Category: YA

Do you hear what I hear?

Oh, you guys, you guys. You will not believe what I just discovered this morning, quite by accident (because sometimes, that’s how publishing works):

The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading

That’s the audio version of The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading! Geek Girl! In audio! You can take her on your commute, download her to your Kindle–and who wouldn’t want to do that?

I listened to the sample and think they chose an excellent narrator. And then I listened to the very start on my Kindle and they totally said my last name correctly. (Three cheers for Audible!) It sounds so awesome to hear “… by Charity Tahmaseb and Darcy Vance.” I’ve listened to so many audio books that to have one is just amazing.

My ten-year-old’s bucket list

So in the class I’m taking over at The Loft Literary Center, Breaking the Unwritten Rules in Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction, we’ve been talking about clichés and tropes, and about all those unwritten rules we might not even realize are holding us back from something original and startling.

We’ve discussed narration and how to balance entertainment with authenticity when writing a middle grade or young adult character. It reminded me of something Kyra said a while back.

One day after school, she mentioned she had something on her “bucket list.” After I got over my internal freak out about my ten-year-old having a bucket list, I asked her what she meant.

Here’s the thing: she’d never heard the phrase “kicking the bucket.” If she saw it in a story (or heard it in a movie) she would probably ask me what it meant if it wasn’t clear from context.

To her (and her friends), a bucket list represented a figurative bucket where they placed all the things that they’d like to do someday.

In Kyra’s case, this list includes:

  • being a scientist
  • traveling the world
  • painting all her pets’ portraits.

So, as writers, we’re told to avoid clichés because they’ve lost their freshness and meaning. But in some cases, all it takes is the next generation to give the old something new.

Write 1/Sub 1 check in: week 6, the one with Girl Scout cookies

Week 6! Despite the 200 hundred boxes of Girl Scout cookies in my living room–that need a home that isn’t my living room–I had a very good writing week. Here’s what I did:

Writing:

  • It Only Takes a Minute, 247 words, for the Flash Fiction Chronicles String of 10 contest
  • The Weight of Secrets, short story of some length. I wrote it longhand and it’s still in my notebook, so I don’t know the exact word count.

Submitting:

  • It Only Takes a Minute, since I wrote it for the contest, why not actually submit it too?
  • The Madness in King’s End, to a local mystery contest. However, my story is probably more fantasy than mystery, so I’m not holding my breath on this one.

Rejections:

  • None!

Acceptances:

  • Payment, that even shorter (25 words) version of Cash or Check received an acceptance from Literary Juice for their Pulp Fiction section, where the story must be exactly 25 words with a one word title. (Now you know why I changed the title.) Oddly enough, it’s a story with a Girl Scout cookie theme.

Published:

I also started an online class this week at The Loft Literary Center,  Breaking the Unwritten Rules in Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction. I’m all about the rule breaking. The next couple of weeks are going to be very busy, so this Write 1/Sub 1 thing may be more of a challenge. It’s like a cliffhanger–stay tuned to see if I can make it all work. 

The Burden of So Many Roses: Milestone story

Falling Roses

So today, The Burden of So Many Roses is live over on Kazka Press, where the theme this month is an undelivered valentine. My guess is (I haven’t read all the stories yet) that if you’re not a fan of gooey Valentine’s Day stories, you’ll be happy with the fare offered up this month.

At least, mine isn’t gooey.

It is, however, a milestone story for me. Here’s the breakdown:

1/3/2013: finished the draft

1/13/2013: sent to Kazka Press

1/30/2013: accepted

2/5/2013: published!

Not only is that one of the fastest turnaround times for me, submission to acceptance, it is the fastest I’ve ever drafted/revised/polished a story and sent it out. That being said, Kazka Press has a list of prompts on their submission page, and I had that undelivered valentine fermenting in the back of my mind for the entire month of December. That probably helped.

One of my goals this year is to figure out how to maintain a steady pace of writing while dealing with the ebbs in my creativity. And ebb it does. To the point where I’m all reclined on the fainting couch, hand on forehead, and despairing, I’ll never write again!

But since I always do, I’ve stopped believing myself when I get this way. This is why Write 1/Sub 1 is such a challenge. If I don’t write one, I’ll run out of things to submit. But it’s teaching me that:

  • I can write more than I think I can.
  • I have more story ideas than I think I do.
  • No one story concept is like another. Some tumble out like gifts, some I pick at, bit by bit.
  • There’s no wrong way to draft a short story.

Sometimes, to write, you simply need to get out of your own way.

Write 1/Sub 1 check in: week 5, the one with no heat and a sale

Week 5! Our furnace died on Friday. It’s also been one of the coldest weeks all winter. Clearly our appliances have a (dark) sense of humor. Yesterday was Girl Scout cookie “go” day, so since the house was cold, Kyra and I bundled up and sold cookies door-to-door. By the time we arrived back home (several boxes lighter), we had heat.

