YA Guy Defines... Success!

What does it mean to be a successful writer?

For many writers--and, perhaps, for the general public--"success" means six-figure advances, bestseller status, big-ticket awards (including those just announced for this year's very deserving Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz Award winners).

By that definition, most of us--including YA Guy--are abysmal failures. Given the very nature of publishing, the very nature of any business venture, most people don't achieve that kind of success. Most of us plug along somewhere in the middle, perhaps making some money, perhaps not, perhaps making a career of it, more likely not, perhaps winning an award or two, perhaps not, but never becoming household names.

I've been writing since I was about eight years old. (Actually, earlier than that, but it was around age eight that I tried to write my first novel--on my mom's manual typewriter. After a page of typos and frustration, I gave up.) Since that time, and with increasing frequency from the year I started college (1983) to the present, I've produced numerous creative nonfiction essays, short stories, academic books and articles, and partial or completed novels. Some of the above has been published, some of it hasn't. None of it has skyrocketed to fame. But all of it, even the things I didn't finish for one reason or another (because the idea wasn't as good as I first thought, because I ran out of steam, whatever), has been written.

So I decided to pursue a different definition of "success," one based purely on page totals. In my calculations, I ruled out academic books and articles, as well as short pieces (fiction and nonfiction), and focused on novels. The numbers are skewed downward by that decision, considerably so, but since novel-writing was and is my highest aspiration (as it is for many writers), it made sense to me to narrow my output in that way.

For purposes of this quantitative analysis, I estimated a completed novel (whether published or unpublished) at 300 manuscript pages (except for my earliest novels, written in the years 1981-1987, which tended to be shorter, so I averaged those at 250 pages per novel). An unfinished novel--either one that I've discarded permanently or that I'm still working on--I assigned an average of 100 pages. With those estimates, here's what I came up with:

In total from the years 1981 (when I completed my first novel at age 16) to the present, I've written roughly 4,750 manuscript pages of novel-length works. This breaks down as follows:

• On average, I've written 125 pages worth of novels per year over a period of 38 years, or about a page every three days.
• Narrowed down to the years of my greatest productivity, from 2010 to the present, I've written about 3,900 pages, for an average of 433 pages per year. That's over a page a day for almost 10 years.
• Limited to completed novels, it works out to approximately 3,300 pages or 366 pages per year.
• Confined further to completed and published novels, it drops to about 2,100 pages or 233 pages per year. However, that number is unacceptably low--because, of the seven novels I've started but not finished, only three of them have been completely abandoned, so the other four might be considered "on their way" to completion and, hopefully, publication. Ditto with the four novels from 2010-2019 that are completed but unpublished; two of them will never see the light of day, but one is currently being shopped by my agent and the other I plan to self-publish.

The point is, any way you slice it, I've been pretty productive as a writer of novels throughout my life, and especially in the past decade.

Dare I say I've been successful?

Maybe yes, maybe no. If the almost 5,000 pages of novel-material I've produced in my lifetime have been complete and utter garbage, then maybe I'm less successful than delusional. But on the other hand, even if those pages have been junk, I've written them, and writing counts for something in and of itself. I like to think my success as a writer has been like my career as a writer: somewhere in the middle. No, I'm not one of the great writers of my own or any time, but I'm not a hack either. I'm a writer like most writers, producing as much work as I can that's as good as I can make it.

I hope this exercise doesn't seem merely a pep talk to myself. My purpose in conducting it was to offer words of encouragement to the many writers who are in the same place that I am: people who've been writing for years without the obvious signs of "success" that some writers have achieved. I'm thinking it would be a good idea for those writers to take the time, now and again, to redefine "success." You can do it quantitatively as I've done, or you can find some other qualitative measure: satisfaction, personal growth, positive reviews, the stranger on the street who recognized you. All of those measures (and many more) are valid, and validating.

So be a successful writer. Your own kind of successful writer.

YA Guy Hosts... Kai Strand, author of I AM ME!

YA Guy is tickled to host one of my favorite authors, Kai Strand, whose latest novel, the YA contemporary I AM ME, is now available. Kai's here to talk about how she manages to be so prolific as an author, and then, as a special treat, she's provided an excerpt from her new book. Read on, and then find out about Kai and where to buy I AM ME!

Just Ger ‘Er Done!

