GYDO: Jessica Khoury

Jessica Khoury, Author of Origin (2012)

Write What You Know… Or Should You?
It’s one of the most repeated bits of writing advice: write what you know. I don’t know where I first heard it, but I’m sure it was in an English class in school. And no doubt this advice is sound—when you’re talking to a room filled with students (most of whom would likely rather lick a hydrant in January than write a creative essay). But when you’re writing a novel, is what you know really enough? After all, how many of us are sword-slinging exiled princes or fallen angels or astronauts or rebel leaders? In light of the stories on shelves today, well, what we know seems kind of… boring.

If I wrote what I knew, then Origin would be the story of a small-town girl who likes soccer and theater and books too much, and cleaning and cooking too little. She’d go to school, hike through the woods, go on the occasional vacation to the same crowded, oily beach where everyone else goes… Are you yawning yet?

Even if I stretched what I know a bit to include my virtual experiences, I’d still be limited by the books I’ve read, movies I’ve seen, stories I’ve heard. Granted, I can’t write without drawing on all these things, but do we really want to be limited by our experiences when we write? What about imagination?

But there’s another side to what you know. What you know is safe. You know it. You can describe it. You’re confident about it. It’s a comfort zone. You’ve lived all your life in the suburbs of Chicago, so why not set your story there? After all, you can describe every street corner and gas station and tree and block of pavement. That kind of detail and familiarity will only bring your story to life, right? Well, sure. And writing about what you know is totally okay. You can definitely tell a fantastic story by keeping it safely within your realm of personal experience.

But there are some stories which will draw you out.

This is what happened for me with Origin. When I began the book, I knew pretty much nothing about the Amazon rainforest. I’d never been in any rainforest of any kind. Sure, I’d spent hours playing Amazon Trail in computer lab during fourth grade (any other Amazon Trailblazers out there? *virtual fist bump*) But that was the extent of my experience with the Amazon. That was all I knew. Granted, that 10$ computer game was surprisingly helpful when it came to writing Origin, but there was so much more I needed to know.

I spent at least two hours researching for every hour I spent writing Origin. And it was so totally worth it.

Breaking out of what I knew was the most rewarding, terrifying, and exciting thing I’d ever done as a writer. Until I wrote Origin, my writing/reading life was largely composed of high fantasy. Sure, I’d never actually faced a dragon or led a rebellion of elves, but I knew how to write about it. I knew what was supposed to happen in a fantasy world, and what was expected, and how long it takes to cross 100 miles of forested terrain on horseback while packing so many pounds of food on this many rations a day during a wizard-induced rainstorm. High fantasy was familiar and safe for me. Which was exactly why I had to bust outta there.

By throwing myself into an entirely strange new world of anacondas and kapoks and hidden jungle tribes, I had to reform myself as a writer. Everything I’d been able to cling to in the past, all those comfy fantasy tropes, were stripped away. I had to swim on my own for the first time. I had to figure out how to cross this foreign sea with only my Google and Wikipedia skills to keep me afloat. And you guys. I learned so much. About myself as a writer. About the Amazon. About what this whole book-writing-story-telling thing is about.

Have you been stuck in a comfort zone for too long? Have you clung to old tropes and safety lines and easy fallbacks for too many years? When was the last time you dared yourself to leap into unknown territory? If so, then here is my challenge to you: Don’t write what you know.

Write what terrifies you.

What stretches you.
What excites you.
What redefines you.
What bewilders you.

Even if it’s just for a time, and you end up returning to that old safety zone, at least you’ll have changed, grown, and learned. Shed the floaties and grow some new muscles—swim in an impossible sea. You might be surprised at how far you’ll get.

Origin Blurb
Pia has grown up in a secret laboratory hidden deep in the Amazon rainforest. She was raised by a team of scientists who have created her to be the start of a new immortal race. But on the night of her seventeenth birthday, Pia discovers a hole in the electric fence that surrounds her sterile home--and sneaks outside the compound for the first time in her life.
Free in the jungle, Pia meets Eio, a boy from a nearby village. Together, they embark on a race against time to discover the truth about Pia's origin--a truth with deadly consequences that will change their lives forever.

Author Bio
Jessica Khoury is of Syrian and Scottish descent, and was born and raised in Toccoa, Georgia. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Toccoa Falls College. Origin is her first novel. She still lives in Toccoa with her husband Ben, where she writes and coaches youth soccer.

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GYDO: J.A. Souders

J.a souders, author of Renegade (2012)

The process of creating an underwater world was both incredibly easy and impossibly hard. I absolutely loved writing about a city that rests along the ocean floor, but it was probably the hardest thing I’ve done to date. Worldbuilding itself is hard to get right. Too much detail and you bore readers (and yourself). Too little? And everyone is confused.

