How to Write a Chapter in Six Weeks OR what to do after you get a seven-page editorial letter

1. Fiddle with the original first chapter for a while, holding on tight, allowing only for a shift of a sentence or two, a shuffling up of a paragraph,

because you spent so much time working and reworking those scenes and if you let them go, then what? A whole new chapter from scratch? no. way.

Set a goal to revise the chapter in a week.
Fail.

(Maybe you can't do this anymore. Maybe the book's no good at the core. Maybe you should write a different book and forget this one.)

2. Realize you've got to let go of the first chapter. The first three chapters, I mean,

because when you set all of that up, you were writing a different book from the one this story has morphed into. Also, since we're being honest here, most of it is backstory anyway, stuff you had to figure out about your character, the things that made her who she is, never mind all of the other characters, the place, the voice.

Set a goal to write a new chapter in a week.
Fail.

(Maybe you can't write this book. Maybe you don't want to write this book. Maybe books are pointless in this world.)

3. Complain to your critique partner, to your writing group, to David Levithan at a publishing dinner party. Nod along as they all basically tell you the same thing. Stop overthinking it. Just write. Play around for a while. Trust the process. (Although David Levithan admits that he has never received a seven-page editorial letter.

Thanks, David Levithan)

Set a goal to play around with the first chapter for a week.
Fail.

4. Imagine an alternate reality for yourself where you quit writing. It involves selling other people's books and walking the dog three times a day and marching against injustice.

5. Imagine the reality where you keep writing this book because that is what you do who are we kidding here

6. Set a goal to write one terrible paragraph. In pencil. In ten minutes.
Succeed.

7. Write another paragraph

and another
and another
and another
and another
and another

until you finish Chapter One.

8. Take a breath. Time to begin Chapter Two.

Books that Sucked Me in and Blew My Mind

Lately, I have been a good book reading roll, which is a nice roll to be on when you are NOT on a good writing roll. During the day I (mostly) struggle to meet my writing goals, but at night, I know I can curl up with a great book and all is right again in the world. You would think it would not be satisfying to read a good book during the time you fear you are writing a bad one, but you would be wrong.

It's actually the opposite.

Reading "bad" books makes me tired. Each page is a chore. I was reading a book that shall not be named for my book club. The first night I picked it up, read two pages, and fell asleep. The next few nights the same thing happened. I think I got up to ten pages and finally set it aside.

Compare that to how I felt when I was reading Courtney Summers' This is Not a Test.

From the very first page, I was sucked in, and then I was turning pages--but not so fast that I would miss anything. Here's the premise: it's the end of the world. Zombies are attacking the town and the few kids who've managed to evade death/zombiehood hole up together in the local high school. Now, I know what you're thinking: zombies? another end of the world book? Bleh. But this is the brilliant Courtney Summers we are talking about. Turns out the main character had been planning to kill herself that morning and the end of the world feels like a relief.

There is nothing cooler than a thought-provoking page turner and this one had me thinking long after I closed the book: What's the point of living? How do you fight for survival when you don't want to survive? Can a damaged girl on the verge of giving up, find hope in the worst of circumstances? Read a book like this and you are reminded why you write in the first place.

I am not a big graphic novel fan. I should amend that to say I haven't read many graphic novels. If you are new to the genre too, here is a good one to try: Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang.

It takes place during the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1898. It's actually two books, companions, that tell the same story from characters on the opposite side of the war. First, we meet Bao in Boxers and sympathize quickly with his plight. He is one of the Chinese peasants who rises up against the foreigners, many of whom happen to be Christian missionaries. In Saints we see the struggle from the other point of view, a girl named Four Girl, who is drawn to Christianity, but not for reasons you'd expect. When the two meet, it is a moment of horror and heartbreak that I don't think I have ever experienced before while reading a book.

I have been a big fan of David Levithan ever since I read Everyday. His latest, Two Boys Kissing, is stunning and ground breaking.