Inspiration from Kai Strand

People often think I’m a fast writer, but I know plenty of authors who write faster than me. They’ll post their daily word counts of upwards of 5,000! I’m lucky if I hit 1,500. What I am – or have been – is consistent. Think: The Little Engine That Could or the tortoise from The Tortoise and The Hare.

My first book, a middle grade fantasy, The Weaver, was published at the very end of 2010 and I immediately began a quest to make it the world’s best-selling book. When I wasn’t even successful in scheduling my first book signing until March of 2011, I realized that marketing a book was both harder than I expected and very time consuming. I didn’t understand that I needed to concentrate more on writing the next book until well into 2011. Therefore, my second middle grade – a contemporary titled SAVE THE LEMMINGS – wasn’t published until 2012. But the second book in my Weaver Tale series was also published in 2012, The Wishing Well. I discovered that I liked publishing two books a year. I liked it very much, so that became my goal.

My first young adult book, King of Bad, was published in 2013 and I got a taste of good sales and that bestseller title I’d hoped for. In 2014, I decided to try my hand at self-publishing with a couple young adult novellas, all while publishing two different titles with publishers – making my publication count for the year FOUR books. I found it difficult to promote, though, and learned I wanted to keep it at two books a year. In 2015 I added a new pen name (L.A. Dragoni) so I could write romance for the grown-ups among us.

Needless to say, in order to publish all of these books, I had to keep writing. And if I average fewer than 1,500 words a day, that means I have to sit down and write on a regular basis. It isn’t always easy. I get sucked into social media or composing blog posts. There are plenty of times I have simply forced myself to open my WIP and just put some dang words down. And the crazy thing is…when you do that…seven years later, you have FIFTEEN books published.

It’s hard for me to comprehend that I’ve accomplished that, but with more books in the pipeline and several others underway…I know it won’t stop there.


I Am Me by Kai Strand
YA Contemporary

Despite—or perhaps because of—her fancy car, private school education, and life of privilege, Lola Renaldi has become a volunteer junkie. Feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, visiting the elderly—if it’s a good cause, she’s done it.

Lola’s favorite stint, building affordable houses, puts her directly in the path of Rodney. He refuses to discuss why he’s doing community service, but it’s clear he’s hiding something dark about his past. As their friendship grows, Lola begins to question the true reasons for her obsessive volunteerism and her view of those she has pledged to help.

She is only beginning to understand how lucky she truly is when her life falls apart. After losing friends, her boyfriend, even Rodney, Lola finally recognizes which parts of her life she wants to hang onto and what specifically she wants to go after. But with all she’s been through, will she be able to hang onto who she wants to be? Or will she lose all that defines her?


Excerpt: 

“Have you ever been completely surprised to learn the truth behind someone’s circumstances?”

Rod freezes, paintbrush held high overhead. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I have a friend who seems to have everything, you know? I’ve always known how far from the truth that is, but she’s got a rock solid façade. Or, she did until last weekend.”

Rod’s rigid posture relaxes, and he resumes spreading paint along the fascia. “Wasn’t last week homecoming?”

Tipping my head up, I stare at Rod in surprise. “Yeah, how did you know?”

I see one side of his mouth quirk. “You weren’t here last week. Hank said something about hair and makeup and fingernails.”

I continue to stare up at Rodney. His long frame at the top of a tall ladder makes my head spin in some reverse vertigo thing.

He stops working again and shifts sideways on the ladder. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Oh.” If I shake my head, will the myriads of thoughts spinning through it dissipate into dust, or at least fall into a nice orderly pile that I can sort through later? “I’m…it’s just…” Shrug.

Resting the brush in the paint tray, he somehow adopts a super casual pose on the ladder, perched precariously sideways, with his arms crossed over his chest. His tone is unexpected in its gentleness. “Is this 'friend' really you?”

“What? No!” I leap to my feet and his eyebrows arch, which for some reason makes me mad. “Rodney, why would you even think that?”

His head cocks sideways in consideration. “Someone who seems to have everything. Someone you know well enough that you’re the only one to know she doesn’t.”

I slam my hands on my hips, though really, I want to slug him. “It’s a friend of mine. I’ve known her forever.” A strange expression passes over his face and my anger wafts away on the chilly breeze. “Do you have any friends, Rodney?”

He gives a strange one-shoulder shrug that he probably hopes appears dismissive but is actually an admission of truth. The question of what he did to earn community service—tons of hours of community service, apparently—flashes through my mind and for the first time I wonder if befriending him like I have was really so smart.