The single most important thing I did, before I even started writing was to figure out what my city would look like. So I drew up a rough draft map of my city. Granted by the time you see that map, it’ll have changed completely, but it was a starting point. It was during this phase that I used a lot of research. I had a pinboard filled with picutres of different underwater concept cities.  Some are even real world designs that are currently in use! Specifically a hotel in Dubai (http://travel.msn.co.nz/middleeast/dubai/117655/atlantis-dubais-underwater-hotel.slideshow) And I spent a lot of time at this website (http://www.ustream.tv/aquariusreefbase#utm_campaign=unknown&utm_source=337026&utm_medium=social) which is from the Aquarias reef base, an underwater research facility in the Florida Keys.

After all that, I did even more research on technology that would be needed to make a facitily completely self-sufficient. And to do that I asked myself some questions, starting with the important ones: How do they get fresh air? Fresh water? Food? Then working to the less important. How do they stay entertained? Then I went on to important for the story items. And this was the fun part. I needed to spend hours and hours doing weapon research. Which weapons could my characters use that would do the most damage without creating more problems than I wanted to write about? LOL. And the most important question to that? What weapons would they use in confined spaces with lots of glass. AND if a window (glass) did break, what safety precautions would be in place to prevent a major catastrophe? And also would my characters even be able to use the weapons in the first place?  So that meant hours and hours of time at the range. 

After all that research—and time playing with kick ass guns--I finally wrote a bare bones rough draft that included almost no world-building, but using my map to determine how my characters would move around and remembering what I learned. I wanted to get the story across without it being loaded down with all the world-building. 

After a few weeks break, I went back in and spent hours adding and removing pieces of world-building, using my crit. partners and beta readers as guinea pigs to determine what was necessary, what was too much, and what parts needed more explanation.

The hardest part was making the city feel like it was taking place underwater instead of in a cave or some other enclosed place, but doing it in a way that wasn’t intrusive to the character’s narrative. A character that has lived her entire life in this place and has no way to compare it to the Surface and where most things are common place to her and she doesn’t even think about it anymore. 

That was, of course, easier said than done, and required a lot of tweaking of character narrative between Evelyn and Gavin. I used Gavin for a lot of these world-building pieces, because it’s ALL new to him.

After all that tweaking, I finally sent it to my agent, who had her own notes about the world-building and when we sold it to Tor, my editor had even more questions and notes about it.

Even after all that, there are TONS more I know about Elysium that never made it into the story. Some is just waiting to be used in further installments, while some will probably never make it into any part of the series, but all of the hours of research and writing and rewriting was worth it, because I’m fairly certain that the world-building is the strongest part of Renegade. And I’m extremely proud of how it all turned out.  J

 Renegade Blurb

Since the age of three, sixteen-year-old Evelyn Winters has been trained to be Daughter of the People in the underwater utopia known as Elysium. Selected from hundreds of children for her ideal genes, all her life she’s thought that everything was perfect; her world. Her people. The Law.

But when Gavin Hunter, a Surface Dweller, accidentally stumbles into their secluded little world, she’s forced to come to a startling realization: everything she knows is a lie. Her memories have been altered. Her mind and body aren’t under her own control. And the person she knows as Mother is a monster.

Together with Gavin she plans her escape, only to learn that her own mind is a ticking time bomb... and Mother has one last secret that will destroy them all.


 Author Bio

J.A. Souders was born in the heartland with an overactive imagination and an over abundance of curiosity that was always getting her into trouble.  She first began writing at the age of 13, when she moved to Florida and not only befriended the monsters under the bed, but created worlds for them to play together. 

    Because she never grew up, she decided she’d put her imaginary friends to work and started writing.  She still lives in the land of sunshine and palm trees with her husband and their two children and is an active member of the RWA, CFRW, YARWA and SCBWI. 

    She is represented by Natalie Lakosil of the Bradford Literary Agency.  Her debut book, RENEGADE, surfaces Fall 2012 from Tor Teen.



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GYDO: Jay Kristoff

Jay Kristoff, Author of Stormdancer (2012)

5 tips on writing outside your gender

Ok, confession time:

I am not a 16 year-old girl.

Shocking, I know, but honestly, the facial hair is a dead giveaway.

The thing is, the protagonist of my book IS a 16 year-old girl, and having never been a girl, teenaged or otherwise, some might rightly ask “Well, how on earth did you write one convincingly?”