The main story is two boys decide to break the record for the world's longest kiss. But there are other stories too, of boys going on their first date and a boy who is repulsed by his own sexual identity and contemplating ending his life. The narrator is a Greek chorus of men who have died from AIDs, looking down at the events with sympathy and pity and fear and joy.

I've seen many reviews of this book, but none have discussed the thing that stood out most to me: the most perfect bit of writing I've ever seen--that should be given to any human who ever contemplates ending his own life:

"Sometimes perspective comes far too late. You cannot trust yourself....you cannot live for anyone else's sake. ...you cannot stay alive for your parents. You cannot stay alive for your friends. And you have no responsibility to stay alive for them. You have no responsibility to anyone but yourself to live. 
But I'm dead, he would say to us. I'm already dead.
No, we'd argue. No, you are not. ...your future self is still alive. You have a responsibility to your future self, who is someone you might not even know, might not even understand yet. Because until you die, that future self has as much life as you do."

This book will stay with you long after you close it.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness is KILLING me.

I've been listening to it on audio and let me say here that audio books are art forms in and of themselves. Whoever is reading this one is awesome. He does various voices, including a dog, and has me alternately laughing and almost crying. Confession: I have not finished listening to this book. I can't think of a time when this has ever happened to me--that I love a book and am completely caught up in it and yet I cannot bear to pick it up again because I am so invested in the characters and so worried about what is going to happen to them.

Brief synopsis: it's a weird world where there's a small town populated only by men. All the women died after some kind of alien virus and the men caught what they call The Noise, the ability to hear each other's thoughts. It's driven most of them to suicide, but the few who are left, are struggling, and this is the world that Todd Hewitt has been born into. When we meet Todd, he's walking around with his dog Manchee, annoyed and bored and so tired of listened to the noise. He can hear the dog's thoughts too but that's not very exciting. The dog mostly says stuff like, "Pooh, Todd, pooh."

Everything changes for Todd when he meets a girl, a girl whose thoughts he can't hear, and that pretty much starts Todd (and Manchee) off on a non-stop nail-biting journey where Todd realizes fairly quickly that everything he's been told about himself and his world is a lie.

Oh my God, I love this dog. Anyone who has read this book, please please please tell me that nothing happens to him. (Shoot. I know something bad is going to happen to him. Which is why I am afraid to keep listening.)

And last, but definitely not least:

Sex & Violence by Carrie Mesrobian.

This novel was one of the finalists for the Morris, (the award given to best YA debut novel), and deservedly so. I finished reading it a few weeks ago and I still can't stop thinking about it. It's the main character Evan--how real and tormented and complex and floundery he is, but it's also the world, this small town in Minnesota, a lake with an island that no one is allowed to visit, and the group of kids that become Evan's first friends.

If you've heard about this book, what you've probably heard about is the edgy topic at the core: the um, sex and violence. It's true. The book is edgy and dark and kind of in your face about it. When we meet Evan, he's settling into yet another school (his single dad--who reminds me of the single dad in September Girls, another great book--moves around a lot, and so Evan never gets to stay in any place too long.) Evan's coping mechanism is to not get too close to anyone, unless you count hooking up with a string of  "easy" girls.

This strategy backfires in a big way when Evan is beaten up by a conquest's ex-boyfriend, beaten up so badly he ends up in the hospital. His dad takes him back to Minnesota, the dad's childhood home, to recuperate, and it is a long period of recuperation for Evan--grappling with a physical recovery and post traumatic stress, but also struggling with guilt and the role he may have played in the events leading up to his attack. There's more here too about father and son relationships, and relationships between men and women, and the true consequences of violence and of sex that may make some readers uncomfortable, but made me so very grateful that a book like this exists to ask the questions.

Highly recommend.

Not Just Any High School Party (A Review of Adele Griffin's All You Never Wanted)

Some books are easier than others to pitch in a sentence or two. Take the new YA novel Every Day by David Levithan: Every morning the main character wakes up in someone else's body and must live the day out as that person. Kind of a Quantum Leap meets Ground Hog's Day. Editors (and the publishing company marketing team) love high concept books like this. It's way easier to sell a book that you can explain in a few seconds. Writers conferences I've been to even hold sessions about crafting what they call elevator pitches. (Just in case you ever find yourself on an elevator with the agent of your dreams--how can you best sum up your manuscript in the time it takes before you get to the next floor?)