A tinge of anger darkens his caramel colored eyes making me think of toffee.

“We’ve moved a lot.”

Oh. Not what I expected. Before I can reply, he continues.

“Poor people do that, you know.”

I open my mouth to voice my offense. His tone is so accusatory. But I see guilt and regret and embarrassment flash in his expression, so I slam my lips shut.


Here's where to buy I AM ME:

Amazon
B&N
iBooks

About the author: When her children were young and the electricity winked out, Kai Strand gathered her family around the fireplace and they told stories, one sentence at a time. Her boys were rather fond of the ending, “And then everybody died. The end.” Now an award winning children’s author, Kai crafts fiction for kids and teens to provide an escape hatch from their reality. With a selection of novels for young adult and middle grade readers, Kai entertains children of all ages and their adults. Learn more about Kai and her books on her website, www.kaistrand.com.

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YA Guy... Visits Schools!

As YA Guy has said before, probably the coolest thing about writing for young people is that I get to visit schools (and libraries). And probably the coolest thing about those visits is answering questions from students, who always challenge me and give me a new perspective on my own writing.

Recently, I visited Shaler Area Middle School (close to the city of Pittsburgh) and talked about FREEFALL, science fiction, and social justice to a group of young readers who'd just finished a unit on segregation. Here are some of the great questions they asked me, with my reconstruction of how I answered them:

Charlotte: Do you believe the society represented in FREEFALL is likely to occur in the future?

YA Guy: Actually, I think it's happening right now. Not only nationally but internationally, we're a people divided by race and class, and in some respects those divisions have worsened despite legislation that was meant to shrink them. That's one of the things with science fiction: though it's typically set in the future, it comments on events that are happening right now, sometimes tweaking those events just the tiniest bit for the purposes of fiction.

Jamin: When you're writing a story, how do you know if your idea is good or not?

YAG: The short answer is that you don't. Or at least, if you mean "good" as in "lots of people will want to read it," it's hard to gauge that while you're writing. So my best advice to writers is to write what YOU think is good--the story that you want to tell (or that you'd want to read). You can't really control whether others will think it's good, so you probably shouldn't waste time worrying about that.

Taylor: Have you ever based a character off your own personality?

YAG: In the largest sense, every character I create is based (at least in part) off of me, because I'm the person whose thoughts and feelings I know best. But sometimes there's an even closer connection. For example, Cam Newell, my narrator in FREEFALL, is a guy from a relatively privileged upbringing whose viewpoint is changed when he comes into contact with people from very different backgrounds. His process of development is quite similar to what I experienced when I went to college, where for the first time my eyes were opened to people, perspectives, and issues that I'd never been exposed to before.

Tiffany: Where did the title FREEFALL come from?

YAG: Sometimes, I don't have a title for a book until I'm about halfway through, when I've finally figured out what the book is about. Other times, a word or phrase just pops into my head, and I decide it would make a good title--but then I have to figure out how it's relevant to the story I'm telling. That was the case with FREEFALL. I liked the word, partly because I knew I was writing an outer space adventure, and I was playing with the ideas of gravity and being grounded (or being thrown out of one's accustomed ground). But I also started to think about how being in love is kind of like being in freefall; it's scary and exhilarating and unpredictable all at once. So since the book has romance elements too, FREEFALL seemed like a good title. Eventually, to make it even more relevant to the story, I named one of the starships the Freefall.

Shahaan: Do you write books to inform or to entertain?

YAG: Many authors will say that the only purpose of writing is entertainment, and I do agree that entertainment is primary. But with a book, we're not talking about random light shows or clown acts, which might be purely entertaining; we're talking about language, which means that there's also going to be information conveyed from author to reader. I don't believe in hitting the reader over the head with a "message," but at the same time, I see nothing wrong with the author having information s/he wants to convey to the reader, so long as s/he leaves it up to the reader to receive and process that information.

Chris: When you use first-person point of view, what's the best way to describe your narrator?

YAG: Well, you probably want to avoid the overused device of having your narrator look in a mirror (or other reflective surface) and describe him/herself. You might ask whether you really need a physical description of the narrator, or you might drop little nuggets of physical description here and there. But if you want a single, sustained description, you should try to find an original way of doing it, such as I tried to do in FREEFALL, where Cam reads his own physical data on the screen of the life pod where he's been in suspended animation for 1000 years.

