•I got these headphone earmuffs at the Snelling-Cornwell New Year Gift Exchange this year and THEY ARE AMAZING. They have fluffy faux fur on the inside so they bury your ears in, like, a universe of warmth, and the sound is somehow still just as good as my regular headphones. And they have a wintry knitted design on the outside and are super cute. They make my walk to school about ten million times more awesome.
•The music I listen to on my headphone earmuffs. I made this playlist for waking up (my iPod docks into my alarm clock) and walking to class, and because I’m an 8tracks addict now I posted it and very creatively titled it “waking up & walking to class.”
•My Betsey Johnson pajamas, purchased during a bout of Liz Lemony spinsterdom. They are comfy and warm and bright pink and loud and wonderful. Whenever I need an LL moment (which is pretty much every day) I don them and have a glass of wine from the super-cheap box in my fridge and watch TV with my cat, whose name is not Emily Dickinson but might as well be. (Note: I sometimes think I should add another E to my name so I can pretend my Betsey Johnson stuff is monogrammed, but I think it’s too late now with the author branding and whatnot having happened already. Whatever—close enough.)
•Downton Abbey. Downton. Fucking. Abbey. I’m always a little behind the curve on getting into great new shows, but I finally started watching this last week and I can’t imagine my life without it now—or at least it would be a cold, bleak, empty place, much like Thomas the footman’s heart. There are so many brilliant little plotlines going on at once, it’s well-written and smart and intense, and oh oh oh. And OH. I keep wanting to say more specific things but they all get spoilery, so just watch it.
•Teaching is as usual pretty great—though I think I’ve gotten myself into a lot of it this semester with my fiction class, TAing for Basics of Film & TV, and tutoring at the writing center. But I love all those things, and I’m especially excited to be teaching on film and television. It’s yet another field for me to fantasize about impractical PhDs in, and I kind of love teaching millions of freshmen. They’re so wide-eyed and adorable.
•Tides is on GoodReads now! By the time I noticed, a few people already had it on their “to read” lists, which is so awesome and weird. I would love for you to add Tides to your lists and/or friend me on GoodReads, of course.
•I just found out I’m a finalist for a Fulbright grant! All I want is to go to Ireland next year and write the sequel to Tides. Please, Fulbright, pretty please?
In the midst of winter I found there was within me an invincible summer.
I didn’t realize that, entirely, until I started thinking about this post.
But. Yes. Entirely unexpectedly, this became the best year I have ever had.
(aaaand…hit play up above, if you haven’t yet)
Winter:
On midnight of the new year, I was at a Black Keys concert in Chicago with my dear friend and sugar mama Sara (it’s good to have friends who are fancy lawyers, for multiple reasons). We drank champagne and kissed, each other and a few of the concert-goers around us, and I felt it was the perfect way to kick off a year I had vowed would be even bolder and more adventurous than the year before (which included a backpacking stint in Europe and a move halfway across the country, so I had a lot to top).
February mostly involved working together with my fellow MFAers, trying not to die under the permacloud (which, okay, may or may not literally exist, apparently, but is of great thematic significance). Our survival mostly hinged on drinking lots of wine, eating homemade ice cream, and calling for impromptu dance parties. Thus the Anya Marina.
The Alexi Murdoch concert at the end of February, however, is now the stuff of legend (or at least the stuff of which I would not shut up to my pen pals for several months, which is basically the same thing). I will not say any more about it here, but buy me a drink sometime and I’ll tell you a story. It’s a perfect memory.
Spring:
I was supposed to go to Puerto Rico; I wound up in Toronto instead. I’ve told you this story. There was a potential sad spring break ahead, but instead it was an adventure. It was fantastic. It reminded me of how much I love traveling alone, and how often I need to do it. It makes me automatically happy.
Then…hmm. The semester ended! Yay! “On Your Porch” and “Enemy” are my offical getting-out-of-South-Bend songs. That might seem a little harsh, but at least they’re good songs, right? And good to sing along to in the car as you get the heck out of somewhere.