Of course, the best novels go way beyond the initial concept. If I tell you that John Green's book The Fault in our Stars is a love story about kids with cancer, and you have no idea who John Green is, you might be a tad reluctant to pick up the book. (But please DO pick it up, because you SHOULD know who John Green is. And The Fault in our Stars is brilliant and heartbreaking and yet somehow hilarious).

One of my favorite books of all time, How I Live Now, is hard to pin down in a paragraph, never mind a sentence. I can't even tell you what genre it is. Post Apocalyptic? Fantasy? Romance? Adventure? After I read it, I pretty much just sat there stunned, rereading the last page because I didn't ever want the world of the book to end. It wasn't until later that I wondered how the heck Meg Rosoff managed to snag the attention of an editor. This was her first novel (for which she deservedly won the Printz Award), so she probably had to do a bit of pitching and querying and synopsis-ing.

Maybe you'd call a book like this low-concept. Whenever I come across a good one of these, the only thing I can think to do is stick the book in your hands and say, Trust me, read it!

But because I am attempting to act like a book reviewer, (also I don't know you and have no way to actually stick a book in your hands), I will do my best to describe this awesome book I read the other day, All You Never Wanted by Adele Griffin. (Pathetic digression: I am ashamed to admit that I've never read a book by this author before, never, uh, heard of her until a few weeks ago. Ridiculous, because I pride myself on how much YA fiction I read, and tragic, because Adele Griffin is a really really good writer; I scrolled around her website and it looks like All You Never Wanted is her 18th book! and I've now got to get busy checking all the others out.)

The blurb on the back of the book plays up the sibling rivalry between sisters Alex and Thea. They're living a fairy tale life in upscale Greenwich, Connecticut, (their single mom recently married a bazillionaire tycoon) but there's turmoil under the surface. Older sister Alex is beautiful and popular and seems to have it all. Thea is brilliant and envious, coveting Alex's enviable life, which also includes Alex's boyfriend, and she'll do anything to get it. Cue soap-opera-y music.

But this book is not a soap opera. The narrative moves back and forth between the two sisters' points of view. Yes, Alex is beautiful, but she's struggling big time with crippling anxiety. Her boyfriend's a great guy, sticking by her even though she's falling apart, but on the other hand, he's sort of a loser too. Why does Thea like him so much anyway? And why is a smart girl like Thea using her brainpower in such destructive ways? None of these characters are what they seem.

And here's something funny that just occurred to me: there is a fast-moving, page-turnery plot at the core of this book, but when you scrape away the details, what you're mainly left with is two girls planning a party. But this is like saying that all of Jane Austin's books are about planning weddings.

Oh, there is so much more going on than a party (even though it is a party of epic proportions). I was biting my nails and worrying over these people, because they do seem like real people, watching as the inevitable (yet somehow unexpected) end approached. There is real love (and lust) involved. There's also real drama and heartbreak. And evil. Geez, what people will do to hurt each other, especially the ones closest to them. When I closed the book, I was breathing fast, and my head is still churning with how it all ended up. Not sure how in the world Adele Griffin pitched this manuscript to her editor. Teen drama? Romance? Psychological horror?

Whatever. I give up.

Please. Trust me. Read it. And then give me a call so I can talk about it with someone!

Books That Are Easy to Fall into (and books that aren't)

I wish I knew what it is exactly about a book that makes it an effortless read. I suspect it has something to do with voice. Some authorial voices seem so, um, authorial. From page one, maybe from sentence one, you know that you're in the hands of an expert. This writer knows what she's doing, where the story's going, who these characters are. A few pages in and you're under the spell. She can take you anywhere, and you'll go.