I won’t lie – it’s difficult. But is it any harder than writing a convincing 532 year-old vampire? Or 20-something fighter pilot who blows things up in spaaaace? Or any of the other bazillion things in this world that I’m not and never will be?

Not really, no. The second most successful series of modern times was written by a woman, starring a teenaged male protagonist. Creating well-rounded, believable characters is a challenge for all writers. However, I’ve discovered there are things you can do to help you step outside your chromosomal boundaries. So in the spirit of giving, and in the hopes that you’ll all say “Well, that Jay Kristoff is a lovely man, and his book sounds frackin’ awesome”, I present them to you now:

Preparation

1.       Read (duh).
Read books written by authors of the opposite gender, starring protagonists of the opposite gender. See how the home team does it first. Take particular note of the characterization that seems odd to you (see step 5)

Note: You might feel odd at the bookstore, particularly if you’re a 30-something male buying books for teenaged girls. Just shrug at the scary clerk looking at you all weird and say the magic words: “They’re for my niece.”

2.       Beta powerz…. ACTIVATE.
Get yourself beta readers of the opposite gender. Not the kind that “squeeeee”. I’m talking about the kind who melt paint from the walls with their crits. Arm these betas with a rubber stamp that reads WDTLT (We Don’t Think Like This).
Encourage them to lay that thing down like the frackin’ hammer of Thor.

3.       Abandon fear.
You may experience self-doubt when writing outside your gender. But really, unless you’re writing an autobiography, you’re always going to be writing someone different from you.

If people were interested in reading about a guy who is frequently mistaken for Dave Grohl, but in reality, only gets his Rock God on with Guitar Hero 5, yeah, I’m pretty sure I could write that character convincingly. But considering no-one wants to read about that guy, I’ll have to, you know, make stuff up.

Kinda like every fiction writer in the world has been doing since forever. J

Time to write

4.       Familiar ground.
Start with similarities. Human beings, at their cores, are very similar regardless of gender. There are things all people want/need. Sure, the way we go about getting these things might differ, but our motivations don’t: We seek out happiness. Recoil from things that hurt us. Seek a place to belong. Friendship. Love. Joy.

“Rescue the kidnapped hottie”, “Avenge my murdered {insert significant other here}” “Find out why things turn into skittles every time I touch them” – These motivations work for any protag, regardless of their chromosomes.

We are not that different.

5.       We are very different.There are some core differences between males and females (beyond the obvious), and you need a grasp of these before you begin.

Basic example:

I read a lot of fiction by female authors before I started writing STORMDANCER, and I was struck by the differences in the way different genders perceive their fellows.

When a girl meets a boy in these books, they invariably talk about the boy’s eyes. Or his lips. Or his bone structure.

Veronica Roth’s DIVERGENT:

He has a spare upper lip and a full lower lip. His eyes are so deep-set that his eyelashes touch the skin under his eyebrows, and they are dark blue, a dreaming, sleeping, waiting color.

Kim Cashore’s GRACELING:

His eyes. Katsa had never seen such eyes. One was silver, and the other, gold. They glowed in his sun-darkened face, uneven and strange.

It won’t surprise many of you, but boys do not think this way. When boy character meets girl character, he generally notices her hair, then her body. The eyeline (and thoughts) of the average boy tend to… descend. This is in our nature – if it wasn’t, every XY on the planet wouldn’t be constantly caught doing it.

Try it for yourself (No, I don’t mean ogle other people). Grab five books off your shelf. I’ll bet four of them follow the above rule. Now this is just one example, but you need to understand these differences to write a convincing character. If your male protagonist EVER mentions his love interest’s eyelashes, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

When in doubt, the best advice I can give is seek the opinions of betas, or writers of the opposite gender you may know. The brutally honest kind are worth their weight in gold. But whatever you do, never, ever fall into that baffling belief that you should only write in your own shoes. Unless you’re a part-time super-spy or possessed of mutant powers, chances are, a book about you is going to be a boring book. Unless you challenge yourself, you will never grow.

Be brave. Believe. And above all, WRITE.

Stormdancer Blurb

A DYING LAND 
The Shima Imperium is verging on the brink of environmental collapse; decimated by clockwork industrialization and the machine-worshippers of the Lotus Guild. The skies are red as blood, land choked with toxic pollution, wildlife ravaged by mass extinctions.

AN IMPOSSIBLE QUESTThe hunters of the imperial court are charged by their Shōgun to capture a thunder tiger – a legendary beast, half-eagle, half-tiger. But any fool knows thunder tigers have been extinct for more than a century, and the price of failing the Shōgun is death.