I also visited my great aunt at her absurdly gorgeous farmhouse in Maryland.
See? Absurdly gorgeous. And I met a very friendly horse.
Summer:
Moved to New York City (which I thought would kill me but will always be my home now), got a fantastic agent, made delightful new friends and re-bonded with even better old ones, had a fabulous internship, gave a reading at a steampunk-themed bar, ate lots of sushi, watched movies in Bryant Park, went to museums, swooned a few times, spent far too much money…I have no end of things to say about what a blessing this summer was for me.
Fall:
I was so sad to go back to Notre Dame (and I’m counting the days until graduation) but I will freely admit that there are things I love about Our Lady: friends, teaching, and the writing center, namely. I taught my first class this past semester, a section of Fiction Writing, and it was delightful. Teaching is awesome, guys. I got to boss people around and make them write things, and I got to tell the bookstore which books to order. Oh, the power. The sweet corrupting power.
I went to two conferences for the Writing Center this fall (and was fully funded for both of them, thanks to some grants for underrepresented students, which I now count as the one benefit of being a bisexual student at a Catholic school), and they were both great fun. Writing center people are just super friendly and interesting and have a freakishly high awesomeness quotient. Truth.
It didn’t hurt that the first conference was in Madison, a fantastic hippie town that reminded me of Northampton, and the second was in Miami, of the beaches and sand and 80-degree November weather. I drank pina coladas on the beach with my boss and fellow tutors. We saw horseshoe crabs. We got sunburned. It was glorious.
And then—right—my book sold. My two books sold. I keep thinking I will figure out how to talk/write/think about that, but I still can’t. My biggest dream ever ever ever is now in the process of coming true. I just. I still don’t know what to say.
I worked out two teaching jobs for next semester, one teaching fiction again and one TAing in the film and television department (excited!), scraped through the end of the semester and my first round of novel edits, and headed for South Bend’s tiny, tiny airport.
I had two nights in New York City, just enough time to see some friends and publishing people and have a very unexpected adventure, then came back to my parents’ New Hampshire farmhouse for the holidays. And now it’s New Year’s Eve, and instead of dinner at a glamorous Chicago restaurant and tickets to a concert, I’ll be drinking beer and whisky with my dad’s hunting friends. I’m excited.
Last year my resolution was to say yes to more things, to be bolder and braver and more foolish. I’m happy to say I have done all these things (especially the foolish part). This year I will make the same resolution. I want to have adventures and make mistakes and be awesome. (I think the third statement necessarily involves or follows from the first two).
It made me especially happy, then, to see that Neil Gaiman (one of my tip-top writer role models) wishes mistakes for all of us this year. Read his New Year Wish —like him, it is brilliant and wonderful and right-headed.
If I have a wish for you, though, it’s one he made for all of us ten years ago. I can’t think of any better things to happen in the coming year.
I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art.
Happy 2012, everyone, and may we all make lots of mistakes.
The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide by Eva Talmadge & Justin Taylor
I have a rule that I have to decide on a tattoo idea and stick with it for at least a year—and for a long time, I’d change my plan for my first tattoo every six months or so, which means I’ve still never gotten one. While that may change soon (I’m closing in on a year with the same plan), I’ve always admired beautifully-done tattoos, and this book is full of them. They’re even better since they reference the bearers’ favorite books and authors, and the pictured tattoos in this book come with names and commentaries from both authors and tattoo-havers. I especially admire the text tattoos, because I have a paralyzing fear of grammatical errors and misspellings that would prevent me from ever potentially inflicting one on my skin. I’ll stick to typo-free images, I think.
