My Time in Narnia as the Fifth Pevensie Sibling
Loved doing this interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith over on the Cynsations blog–she always asks insightful questions. Have a...
Read MoreA Query Dissected
A number of people have been asking me how I got my literary agent, and it occurred to me that I have amassed quite a bit of knowledge about how to find the right representation. In upcoming posts, I’ll tell you about how I went about my agent search, but for today I thought I’d start by posting about that all-important query. A query is a single-page letter introducing you and your book. If you have finished a novel and plan to search for either an agent or a publisher, you are probably going to have to write one. I won’t lie: It’s a daunting task. Agents and editors see many, many...
Read MoreWhy Fantasy?
When I was a child, people told me so often that I read fantasy for escape that I started to believe them. I did like to be transported to other worlds. And people did seem to think my life was something I should want to escape from. I don’t talk much about my childhood. This is because, in my mind, it was a good one, but when I start to give people the details—my mother’s s schizophrenia, my father’s death, living with a number of different families—they tend to want to sit me down and make me a cup of tea. Maybe I read fantasy because the problems in contemporary novels of that time...
Read MoreMind the Gap: great writing advice from the London tube system
In London, every time a train door opens, an automated female voice tells you to “Mind the gap,” so that you don’t fall into that nether space between the train and the platform. When I was in England last year I smiled every time I heard it. I was about to start a new novel, and Robert McKee’s book Story was on my mind. McKee is another of my screenwriting gurus (if you read this blog, you know I have a few of them—I think screenwriters are often better at talking about plot than novelists) and “the gap” is a concept he talks about a lot. I should say right off, though, that his...
Read MoreDeveloping Desire: Why Knowing What Your Character Wants May Not Be Enough
I started such a brilliant novel a few years ago. Oh it would have been groundbreaking, won awards, made me famous. At least that’s what I thought after I wrote the first chapter. It was about a girl who was searching through time for her long-lost boyfriend and soul mate, but he’d been born into another body and she didn’t know what he looked like. Brilliant! Okay, that’s debatable, but it really had desire. I had taken to heart what I’d learned from so many writing teachers and books: know what your character wants. She wanted this man. Bad. My favourite writing book at the...
Read MoreMy Interview with Author Cheryl Rainfield on Book Promotion
My first novel is coming out in three months and I’ve gone tharn. I’m a Watership Down bunny, wide-eyed and paralyzed, unable to move as the oncoming truck of my release date barrels toward me. On the one hand, I love that I’m publishing at a time when a book’s promotion isn’t completely out of an author’s hands. I have Twitter, Facebook, blogs, websites, give-aways, book trailers, Goodreads, tumblr, StumbleUpon, message boards, and a thousand other tools to help me get the word out. But does joining Twitter and Facebook actually translate into book sales? Do I really want to start...
Read MoreAbout Me
Hi! I'm Lena, a young adult fantasy author from Toronto.