daily. I tend to churn out five or six ideas at a time for blog posts, so I front load like crazy. 

Team blogging on From the Write Angle is a real treat. We’ve got everything from middle school teachers to erotica writers to lawyers and a former XENA writer, so we have a good time. We each contribute once a month so it’s not a heavy load, and the return is incredible. I get so many redirects to WriterWriter off of FTWA it’s amazing.

And AgentQuery… I can’t say enough about that community – and obviously I’m a talker. There is no doubt in my mind that I would have never landed an agent without the support and advice of my fellow AQ’ers, and while it might sound lame, I’m all about giving back. It’s a kind, welcoming community. We host a weekly chat there on Thursdays @ 9PM (EDT) and newbies are always welcome! I’ve never clocked it but I’d guess I spend about seven or eight hours a week over there, and I don’t resent a second of it.

How do you avoid being sucked into the social media machine?

Getting swallowed by and losing my soul in the social media world? I’m not really worried about it, I’ve got so much to say I need to spread it around a little!

Explain AQ to newbies, and then share how you became a contributor.

AgentQuery is an online writing community designed to help aspiring writers tone their queries, find agent information, connect with other writers, share their thoughts on the industry… just about anything, really. I stumbled across it about three years ago while searching for agent contact information. I lurked, then joined after seeing the quality of the responses the veteran members provided for newbies. I got up some guts and approached a few vets personally and asked them to look at my query – which they did – and shredded it for me, politely. I posted the revised query on the forums, and it went through a positive transformation in a matter of days. I went from a collection of form rejections to a smattering of requests. 

The site moved to a new software system about a year ago. A few of the veterans were asked if we’d like to be more involved with moderation on the revamped site. We immediately said yes and were handed a few of the keys off the kingdom’s keyring.

What are some unwritten blogging rules you've discovered over the past few years?

Don’t talk about yourself too much. Don’t treat your blog as a ME billboard. No one cares. Offer your followers something in your content that isn’t just about selling your book.

Are there types of posts that get more responses?

And now I’ll contradict myself – the posts featuring interviews, queries that worked, advice from bloggers and agents tend to get the highest traffic, but the posts with the highest comments are almost always the ones about something silly – like me falling down the stairs and cracking my head open.

Speaking of responses, in your experience, what kind of queries get good ones?

The ones that show they’ve done their homework. Yes, it’s frustrating to hear that. You want your talent to take you through to the top, not your research skills. But it is what it is.

What are some good guidelines for tailoring a query?

I always start with the hook, put my title, genre, brief bio and word count at the end. As far as personalization, if the agent has requested something of mine before, I do mention it. Other than that I’ve not had a lot of luck off queries that I put a lot of time into personalizing.

When do you know your query needs reworking?

I sent out batches of ten, and if I didn’t get at least two requests of some sort (partial, full, etc.) I’d rework. The exception to that is if I had rejections that were obviously personalized, but the agent was passing for some reason. In that case I knew it wasn’t the query, but a matter of subjectivity. If you’re getting form r’s – sign up at AQ!

Agreed - AQ and QueryTracker are the best tools on the web for Queryland. Bar none.

Fast five:

Celebrity you would marry:
Oh, I have to marry them? In that case, Edward Norton. I could have conversations with him the rest of my life.

Oh, agree! Edward Norton is totally hot in a cerebral way. 

Biggest pet peeve while driving:
Being pulled over.

Um...does this happen a lot to you? 

Word you hate:
Penalized – when it’s pronounced like “penal colony.” Pretty much anything with “penal” is just not a good one to toss out there often.

It's just too close to penis. There. I said it. (You were all thinking it!)

The first thing you'd wish for if you had a magic wand:
A book deal. But I also want a zero turn mower, so that’s kinda tough.

Hmmm...book deal...zero turn mower...eh, not that tough. 

Favorite movie you saw last summer:
Well, I don’t get out much. I only saw one movie last summer. I’ll say that my favorite things I watched late summer were shows on streaming. I don’t have cable so I have to catch up on DEXTER and BREAKING BAD a season late.

Netflix streaming movie selection isn't great. :( But I'll definitely check out those shows the next time I sign off. 

Interview with Mindy McGinnis

1) What genre(s) do you write? And why?

I write YA.  I’m a YA librarian and I spend 40 a week with my target audience, plus I’m immersed in the market as part of the job, so it was kind of a no brainer to write YA. Plus, this market exploded right when I decided to jump back into writing, so it was the route to take. I found out I loved it after cranking out a few YA novels.

2)  Tell us about your latest project. This is your chance to crow about being published, agented, or winning a contest.