Logan: Where do you get the names for your characters?

YAG: Lots of places. I'll meet someone with a name I like, or I'll hear something on the news, or I'll create a name from scratch. In the manuscript I'm currently working on, everyone has names from Greek myths, so it was fun researching those names. For FREEFALL, I named the three male leads after my son's favorite NFL players.

Sammy: What was your inspiration for the Upperworld?

YAG: I honestly looked around at the real world and thought about wealth disparity, segregation, and oppression in the here and now, and then said to myself, "What if current trends get worse and worse in the next hundred years?" I'm no prophet, but there are very troubling signs that the world's wealth is becoming more and more concentrated in a smaller and smaller percentage of the global population, and if that keeps happening, we might literally have an Upperworld and a Lowerworld in the next century: an elite 1% with all the wealth and a remaining 99% with none.

Candace: How do you stretch a short story into a novel?

YAG: First, I'd point out that if you're writing short stories right now, there's no need to stretch them into anything other than what they are. Short stories are the perfect length for young writers: you can complete them in a week or a month, and thus feel a great sense of accomplishment, whereas for most teens (including myself forty years ago), tackling a novel is an exercise in frustration--it's just too much, and the likelihood that you won't finish it tends to produce feelings of failure. That being said, I've found that the key difference between a novel and a short story is that in a short story, the narrator or main character has ONE challenge s/he has to face and resolve, whereas in a novel, there will be multiple such challenges, each one yielding to a greater one. But I do want to repeat that for young writers, I think short stories are the best way to go: they give you a chance to hone your skills, and possibly even to gain some publishing credits.

Alexandra: Do you plan your novels out first, or figure things out as you go along?

YAG: I'm what people call a "pantser"--that is, I don't plan much, and so I kind of fly along by the seat of my pants. I'll have a basic idea for a novel--such as in FREEFALL, where the idea was to write an adventure/romance having to do with outer space colonization--but I'll let the rest unfold as I write. The reason I like to do it this way is that I feel as if I make my best discoveries as a writer "in the moment," where one idea will lead to another that I hadn't foreseen. But other writers like to plan out more than I do, and I think it's important for each writer to find the method that works best for her or him.

Maddox: How did the plot of FREEFALL develop?

YAG: This is a perfect example of the process I just described, where one idea leads to a wholly unexpected one. I'd created my main characters, Cam and Sofie, but I felt that something was missing--they were too similar to each other, and thus there wasn't enough tension and conflict in their relationship. But then the idea of Upperworld and Lowerworld popped into my head, which led me to the obvious conclusion that one of my teens would be an Upperworlder and the other a Lowerworlder. Once that idea was in place, the story took off: if they were from different parts of the planet, they'd have to meet somehow, and there would be some kind of conflict when they did, and each of them would have to learn from the other, and so on and so on. I didn't plan any of that when I started writing, but all of it unfolded in a series of discoveries during the writing process.

Emma: What's your favorite part of FREEFALL?

YAG: I think my favorite part is a scene where Cam and one of Sofie's Lowerworld friends are working together to rescue her from the book's villain, and they have a conversation where Cam realizes that, though they have the same objective, they have drastically different motivations. That was an important scene for the story, not only because it leads Cam to question his own motivations, but because it raises the question of whether it's possible to understand the life experience of someone whose circumstances are very different from one's own. I personally think it's possible to respect someone's position even if one doesn't fully understand it, and I hope that's what Cam learns too.

Dante: Have you had any hardships while writing?

YAG: Many. For example, with FREEFALL, my first draft was so horrible I almost gave up on it, but fortunately, I had the experience to know that if I set it aside for a while, I'd come back to it with fresh eyes and be able to make an objective assessment of its strengths and weaknesses. Writing is hard work--though nowhere near as hard as many of the jobs that people perform--and you have to be strongly motivated to persevere in it.

YA Guy Reviews... GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee!

YA Guy finally got around to reading Harper Lee’s GO SET A WATCHMAN. It’s not really a YA novel—in fact, it’s even less YA than its predecessor, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD—and I’ve been extra busy this semester teaching overloads and juggling writing projects. But I finally got a break on the teaching side, and before NaNoWriMo starts next month, I had a chance to sneak Lee’s novel in.