The Boneshaker by Kate Milford
When I talked with my editor at Clarion (!) for the first time, we were mostly thinking about Tides, my first book, but ideas for my current project, a steampunk retelling of Cinderella, were in the works too. She said she especially liked my ideas for Mechanica because she loves girls who invent things, and she mentioned The Boneshaker, another steampunky girl-inventor story from Clarion. I’m reading it right now, and it’s beautifully written, absorbing, and full of an entertaining Americana version of steampunk (which is often quite Brit-flavored). It has a nice balance of grit and magical elements, too. It’s also gorgeously illustrated, which is one of my dearest wishes for Mechanica. It’s a fantastic book so far, and it makes me surer than ever that Clarion is the right place for me and my first two babies books.
Writing books is really hard; writing query letters might be harder. They’re only one page long, but they have to pack all the things you care about in your book into a tiny pitch that will convince a busy and savvy agent (or their intern) that you’re worth their time. It’s intimidating and high-stakes and weird, and for many authors (myself included) the idea of selling your first book is even scarier than writing the book in the first place.
When I was querying I read as many examples of successful query letters as I could, so I thought I’d share the one that worked for me here. I also interned at an agency this summer, where I often read hundreds of query emails a day. Yep, hundreds. After the letter, I’ll tell you a little about the formula of professional query letters (they’re a lot like resume cover letters), how I wrote mine, and what I looked for this summer.
Here it is:
Dear Ms. Crowe,
I hope you will consider representing my young adult novel Tides, complete at 71,000 words. Like Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver and Franny Billingsley’s The Folk Keeper,Tides is a darkly atmospheric novel that gives a fresh, romantic perspective to a shape-shifter legend. The Recent Deals page on your website lists a dark mermaid novel, Syrenka, as well as two New England-set books, Nantucket Blue and Lovely, Dark, and Deep. Tides focuses on the Celtic ocean lore of selkies, set on the Isles of Shoals, remote islands off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire. Tides weaves magical realism and coming-of-age romance into the story of a marine science student who must betray his mentor to save the family of the selkie girl he loves.
When Noah Gallagher moves into his grandmother’s ramshackle island cottage for the summer, he doesn’t expect much in the way of adventure. His internship at the local research aquarium is the first step toward his lifelong dream of becoming a marine biologist, and he plans on spending every minute working toward that dream. But soon Noah meets Mara, a mysterious young woman who shows him a secret world of selkie shape-shifters and ancient magic. When Mara’s mother and Noah’s grandmother reveal their decades-long romance, Mara and Noah are thrown into an unlikely friendship and budding romance of their own. And when they discover that Noah’s mentor at the aquarium is kidnapping selkies and experimenting on their sealskins, Noah must prove his innocence to Mara, and the two must fight to save her family.
As a columnist and editor at Teen Ink Magazine, I often heard from teens who wanted real literary substance in the fantasy and paranormal books they love. I wrote Tides with that audience in mind. While I recently left Teen Ink to pursue an MFA in creative writing, the magazine still offers a ready publicity platform for my writing. My fairy tale retelling “Autopsy” was shortlisted for the 2010 Aeon Award, and some of my previous publishing credits include Fickle Muses, Labrys, The Violence Prevention Initiative Journal, Fresh Writing, and Scars Publications’ anthology Echo. I graduated from Smith College with a degree in English and concentrations in folklore and creative writing. I am currently enrolled in the MFA program at the University of Notre Dame.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and please let me know if you are interested in Tides. This is a multiple submission. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Betsy Cornwell
As I said, it’s a pretty standard professional letter in a lot of ways, and I think that’s actually important. If you’re very funny (and your book is too) you could start with a hook instead of a straightforward line like mine, but I thought that was too much of a risk, and I never felt super confident about my query-writing skills at the time. (After this summer I feel much better. Many of your querying competitors will be completely insane.)
Anyway, if you want to go standard, open with your genre, title, and word count (to the nearest thousand). For me, that was “young adult novel, Tides, complete at 71,000 words.” See? Easy. It’s important to mention that your book is complete, too—you’re wasting an agent’s time if you query an unfinished manuscript. It will make her cross and you will be much less likely to get her attention when you and your book are really ready for it.