Meeting an author like this is rare for me. Usually I have to work a little to meet her halfway. (And even more often, sadly, I question taking the journey at all. A recovering Catholic-slash-English teacher, I still struggle with the guilt involved in quitting on a book I don't like. What is that quote by Dorothy Parker about bad books? Okay, I just looked it up: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown aside with great force.")

But I don't want to talk about bad books. Or my sometimes violent feelings toward them. I want to talk about good ones. Specifically two really good books I read in the past week, one that I fell into immediately and one that took a tad more effort. Both, very much worth the trip.

Every Day by David Levithan will be out the end of this month and I urge you to make a note of it and buy it for the intelligent, thoughtful teen in your life (or for you!)

The premise is cool. A boy wakes every day in the body of a different 16 year old. Every day he has to figure out who and where "he" is. (Sometimes he is a she.) He's been living like this for as long as he can remember so he's come to terms with the bizarre, nomadic lifestyle, trying to do the best he can to treat his guest body with respect--follow his host's schedule, do his homework, avoid risky behavior. And he never, ever gets too attached to anyone. Because why bother? He won't be here tomorrow.

There are lots of thought-provoking, philosophical questions raised here and Levithan doesn't shy away from any of them. How do you live a life when you only have the day ahead of you? What makes a person who he or she is? What is important when you literally can't take anything with you? And what happens when you fall in love?

The results are both beautiful and heartbreaking. The whole time I was reading, I was absorbed and totally caught up in the world. Anxious, too. Not just about this sweet, very real character and the love of his messed-up life, but also because the niggling part of me that is a writer and never quite turns that off was wondering if Levithan would be able to pull off the brilliant plot he'd set in motion. How can there be a satisfying ending to a book that doesn't seem to be leading toward a happy one?

I won't give the answer away (because I really really think you should read this book!) but believe me when I say that the ending is perfect. I actually started crying when it hit me about two seconds before I came to it. If you still need a push toward your local bookstore on August 28, I leave you with this: my teen daughter snatched my copy away when I was finished, and now it's marked up and highlighted with her favorite passages. PS. I am sorry, David Levithan, that I let a free, advanced copy slip out of my hands! I promise I will buy the book too when it comes out, give it as gifts, etc. Though I suspect it will have much success without any help from me.

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler is already on the shelves and winning awards, but in case you haven't heard of it, here is its clever premise: A girl named Min, still reeling from her traumatic break up with popular Ed, boxes up all of the mementos of that relationship and dumps them off on Ed's doorstep with an explanatory note--which is this book. Oh, and there are cool illustrations by Maira Kalman of all of the items Min is returning to Ed. Stuff like bottle caps and ticket stubs and stolen sugar containers.

The story is hilarious (which shouldn't be too surprising. Daniel Handler also goes by the name of Lemony Snicket, author of the Series of Unfortunate Events books.) But what may be surprising to Lemony Snicket fans is how heartbreaking and raw and honest Handler can be. Min's break up story is everyone's break up story. (There are some funny quotes about first break-ups on the back flap from authors like Sara Zarr and M.T Anderson and, coincidentally, David Levithan, who writes: "The boy I loved didn't know I existed. Then again, he was obsessed with Camus, so he didn't know if any of us existed.")

I'm not sure why Why We Broke Up took longer to reel me in. But again, I think it may have something to do with voice. In this case Min's voice is so outraged and breathless and rant-y and specific, it can sometimes be hard to follow. There are paragraphs that go on for pages and sentences that go on for paragraphs. But somewhere along the way it all came together for me, and I was in Min's quirky head. Okay, maybe she isn't exactly "everyone." She's "arty" as Ed likes to say; different. She marches to the beat of her own drummer, which is probably what drew Ed to her in the first place. But could a guy like him ever really get and appreciate a girl like Min?

No. And good riddance, Ed. You don't deserve her.

This book had me alternately laughing out loud and reliving the angsty pain of my own sad teen break ups. Get your hands on a copy, STAT, and give it a chance to hook you too. The ending, like the one in Every Day, is both unpredictable and perfect.