When WATCHMAN was published last year, a lot of people were disappointed, even devastated, by what they took to be the sequel to MOCKINGBIRD. They were troubled, first of all, to discover that this “sequel” wasn’t very well written (more about this later). They were upset by some of the events that occurred in the fictional Finch family as the thirties turned into the fifties. And they were dismayed to discover that saintly Atticus Finch had, apparently, become a racist and a Klansman in his declining years. For those who saw WATCHMAN as Lee’s carrying forward of the story she’d first told in MOCKINGBIRD, all of this seemed like a betrayal of a beloved classic.

But as we know now—actually, as we knew all along, only this wasn’t talked about much within the publishing industry because it might have hurt sales—WATCHMAN is manifestly not the sequel to MOCKINGBIRD. Quite the contrary, it’s Lee’s first draft, her first attempt to tell the story of Jean Louise Finch and the racial history of Maycomb County. She wrote it before MOCKINGBIRD, submitted it to her editor, Tay Hohoff, and was told that it needed drastic reworking before it could be published. Hohoff suggested that she refocus the story on Jean Louise’s childhood, the days when she was (to quote WATCHMAN) “Scout Finch, juvenile desperado, hell-raiser extraordinary” (49). That’s exactly what Lee did, and MOCKINGBIRD was the result.

WATCHMAN, in short, was never meant to be published, any more than any first draft is meant to be published. It got published only after Lee’s advancing age and infirmity made it impossible for her to block its publication. Had it been published by a scholarly press, with an editor to provide the context and annotate the text, one might have argued that it got published for academic reasons, as a means of providing students and teachers insight into a classic author’s writing process. Being published as it was, however, it’s quite clear that it was published largely to make a bunch of people in the publishing industry (and not Lee herself) rich.

Given that history, part of me wishes it had never been published. It really isn’t a very good novel; though the writing is confident at the sentence level, the plot is slow and fractured, the characters (including the adult Jean Louise) dull, the romance between Jean Louise and her childhood chum forced and uninteresting. To the extent that it’s harmed Lee’s posthumous reputation in the eyes of some, it’s unfortunate that her wishes regarding its publication weren’t respected, or that (as said above) it wasn’t at least published in an academic manner.

But if the reader in me, the lover of literature, feels this way, the writer and the teacher of writing feels differently. What WATCHMAN tells us is that writers, even writers of Lee’s immense and astonishing powers, seldom if ever get it right the first time; it’s by swallowing their pride, accepting the limitations of their first efforts, and engaging in the arduous process of revision that writers are able to do what they do. With NaNo approaching—and with so many people both inside and outside the publishing industry rushing to put inferior work out there simply because the “market” demands it or electronic publishing facilitates it—I think it’s important to remember that drafts are just that. They exist for a reason, but they’re not ends in themselves.

I can’t wait to re-read MOCKINGBIRD, which I plan to do now that I've finished reading it in draft form. I haven't read it for years, and I’m eager to be reminded of what Lee’s persistence, humility, and hard work enabled her to produce.

YA Guy... Takes a Break!

YA Guy's been writing novels for over forty years.

Well, that's not entirely true. I started writing novels when I was a bit under ten, and I'm a bit over fifty now, but I didn't complete a novel until I was sixteen, and I took a major break from novel-writing between graduate school (when I was in my early twenties) and my mid-forties. Plus, you know, I take the occasional break to eat, sleep, spend time with my kids, and so forth.

But my point is, I've been writing for a long time. And particularly in the past five years, from the completion of the first draft of Survival Colony 9 in 2011 to the publication of Scavenger of Souls just last week, it sometimes feels as if I've been writing nonstop. No sooner have I completed one project than I've moved on to another. That's the writing life: you're either working on one thing or promoting something else (usually both at the same time). It's relatively easy work physically, but it can be exhausting mentally and emotionally.

So I've decided to take a little break. Roughly four months, to be precise. From now until the beginning of 2017, I won't be writing anything new.

The timing is actually quite good. My daughter's a high school senior, so we'll be driving her around to visit colleges and so forth this semester. I'm teaching five classes (one more than usual), so there'll be a bit of a time crunch there. Plus I'm traveling some to promote Scavenger of Souls, so that's another time commitment. I've heard back from my editor about my forthcoming YA science fiction novel, Freefall, and she wants only minor changes, not any major rewriting. And I'm scheduled to have a sabbatical this coming spring, so for a solid four months I'll be able to devote the full workday to my current work in progress, the YA historical horror novel I'm calling Polar.