Next, it’s a good idea to mention other books that you feel overlap with your manuscript’s potential market—ideally they were published not too long ago and were in some way successful (bestsellers, awards, etc.). This is a place to prove you know your market, not to claim you’ve got the next Harry Potter. I explain my reasons for mentioning the books I do: “a darkly atmospheric novel that gives a fresh, romantic perspective to a shape-shifter legend.” Boom.
You should also say something about why you’ve chosen to query this agent in particular. This proves you’ve done your research and you’re not just sending out a massive form letter (though you should have a basic query letter template that you simply personalize for each agent and modify according to their submission guidelines). My letter mentions two of Sara’s recent deals (listed on her website) that sounded as if they had things in common with Tides.
The last line of the first paragraph should (I think) be your log line, a one-sentence pitch for your book. These are so so hard to write. If you’re not done with your novel yet but are impatient to find an agent, work on polishing your log line whenever you feel the need to query an incomplete manuscript. I still think mine is kind of cheesy, but what can you do: “a marine science student must betray his mentor to save the family of the selkie girl he loves.” Ideally the log line is twenty words or less and includes some kind of tension and motivation. This is also a place to wedge in some other genres that your book might fit into (fantasy, romance, etc.).
The second paragraph is a summary of your manuscript, and the tone should be something like the cover copy on the back of a published novel. I focused on my main character’s motivations to begin with, then moved as quickly as I could into the main conflicts of the story—though honestly, I probably should have gotten to the action a little faster. I think I struggled with that because my book is more character- than action-oriented, so maybe that comes through. In any case, this should hopefully be a concise and intriguing summary.
I also kept hearing it’s a good idea to say what your characters “must” do—it shows their motivations in a clear way and it’s oh so dramatic. I usually end up hearing my book summaries in Summer Movie Announcer Guy voice (“in a world…”) but still, it’s helpful to think about what your characters must do because it lets you see what’s most important in your story.
Your third paragraph is like a mini-resume, stating any previous publications or platforms you might have, relevant work and educational experience, etc. It should stay professional, so don’t say “my mom/brother/friend/teacher/hamster says I’m a great writer and it’s crazy I’m not published already.” This makes you sound obnoxious and pretentious, and writers are obnoxious and pretentious enough as it is (hello!). So again, this is a resume in short paragraph form.
Finally, thank the agent for taking the time to read your query letter, and if you like, express your excitement about hearing back from her. If you’ve included sample pages (which you should do according to each agent’s submission guidelines—Sara didn’t ask for sample pages), mention them here, too. Example: “I’ve included [or attached, but most agents prefer you paste them into the body of the email] the first X pages of My Novel, as requested on the X Agency website.”
You should also mention that yours is a simultaneous submission, meaning that you’re querying more than one agent at a time. Don’t say this if you aren’t submitting simultaneously, of course, but—submit simultaneously. It can take agents months to reply to query letters, and many don’t reply at all to their rejections. I did rounds of five to ten agents at a time, and even though that brought me the joys of rejection upon rejection some days, it also got me through the whole experience faster.
A lot of rejection is, unfortunately, part of the game. Just think of it as giving you a thicker skin for your dating life.
That’s my breakdown of the query letter formula—I hope you’ve found it helpful! I’ll write more about the agent-finding process in the future, because I know I found those kinds of posts so useful when I was going through it.
Also, feel free to read the highly embarrassing story of the first time I met Sara on her client blog, Crowe’s Nest.
So. Here in The Bend, we have this thing called the permacloud that settles in every winter, and it’s just as horrifying as it sounds. I’m looking ahead to four months without sunshine in what, last winter, I started calling The Catholic Flatland Snowglobe Prison in all my letters to my beloved penpal Alex.
But no! I will be positive!
Because, despite my insistence that I hate the cold, I keep going to schools where it’s a frequent visitor. And really, there are things I love about winter. Starting with this here playlist I made just for you.
Some of my favorite things, like my favorite things in life, are reading, writing, knitting, cooking bad-for-you rich wintry food—and if there’s a crackling fireplace in the background for any of these activities, so much the better. (And I think we can all acknowledge that there are other favorite activities that go well with crackling fireplace backgrounds, too.)