Writing:

  • Poem about the color orange. It is full of whimsy. And adjectives.

Submitting:

  • One Good Turn, (very) tongue-in-cheek science fiction story.
  • Payment, an even shorter (25 words) version of Cash or Check

Rejections:

  • None!

Acceptances:

  • The Burden of So Many Roses to Kazka Press for their undelivered valentine prompt. The story should be “live” in a few days. 

I also spent a good deal of time revising/editing two stories, One Good Turn and another that I’m set to submit in this upcoming week. 

Looking back: Writing in 2012

iStock_000002528747XSmallIt’s the end of the year (or almost) so, of course, I simply must look back on writing in 2012. All the cool kids are doing it.

Anyway, my key word for 2012 was growth. I wanted to try a few new things with my writing and untie myself from the notion that I could only do just one thing.

I think I succeeded.

First, I mixed it up with some classes. I took:

  • A poetry class
  • Writing in the flow (the Robert Olen Butler method) class
  • Flash fiction/flash memoir class

I ended up writing more than forty poems (not necessarily good poems, mind you). In March, I surprised myself by writing a piece of flash fiction that simply tumbled out of me one morning, sparked by a poem I’d read.

And I thought to myself: Why am I not doing more of this? I like this!

I liked it so much, I ended up writing seven more stories (complete drafts) and have several others in the “stewing” stage.

Than first piece of flash fiction I wrote back in March? The Secret Life of Sleeping Beauty, which ended up:

In the big, surprising, out-of-the-blue sort of news this year, Darcy and I sold audio rights to Audible.com for The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading. And now you know everything I do about that. If/when the audio book is produced, I’ll be sure to let you know.

I finished off the year with The Southeast Review’s 30-day writer’s regimen. At first, I was reluctant. Writing? During the holidays? Actually, it kept me writing during the holidays. I missed a prompt here and there, but I wrote something for nearly all of them. According to the website, it looks like they’re launching all new material in February 2013. Mark your calendars! I highly recommend this. I had a blast doing it.

And that’s my writing year. I think it was a good one.

Virtually yours

I forgot all about this very cool site, Authorgraph, until I received a request for an e-book autograph* this morning, which was a very nice post-Christmas type of present to get.

I have two books up on Authorgraph, The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading and The Trouble with Firsts. Click on through to the site and request an e-autograph or two. Or ten. Or more!

Get a free Authorgraph from Charity Tahmaseb

*While writing this post, I had one of those moments where a word totally loses its meaning and I had to look it up to make sure it was a real word. Today’s unreal word is autograph. I’m still not sure it means what I think it means.

This week in books

What I read/am reading:

New books on the block:

Kiss, Kiss, Bark!A while back, I entered a Twitter contest to win Kiss, Kiss, Bark! from Tanglewood Press–then figured that would be that.

This week, I found out that I won a copy. Kyra was thrilled. So was I.

It looks like a cute and fun read. We both can’t wait to dig in.

Flashing again

So earlier this year, when I wrote The Secret Life of Sleeping Beauty, it reminded me how much I love the short form. Sure, selling it to the Unidentified Funny Objects anthology didn’t hurt either. But the writing and the love came first. And I wondered:

Why did I stop?

Um. I don’t know. Because I can write longer forms and the short forms without my head exploding. So that’s not the issue. Since there doesn’t seem to be a reason, I’ve jumped back onto the short bandwagon with both feet (and a cliché or two in my pocket).

I decided to take In a Flash: Short-shorts, Micro-memoir and Prose Poetry from The Loft Literary Center. (Note: They have a great selection of online classes, so you don’t even need to be local to the Twin Cities to take a class.)

Some ideas really lend themselves to the short form. Maybe they just fit better there, or it’s an idea you want to have a fling with, but don’t want to marry (so to speak).

Sometimes it’s what we don’t know that truly makes the story–how many blanks we need to fill in. Because filling in the blanks can be fun. The ad below is an example of this less is more genius.

Yes, I know I’m not helping my “George Clooney doesn’t live in my blog” cause (see posts here and here), but I can’t help myself.

This week in books

What I read/am reading:

  • Finished Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle. My take here.
  • Working my way through the big fat book on the Russian Revolution (yes, that’s what it’s called). I’m on page 107. This means I’m 13% the way through the book. (I told you it was big and fat.)
  • Finished The One and Only Ivan, book #70 for the year. Terrific and charming, perfect for animal lovers of all ages. Passing it along to Kyra now. Pretty sure it will make her cry–not that it made me cry or anything.

Out this week:

Fabulous 2009 Deb Kirstin Cronn-Mills has a new release out this past week (October 8th).

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children is available in paperback and on Kindle.