Karen Harrington's favorite rejection

by Joan

I met Karen Harrington several years ago when she spoke about her book Janeology at the Writers' Guild of Texas. She's been a good friend of our blog and we were lucky to have her guest post a while back. I'm so pleased she's back for another guest post, and this time on the eve of the launch of her new novel, Sure Signs of Crazy. 

From her website:

You've never met anyone exactly like twelve-year-old Sarah Nelson. While most of her classmates geek out over Harry Potter, she writes letters to Atticus Finch. Her best friend is a plant. And she's never known her mother, who has lived in a mental institution since Sarah was two.

Sarah and her dad have spent the last decade moving from one Texas town to another, and she's never felt truly at home...until now. This is the story of on extraordinary summer in which Sarah gets her first real crush, new friends, and the answers she's always been looking for. 

Early buzz:

"Don't think this will be a hard sell to readers...for Harrington has created a protagonist who is, in her own way, as clear-eyed, tough-minded, and inspiring as any dystopian hero." (Booklist, starred review)

"Readers intrigued by the premise of this moving story will sympathize with the plucky protagonist and rejoice in the way her summer works out." (Kirkus, starred review)

"Sure signs of crazy is knowing, hilarious, and tender. Karen Harrington's character portrait of Sarah Nelson is one for the ages." (Pat Conroy, bestselling author of The Prince of Tides and My Reading Life.)

MY FAVORITE REJECTION

By Karen Harrington

 

Years ago when my children were ages one and two, I received a life changing phone call. I was mopping the floor at the time and Sesame Street played on the TV. “We’d like to publish your novel!” said the voice on the phone. Those are the words every aspiring writer longs to hear. I’d been waiting to hear them all my life.

I dropped my mop.

One year later, I was ecstatic at the release of my first adult novel, Janeology, published by Kunati Books. And one year after that, Kunati Books closed. My novel went out of print almost as fast as it came out.

Chalking this up to experience, I got busy writing a new novel. Around the time I finished the new work, I got a nice letter from a reader of Janeology. “After the mother is sent to a mental institution, what happened to the little girl?” the letter asked.

Interesting question, I thought, and then pushed the idea aside. After all, I still had to polish my other novel. And get an agent. Who had time for interesting questions?

After sending out scores of queries and collecting scores of rejections, I got what I now refer to as My Favorite Rejection. The agent loved the writing, but said, “I don’t know who would buy this.” It was that agonizing rite of passage every writer I know has crossed. It happens when an agent says “this is close, but not quite there.” And then she added a sentence to her rejection that made it unforgettable: “The solution for you is easy. Just write another novel.”

What?!

I said a lot of mean things to my computer screen.

This happened close to November, which is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I’d participated in this month-long challenge before and decided to write that “easy” novel and get the agent’s voice out of my head. I cast about for an idea and decided that, like the reader who emailed me months back, I, too, was curious about what happened to the little girl in Janeology.

Fueled by caffeine and indignance, I wrote about a spunky, word-loving, twelve-year-old girl finding hope and courage despite living in the dark shadows of an infamous, mentally ill mother. Like all first drafts, it was a fine mess. But I loved the character and wanted to work on it.

That novel turned into what is now SURE SIGNS OF CRAZY, which will be released tomorrow by Little, Brown Books. Many writers cite the one story that is their “heart” book. SURE SIGNS OF CRAZY is my heart book.

Of course, I have a different perspective about that agent and her irritating rejection. Her advice turned out to be one of the great gifts of my life, which is why it will always be my favorite rejection. Ultimately, she gave me confidence by suggesting I should keep writing and not give up.  

Now, because I owe a lot to writer friends who’ve supported and inspired me (including the writers here at What Women Write) I share my rejection anecdote in the spirit of encouragement. Just in case you are thinking of giving up, don’t.

Don’t give up until you’ve found the right story. DO NOT GIVE UP. You might be at the point where the advice “just write another novel” is frustratingly necessary. You might be on the verge of writing your heart book.

And I, for one, want to read it.

Joan here. Thanks, Karen, for sharing that wonderful story! Inspiring! 

Readers, you can find her book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indie Bound.

Eating and drinking and writing ... oh, my!

A sampling of goodies at The Grand Tasting.

By Pamela

This past weekend I had the good fortune of attending Culinaria--a weekend festival in San Antonio devoted to food. Yep. It was a tough gig.

A group of about 15 of us spent Thursday through Sunday hopping from one marvelous event after another. We attended a food truck competition in a parking lot. Donned hats and aprons for a morning at culinary school at the Culinary Institute of America (or CIA, as they call it). Together we sat at private meals hosted by the hippest hottest restaurants in town. We even got VIP access to The Grand Tasting--which was aptly named, if you ask me. And did I mention wine? And tequila? And craft beer? No great meal goes down without the perfect beverage.