I love cardigans and scarves and buffalo plaid (I’m a waspy New Englander, so I hope you’ll forgive me for that last one). I love flannel and boots and layers.
I love whisky and cocoa and anything mulled.
And oh how I love ‘White Christmas’—just in case that wasn’t clear from my last video post. And ‘Love Actually.’ And ‘It’s A Wonderful Life.’ And even more those stop-motion movies—when I was a kid I was a little in love with stop-motion Kris Kringle from ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town.’ (Why I just confessed to a crush on a doll in this public forum, I have no idea.)
I love presents, getting and/or giving and especially making: the aforementioned knitting and sea-salt caramels and preserves this year. Winter is primo present time.
There’s even something I love, for the first part of the season at least, about coming in from the cold. Cheeks tingling, face rosy, tea waiting to brew, blankets ready to wrap in for reading or movie-watching with the snow outside.
And to top it all off, I recently learned that I am ‘a winter.’ (But also, apparently, a summer. Just like Cordelia! OMG! —oh dear, and to think I’d gone so many posts without a weird Buffy reference…)
But coming in from the cold is only worth the cold itself for a little while, and by the New Year all I want is to be warm in the sun again. I know from last year’s posts that by February I was more than a little stir-crazy, so this list is a bit of preventive medicine. Whatever kind of winter you’re going to deal with this year, I feel your pain.
Go mull something. We’ll get through this together.
In which I talk about Danny Kaye much more than is necessary. Also in which I had to cut out a whole lot of just staring at my webcam, lost for words. The book is happening?
I’ve known for sure since Wednesday, and I’ve been gradually finding out for about three weeks, but it wasn’t on Publishers Marketplace ’til today so I had to keep it to myself (or at least off the internet). But now I can tell you, even though no amount of exclamation points or flashy blog designs will be able to convey my happiness:
My first two books are getting published.
From Publishers Marketplace:
Twenty-three-year-old Betsy Cornwell’s debut TIDES, about eighteen-year-old Noah who moves to New Hampshire’s remote Isles of Shoals for a marine biology internship, where he learns of his grandmother’s romance with a selkie woman, falls for the selkie’s daughter, and must work with her to rescue her siblings from his mentor’s cruel experiments, to Lynne Polvino at Clarion, in a two-book deal, by Sara Crowe at Harvey Klinger (World English).
The first is coming out in spring 2013, with my current WIP, a steampunk Cinderella, hopefully to follow within a year. (So yeah, NaNoWriMo is carrying a little more weight than usual this time around.)
I am still trying to figure all of this out. I’ve spent a lot of time building up my idea of myself as a writer just trying trying trying so hard to get published, and it feels a bit like I’ve been bashing my head against a giant wall these last years and now that wall has disappeared. It is so strange. And so good. So much more than good.
I’m trying to write how I feel about it, but I actually, actually can’t. This is the thing I have wanted more than anything else my whole life. Not that it is in any sense done yet—there are so many things I want to do for these books to make them their best & to find them readers, and then there are all the other million books I want to write. But I’m not going to worry about any of that exactly now. I think about entries like this:
all about doubting and wondering and trying to figure out if I was setting myself up for a lifetime of slamming my head against a wall, and I am just so happy and grateful.
I don’t know how to wrap this up, but you get the idea. I am so, so, so happy.
I spent the first weekend of November in Miami at the National Conference on Peer Tutoring and Writing, presenting on speed dating, swimming, and beach-frolicking with my fellow tutors and our writing center’s director (also known as the best human any of us will ever meet). Basically, it was terrible. You certainly should not be jealous.
I’m Betsy. I write things. My first novel, Tides, is forthcoming from Clarion/HMH in spring 2013. It’s a young adult fantasy about selkies, set on the Isles of Shoals off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire. My second novel, Mechanica, is a middle grade steampunk retelling of Cinderella coming in 2014, also from Clarion. [...]more →