A SIXTEEN YEAR OLD GIRLYukiko is a child of the Fox clan, possessed of a hidden gift that would see her executed by the Lotus Guild. Accompanying her father on the Shōgun’s hunt, she finds herself stranded: a young woman alone in Shima’s last wilderness, with only a furious, crippled thunder tiger for company. Even though she can hear his thoughts, even though she saved his life, all she knows for certain is he’d rather see her dead than help her.
But together, the pair will form an indomitable friendship, and rise to challenge the might of an empire.

Short Author Bio

Jay Kristoff is a Perth-born, Melbourne-based author. His first trilogy, THE LOTUS WAR, was purchased in the three-way auction by US publishing houses in 2011. He is as surprised about it as you are. The first installment, STORMDANCER, is set to be published in September 2012 in the US, UK and Australia.
Jay is 6’7, has approximately 13870 days to live and does not believe in happy endings.

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Announcing GYDO 2012!

If you guys have seen me mentioning "GYDO" then you know that barely anyone knows what it is except for 2 bloggy friends (STARES AT LISSETH AND EILEEN) who totally cheated and the authors. WELL, GYDO officially starts tomorrow even though there's no annual date for it yet. What is GYDO? Well, GYDO stands for "Get Your Debut On" in which around 12-13 authors share some information about personal lives/thoughts/their debuts. And yes, all of them are debuters from either Fall 2012 or Spring 2013! Who are they? Well you'll just have to follow along these two weeks and find out! I can promise that it'll be full of fun and amazing authors! I'm really isappointed I couldn't fit in all the authors, so if you didn't get a spot in GYDO I'll probably ask for a guest post anyways!

GYDO is purely fun and no, there are no giveaways! This is just to spread the word for readers, give me a little blogging relief (School started, remember?), and give my viewers some fun and a chance to learn about more amazing books!

I hope you guys have fun with this! And the authors? Let's just say I've either LOVED their book or am waitin DESPERATELY for them!

Blog Tour: What Happens Next

As part of the What Happens Next blog tour, I interviewed Colleen Clayton, the author of this amazing contemporary!

Fiction Freak: The question that all authors HAVE to answer--what inspired What Happens Next?

Colleen Clayton: I wanted to write a story that explores the connection between sexual assault and eating disorders. Studies have shown that survivors of assault are at risk for developing eating disorders and it makes so much sense when you think about it. I started researching and thought yes, this is something I want to write about. I also wanted to write a story where a girl regains her sense of physical and emotional desire post-assault. It was important for me to convey to readers that horrible experiences do not have to define your entire life, that there is hope for a brighter day.

I also enjoy writing place-based stories that take readers to fictionalized versions of real places. I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland and have lived in the Rust Belt my entire life. I wanted to write  a story set there. It’s a place that is often stereotyped in fiction and media. I mean how many times have Cleveland and other Rust Belt cities been the butt of jokes in Hollywood? The only place that I think gets railed on more is my parents’ home state of West Virginia. I wanted to write a story set in my hometown because I love it so much. Cleveland, Ohio (AND West Virginia) are great places to live.

FF: What Happens Next deals with some real problems and Cassidy (Sid) goes through some emotional turmoil. What made you decide you wanted to write that kind of book?

CC: I’ve always loved reading reality-based, young adult issue books and think they are so important to the world of literature. I am thrilled that my book can now be counted among them.  Regarding emotional turmoil, it was important to explore the trauma of what happens to Sid and do so in a believable, empathetic way. However, I also wanted to depict the ups-and-downs of a wider high school landscape as well as provide a good dose of hope and moments of levity throughout the narrative. I didn’t ever want Sid’s story to be singularly-focused or filled with page-upon-page of doom and gloom. People who experience trauma of any kind usually don’t feel horrible every waking second of the day.  Real life is not that black and white. There are usually glimpses of joy and laughter, even in the darkest of circumstances.

FF: Just out of curiosity--have you ever experienced a "rage black out"?

CC: I have.  In fact, the incident in the book about the kittens that Corey tells Sid about? That actually happened to me in college. That is one of the few things in my book that is based upon real life. Every word of that gruesome, sad tale is true. I won’t spoil it for readers but needless to say, I had a ‘rage-induced black out’ over it. I went completely APE-&#%+ on a horrible neighbor regarding some abused kittens and I don’t remember any of it. My roommates told me the things I said to her and I seriously don’t remember a single moment of it to this day.

FF: Throughout the book, Sid hides an extremely gigantic secret from friends and family--have you ever done that?