 My dystopian, NOT A DROP TO DRINK, is being subbed right now.  My agent, Adriann Ranta, is doing an excellent job of getting it on the desks of people who can make it happen. DRINK is about a future where there is very little freshwater, and people kill over backyard ponds and streams. The query can be found here.

3) Other than writing, how do you like to spend your time?

I have no time. I’ve got five acres, and yes – a pond, a massive old farmhouse and feral cats that seem to flock to me. They hate me, but they love to tribute me with their babies. It’s a lose – lose. I also knit, scrapbook, read like a fiend, and blog. Sometimes I eat. Once in awhile, I try sleeping.

4)  Do you have any tattoo’s, if so where? If not, do you want any?

No tatts. I’m hard pressed to think of something I want on my body for the rest of my life.

5) What is the last book you read? Did you like it?

I just finished up THE DARK AND HOLLOW PLACES by Carrie Ryan last night. It’s the third of THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH trilogy. I’m sold on these books because Ryan does an excellent job of writing with female narrators, but making the books accessible to males. I’ve got more male readers of the series in my library than females.

6) What is your advice to those who want to be authors? (I know, it’s a crummy one, but needs to be asked)

My advice? If there’s anything else you think you want to do, do that instead.  No really, you do have to ask yourself how much you want this, and how much you’re willing to give for it. I was trying to find an agent for ten years before I landed Adriann.  Granted, I wasn’t actively querying and looking for that whole time, but it was a decade-long slog of rejections and disappointment.

Part of the reason I failed on such a grand scale is because I was naive enough to think that talent is what lands you the contract. I didn’t do research, I didn’t know how to write a query, I didn’t want to invest the time involved in knowing how to do things the right way. I was self-righteous enough to think that someone would instantly fall in love with me, and it’d be magic.

Wrong.

Do your homework, always. Yeah, it sucks that there’s rules, and formulas, and red tape everywhere to keep you from your dream, but if you want it, you jump through those hoops. Join sites like AgentQueryConnect and QueryTracker, find crit partners, read industry and writer-related blogs, and know your market.

7)  Tell us one thing no one knows about you

I can’t think of one thing no one knows about me. I’m a talker, so this one always stumps me when it comes up. Um… I’m not wearing a bra right now. Nobody knew that.

Query Tracker Success Story Interview with Mindy McGinnis

Query Tracker has named to Writer's Digest's list of
101 Best Websites for Writers for 11 years.

Can you tell us a little bit about the book for which you've found representation? What inspired you to write it?

The book that landed me representation is a YA dystopian about the lack of fresh water in the future. I adore dystopian fiction, but I'm really tired of post - nuclear, or highly technological worlds. I took a different approach and knocked humankind back about 100 years... eating what you can kill, subsisting on your environment and the work of your own two hands.

My inspiration came from a documentary I watched about the very real pending threat of our fresh water resources, and then I read a book about the history of water (yeah I'm a dork like that).

How long have you been writing?

Oh boy. Ten years.

How long have you been working on this book?

This particular book (right now titled NOT A DROP TO DRINK) pretty much fell out of my head this past summer. I coughed it up in about four months, I think.

Was there ever a time you felt like giving up, and what helped you to stay on course?

Hmmm.... uh, YEAH. I didn't spend ten years getting rejections and feeling awesome, I can tell you that. Ironically, one thing that helped me stay the course was a rejection. An agent who had my full (a different YA title) rejected me, but sent me the kindest, most complimentary rejection ever. That was around three years ago. I kept the email and revisited it periodically over the years when I needed a boost. I emailed that agent the day after I signed to thank her for taking the time to give that kind of personalization to her rejections. She responded to tell me how happy she was for me - agents are people too!

Is this your first book?

Let's ignore the four trunked ones under my bed and say.... Yeah, sure, of course it is!

Do you have any formal writing training?

Nope. Nada. I double majored in English Literature and Religion, so I've drawn on both of those to inform my writing, for sure. I personally think the best education a writer can get is to read - good books an bad ones - and see what's working, or not.

Do you follow a writing 'routine' or schedule?

I write what I can, when I can.

How many times did you re-write/edit your book?

Not many, for this one, but that's against my normal grain. I did two 'tough love' line edits on it, though.

Did you have beta readers for your book?

Yes - I had two excellent betas that I met over on AgentQueryConnect. We swap ms's, and are all at the same level / genre, so it's a wonderfully productive trio.

Did you outline your book, or do you write from the hip?

Hip. I'm not a big fan of formality.

How long have you been querying for this book? Other books?