My fellow attendees were all writers--journalists, I suppose is more accurate, but that hat looks different today than it did when I started writing years ago.

Meet Ali, a young writer at GimmeSomeOven.com who just turned 30 and has successfully carved out an online niche for herself in the vast world of food bloggers.

Andie, me and Ali at culinary school.

And then there's Andie, another blogger who's not quite 30 and already has a book deal with a division of Random House--a memoir of her journey from overweight teen to svelte young woman. An ordeal that spanned a 135-pound weight loss. And did I mention she's graced the cover of Woman's World magazine? Check out her blog at CanYouStayForDinner.com.

Lynn and Cele, a married couple from North Carolina (they regularly hang with Pat Conroy!) who are travel journalists, were two of the best dinner companions you'll ever meet.

Another couple, Greg and Moran, work as a team as well--she as a graphic designer, he as a writer. Again, lovely people with a new baby on the way. (We were campaigning hard in Moran's corner for the name Flannery over his choice of Kit.)

I could list everyone but the point is--writers come from all walks of life and find work in all manner of venues. The one thing they have in common is passion. Passion for the written word, regardless of how it's read, and passion for telling their stories. I came away from the event inspired and hopeful for my own writing career. Part of that includes beefing up my online image and exploring options for travel writing--something I've always wanted to do. But most of all I realized once again that writing is not a solitary pursuit. Our work grows when we get out among other writers who share our crazy life and wouldn't have it any other way.

It's the STORY, stupid!

By Susan


I had an “ah-ha moment” recently that has made a huge difference in how, and why, I write. It’s nothing new, and I am not the first to figure this one out. It’s no secret, but by making a small shift in my approach, I am able to look at writing in a totally different light.

It’s all about the story.

Now, that may not seem too earth-shattering. Why else do people read, but to uncover a new tale, something fresh and insightful? Yet when I started my first attempt at a novel, I got lost in the words and forgot what I was writing. It went something like this: I had an idea. Then I added characters, built a basic plotline in my head, and started, with furrowed brow and calloused fingers, to write it down.

The problem was that I obsessed about the verbiage and phrasing, the rewriting and editing, instead of focusing on just telling the story. I was paying attention to the words, not the plot. I wanted each sentence to be perfectly crafted, each paragraph a song. I could see pretty little chapters, wrapped like gifts to form a succinct and flawless novel. In my head, it was all about the writing of it, not about the plot. And it was painfully and shockingly bad.

I never finished that one, with all my obsessions about word choices and sentence structure. Somehow I lost the thread of it in all my high-minded literary attempts at ‘being a writer’. It unraveled, turning into a long journey with no destination. It was the perfect example of trying too hard and going nowhere.

I am a member of several writing groups, and I am lucky to get to listen weekly to other writers read their work aloud. All of them are good writers. And by that, I mean each sentence has a subject and a predicate. No one is too flowery with adverbs, and everyone knows about ‘showing not telling’. There is always good dialog to move the story along. The problem, as I see it, is that not everyone has a solid and interesting story idea. And that’s what will make or break you.

I don’t think that that is a matter of opinion or genre choice, because if the writing is gorgeous and the story is dreadful, no agent is going to take it, because no publisher will publish it, because no one will read it. A good story needs to have some basic elements that I forgot about when I got too caught up in writing and not aware of exactly what I was writing.

Here are some basics to keep in mind when crafting a good story.

1) Stay open-minded, but don’t spin off into the stratosphere. I like to follow where my hand takes me and not always chase my pre-decided plotline, because often I end in a much better place than my original plan would have taken me. However, I have also driven off cliffs with my plot and completely lost whatever I was trying to say. Prolific author John Irving says he plots each book entirely before writing it, and then sticks to his plan. Stephen King claims to have never plotted a book in his life. I believe that there has to be a happy medium. Find your sweet spot between structured and free-form, I say.

2) Remember your protagonist and antagonist, and never forget their motivations. Always keep the motive for their actions at the forefront, and stay true to their personality (hopefully you have given them personality). To do this, you have to know your people pretty well. Why is your protagonist acting the way she does? How does she change throughout the novel? What is her goal, and how does she achieve it? Who is trying to stop her, and why? Some call it character arc and it’s a good term to know.

3) Take me somewhere surprising. Please don’t introduce me to people and then bore me with where they go. Teach me something new. Surprise me with their back-story, something delicious that changes everything. Shock me with a decision they make, but make sure I understand why it makes sense. Pat Conroy did this to me in The Prince of Tides. Every time I read it, I am amazed at what those crazy Wingos do. And I love it every time.

All of this is not to say that a great idea and a great plot will hold up terrible writing, because it won’t. By starting with a great story and good characters who do surprising things, your writing can follow their lead. Just don’t attempt it the other way around.