CC: Yes. But I want to be clear in saying that this is not in any way related to the story that I wrote. I believe that people who have experienced assault of any kind should tell someone and seek help. But to answer the question, there some things that I’ve experience in life that I’ve kept to myself, that I’ve not told even my shadow. Sometimes there are things that happen that are just better left unspoken.  I don’t believe that you should have to share everything that happens to you. If something happens to you that you never want to talk about with another human being, then that is okay. It’s your life and you can do that.

FF: Did you ever consider writing a dystopian/ fantasy etc. before deciding to write contemporary?

CC: No. I did however write a short sci-fi, paranormal genre blender story after I wrote WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. I kind of like it. It’s sitting in my hard-drive waiting for me to be brave enough to grow it into a novel. I have great respect for genre writers. Genre stories are extremely difficult to write because you can’t rely on the world that you and the reader are already familiar with. If I say the words: gas station, Christmas,  bicycle the author and reader have a shared understanding of what these things are. To build “other worldly” landscapes,  gadgets, political structures, and species is a daunting task.  

FF: The fun question! Are you a Sid skier (bad) or a Paige/Kirsten skier (good)?

CC: I am a somewhere in between. I can handle a green/blue diamond run on the slopes. Black diamonds…egh, not so much. But I hope to improve on it! Skiing is just so darn expensive and then if I go, I have to take my kids which really just gets into some serious dollars. But we try to go as a family about twice a year.  

FF: After What Happens Next releases, well...what happens next? Any other books on the way?

CC: I’m editing a book right now with my agent. It is set in the same high school but features different characters and issues. I’m having a good time with it. It’s a great story with a lot of potential, I think.

FF: Randomly: Can you bake anything as scrumptious as Corey?

CC: Oh, God no. I H-A-T-E baking. In fact, I hate cooking altogether. Generally, anything in the domestic realm (baking, cooking, gardening, sewing, extreme couponing, and then certainly cleaning…) you can keep all that. If I won the mega-millions, the first thing I would do is get a maid and personal chef. Funny thing though…I love watching Food Network shows! I mention one of them in my book, Iron Chef America. (Go Chef Symon! Cleveland boy…represent!)

FF: What has been one of your favorite debuts of the year and why?

CC: I loved BUTTER by Erin Jade Lange. It was so funny and poignant and had such voice.

FF: What's one random, hilarious fact about you?

CC: Colleen = World’s Biggest Ding Bat. I am seriously Out. To. Lunnnnch half the time, stuck inside my own head with the world buzzing around me. To give a recent example…I teach writing at Youngstown State. School started last week on a Wednesday. I showed up, syllabus in hand, all rarin’ to go on Tuesday. The parking lot was near empty and I still didn’t get it. I thought: “Wow, I heard enrollment was down but this is just sad! Poor YSU.” I marched to my class and sat outside the empty classroom worrying that everyone had dropped my class or that it had been canceled from the schedule. Someone finally clued me in: Uh, school doesn’t start until tomorrow, Colleen. It was so embarrassing. The good thing is that my friends and family have accepted this about me and love me anyway.  

What Happens Next Blurb
How can you talk about something you can’t rememberz

an town just outside of Cleveland, Ohio. After graduating from Kent State University, she worked as a social worker in residential treatment centers for troubled teens and as Program Supervisor for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mahoning Valley. She currently lives in Ohio with her family and recently received her MFA in fiction writing from the Northeast Ohio Consortium (NEOMFA). She teaches fiction writing and composition at Youngstown State University.

 

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Waiting on Wednesday

The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett

16-year-old Dusty Everhart breaks into houses late at night, but not because she’s a criminal. No, she’s a Nightmare. Literally. Dusty is a magical being who feeds on human dreams.

Being the only Nightmare at Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for magickind, and living in the shadow of her mother’s infamy is hard enough. But when Dusty sneaks into Eli Booker’s house, things get a whole lot more complicated. He’s hot, which means sitting on his chest and invading his dreams couldn’t get much more embarrassing. But it does. Eli is dreaming of a murder. The setting is Arkwell.

And then it comes true.

Now the Dusty has to follow the clues—both within Eli’s dreams and out of them—to stop the killer before more people turn up dead. And before the killer learns what she’s up to and marks her as the next target
You guys, I'm totally proud to say that I knew about The Nightmare Affair BEFORE the cover revlea. ;D Yes, it's sort of like bragging lol. But you guys, it just sounds absolutely AMAZING right? I mean, Nightmares? Can you find a book about that? I don't THINK so! And murders with romance (There's obv some romance!) with paranormal with a literally-one-of-a-kind MC?? COUNT ME IN.