When I resumed writing novels five years ago, I had no idea how much work it would be. How could I? Like many novice authors, I had the illusion that I'd write a book, it would become an instant bestseller, and I'd be able to sit back and collect royalty checks while leisurely producing my next classic.

Well, live and learn.

When I told my agent, with some trepidation, that I'd be taking a little break from writing, she had this to say:

I support this 100% and am here whenever you are ready. Writing ebbs and flows and I totally respect that you need time to revitalize. Do what you want to do – take your time – write when the mood strikes and know I am always here!

So now you know, for one, why she's my agent. But you also know why I needed this break. Writing does ebb and flow; authors do need time to revitalize. Much as I respect those writers who seem able to work pretty much nonstop, I'm not one of them. Each writer needs to recognize his/her own strengths and needs and limitations; otherwise, you run the risk of burning out for good.

I'll still be blogging from time to time--when the mood strikes--and you'll probably see me around on Twitter or Facebook or live and in person. I hope you'll read Scavenger of Souls, and I hope you're looking forward to Freefall. Down the road, I'm sure you can expect more from me, starting with Polar and moving on from there.

But for now, YA Guy's taking a break.

YA Guy... Feels Like a Failure!

A friend of mine feels like a failure.

She’s young, incredibly bright and personable, hugely talented. She’s in a graduate program, studying a subject she loves, and she’s surrounded by caring friends and family.

But she hasn’t been published yet.

I don’t know the specific details. She’s not ready to talk about them at the moment. I know she had an agent and was working on revising her manuscript, but I don’t know if the agent backed out, or the manuscript didn’t sell, or something else. All I know is, right now, she feels like a failure.

When she told me that, my first impulse was to try to talk her out of it. But as a parent, I’ve learned that you shouldn’t try to talk people out of their feelings. That’s a parental impulse, guided by the desire to protect one’s children from bad things in life (or to not have to deal with them oneself). When children are sad, or angry, or feel like failures, you should affirm that feeling and let them talk about it if they want to, give them a hug if they’ll let you. We can’t go around trying to pretend bad feelings don’t exist or aren’t valid or must be avoided.

So let’s talk. (I’m not able to give you a hug right now, sorry.) Let’s talk about feeling like a failure as a writer.

I felt that way for, oh, the first forty-eight years of my life (or at least the part of it I remember). That’s because I didn’t publish my first novel until I was forty-nine.

I had an offer from an agent when I was in my twenties, but she turned out to be a shyster. I had a few short stories published, mostly in online magazines, but all of my novel-length manuscripts went nowhere. I parted ways with an agent who told me she loved my manuscript, then turned around and told me it sucked. But it wasn’t until age forty-nine that I was published.

And you know what? Despite that, I still feel like a failure at times.

I feel like a failure when I get bad reviews like this recent one on Amazon: “Boring. No excitement. Waste of time. Hated it.” I feel like a failure when my books don’t make the bestseller list and some of my friends’ books do. I feel like a failure when my agent rejects a new manuscript of mine. I feel like a failure when I hold a signing and no one shows up.

All of these things, and far worse, happen to authors. And when they do happen, the authors in question feel like failures.

Do they feel as much like failures as people who haven’t been published yet? Maybe not. But what are we going to do, start ranking feelings?

I feel terrible for my friend, and for everyone who aspires to authorship but hasn’t gotten there yet. No one deserves to feel like a failure. Everyone, however, does feel that way sometimes.

If you feel that way most or all of the time, or about your whole self instead of just your writer-self, then you need to seek psychiatric help. I’m not being facetious. You might be clinically depressed, and if so, you’re at risk for self-damage.

But if you feel that way from time to time, and mostly about writing instead of about everything, you’re perfectly normal. Go ahead and feel that way. If it helps to talk to others about your feelings, do so. I guarantee they’ve shared them at one time or another. But if you’re not ready to talk, then simply allow yourself to feel the feeling, as much as it hurts to do so.

And if you need someone to give you a hug, don’t hesitate to ask.

YA Guy Says... Don't be a Taker!

In all walks of life, there are givers, and there are takers.

You know what I mean. There are people who are generous with their time and talents, and there are people who take advantage of that generosity.

In YA Guy's experience, it's no different with authors. There are some amazingly generous authors out there, people who are all too happy to help out their fellow authors in any way they reasonably can. And then there are those authors who take, take, take and give very little, if anything, in return.