Well, this book definitely went against the grain (again). I only queried it for a month and a half before landing my (awesome) agent. My other books... yeah, refer back to that ten year drought I mentioned.

About how many query letters did you send out for this book?

25 - an incredibly small number.

On what criteria did you select the agents you queried?

Research - constant and large amounts of it. I used QueryTracker stats (for sure), and visited some excellent blogs that do agent interviews to get a feel for who was looking for, and liked, what. QT user KristaG's awesome blog - Mother. Write. (Repeat) was a huge help to me, as well as Authoress' Miss Snark's First Victim blog. I'm styling my own blog - Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire - in their footsteps. I want to be an inspiration to those on the agent hunt, and help others get their feet in the door. Or their fingers. Or hair. Or teeth. Whatever it takes! The agent database over at AgentQuery.com was a great tool as well, plus the Agent Updates thread over on AgentQueryConnect.

Did you tailor each query to the specific agent, and if so, how?

A few I did, not many though. When I did it was using 'foot in the door' techniques from visiting blogs like the ones I mentioned above. 'Dear Agent... I read your interview this morning on (blog name) and saw that you are looking for gritty YA dystopian. I think my title (blah blooh) will fit your tastes!' That kind of thing.

What advice would you give other writers seeking agents?

Don't give up. Which probably is overdone advice, and Churchill beat me to it, but... my journey took a decade, so I can tell you there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but you've got to work for it.

Would you be willing to share your query with us?

Lynn was nine the first time she killed to defend the pond. Seven years later, violence is her native tongue in a time when an ounce of fresh water is worth more than gold and firewood equals life during bitter rural winters. Death wanders the countryside in many forms: thirst, cholera, coyotes, and the guns of strangers.

Mother and Lynn survive in a lawless land, where their once comfortable home serves as stronghold and lookout. Their basement is a lonely fortress; Father disappeared fighting the Canadians for possession of Lake Erie, the last clean body of water in an overpopulated land. The roof offers a sniper's view of their precious water source – the pond. Ever vigilant, they defend against those who stream from the sprawling cities once they can no longer pay the steep prices for water. Mother's strenuous code of self-sufficiency and survival leaves no room for trust or friendships; those wishing for water from the pond are delivered from their thirst not by a drink, but a bullet. Even their closest neighbor is a stranger who Lynn has only seen through her crosshairs.

Smoke rises from the east, where a starving group of city refugees are encamped by the stream. A matching spire of smoke can be seen in the south, where a band of outlaws are building a dam to manipulate what little water is left.

When Mother dies in a horrific accident, Lynn faces a choice - defend her pond alone or band together with her crippled neighbor, a pregnant woman, a filthy orphan, and Finn - the teenage boy who awakens feelings she can't figure out.

Pressing On & Getting Out There

I’m a happy writer, but I freely admit I haven’t always been. Fellow blogger and YA author Anita Howard asked me to guest post on her blog, A Still and Quiet Madness, when I became agented. That post details my decade long wallow of self-pity while on the agent hunt. After over 130 rejections on a single novel, I was this close to being a bitter failure.

So I asked myself, “Alright Mindy, whaddya gonna do? Quit writing? Really? Cause will that make the stories in your head stop happening?” The answer was, “probably not.” I packed up my negativity and started fresh, whipped out a new novel and found My Agent Who Loves Me (a.k.a Adriann Ranta) shortly thereafter.

And yeah, having someone to love you is a totally awesome experience. But at the same time, I’d already made the decision to BE a writer, regardless of whether or not I was ever an author. Even if we stop taking our fingers to the pen or the keyboard, our brains will continue to function in the same way they always have. You can turn off the light switch, but there’s still an electrical current under there.

So I entered AgentedAuthorLand feeling pretty good, started up my blog and shot out a few tentative emails asking agents, authors and industry bloggers if they’d like to come on over and do an interview to help get my blog off the ground. To my total surprise, positive responses started flowing into my inbox the same day. Agents who I’d pelted with bad queries were like, “Sure, send the questions on over.” Authors whose books I had on my bedside table said, “I’d love to! So flattered you like my work!” Bloggers whose sites I’d stalked for years replied, “Of course – I know exactly what it’s like to build a blog. Anything I can do, I will do.”

Now, I’m sure it helps that I start my emails to agents with “I’m recently agented,” so they know that I’m not going to entice them over to the blog with promises of candy, then tie them up in my Basement of Pain until they agree to represent me, but that’s besides the point.

This industry truly is filled with kind, intelligent, accessible people. I’m a newborn over on this side, and everybody is contributing to my care with an awesome – “Yes, I will!” And that’s a damn good thing, cause I’ve totally filled my diaper a few times already.