So you have authors who happily read manuscripts, write blurbs, tweet about their fellows' books, attend launches, post reviews, and do everything they can--once again, within reason--for other members of their profession. And then you have authors who do . . . none of the above.

Note here that I'm talking about reasonable acts. We're all busy--some of us more so than others. We can't possibly write every blurb, read and review every book, tweet about every event we'd like to. For those authors who are on the bestseller lists, requests for their time, expertise, and brand far exceed what they can reasonably provide. For those of us who work full-time jobs while simultaneously maintaining a writing career, the requests are likely to be fewer but the time crunch every bit as great.

So no, I'm not saying that if you don't leap to fulfill every request, there's something wrong with you.

But I am saying there's something wrong with the author who NEVER reviews a peer's book, NEVER offers or agrees to read a manuscript-in-progress, NEVER celebrates in word or deed the accomplishments of others. Those are the authors who tweet incessantly and exclusively about their own books, who DM you to death about the books of theirs you should buy but never offer to provide anything for you, who would sooner fling themselves into a vat of crocodiles than read or review a fellow human being's words. There's something very wrong with those authors, and we as a community shouldn't tolerate them.

So YA Guy's here to say to you: don't be a taker. Be a giver. And be a giver for the right reasons--because it's the nice thing to do--and not for the wrong reasons--because you expect something in return. Chances are, if you're a sincere giver, you'll get the return anyway, so no worries there.

And when you meet a taker, pay them no heed. Spurn them. Have nothing to do with them. You might think, if you give enough, they'll come around. But they won't. It's not in their nature.

Seek out givers like yourself instead. They're a lot nicer to be around, and you'll feel a lot better about yourself when you share your giving nature with them.

YA Guy Looks Forward to... Fall!

YA Guy's a fall fan. The colors, the camping trips, the trick-or-treating (yes, I still dress up for Halloween and go out with my kids; see photo below). Fall just has a great feel for me, you know? Sometimes I get a rush of excitement just thinking about it.

Plus, lots of cool things are happening this fall: bookstore and bookshop appearances, NaNoWriMo, the YA Scavenger Hunt, a YA writers panel at a local library, and (to top it off) the Who in concert in late October! Plus SURVIVAL COLONY 9 turns one year old on September 23; keep an eye out for a big giveaway on that date. And (unless I miss my guess) I should be hearing some interesting things about SCAVENGER OF SOULS too. (A cover reveal, maybe? Here's hoping.) So I'm definitely gearing up for Fall 2015 in a big way!

But before I leave summer behind, I wanted to look back at some of the events and excitement that took place over the warm months. It's been a great summer, and here are some highlights to share!

VACATIONS!

My family and I went to Utah, which looks a lot like the landscape I imagined in SURVIVAL COLONY 9 and SCAVENGER OF SOULS. Then I traveled to Concord, Massachusetts for a two-week summer seminar, where I researched a historical novel I'm planning. Great times and great environments for a writer to be in!

WRITING!

In addition to finishing SCAVENGER OF SOULS and shipping it off to my editor, I've had a very active summer, writing-wise. A new group of Pittsburgh authors of children's literature has formed (with monthly meet-ups at local hangouts), and I've also hooked into a larger collective of Pittsburgh-area authors. (Pittsburgh, the literary epicenter of the world? Who knew?) I was also invited to be the keynote speaker at the Western Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of English (WPCTE) annual English Festival, where students in middle and high schools compete in trivia and writing contests based on works of literature they've read. (That won't take place until next May, but the invitation came this summer.) And finally, on Labor Day, traditionally seen as the end of summer, SURVIVAL COLONY 9 came out in paperback! So it's definitely been a summer filled with writing milestones!

BASEBALL!

It's no secret (or it shouldn't be, anyway) that I'm a huge baseball fan. (Remember the scene where Laman and Querry play catch? That was me and my son.) This summer, my family and I took in quite a variety of ball games--not only our hometown Pittsburgh Pirates, but the Pirates' AA affiliate in Altoona, PA and the Washington Nationals during a weekend trip to DC. Next summer, my son and I plan to travel throughout Pennsylvania watching as many Major League and Minor League games as we can!

I'm sure there was more stuff, but that'll do for now. Here's to a great summer, and here's looking forward to an even greater fall!