Some Answers: On College and Being Young

First off: thanks so much for your questions, guys! I have a lot of blog posts to write now, and I'm happy to hear your feedback. Today I'm going to tackle some of the more practical questions, because I'm in that sort of mood. So, about college, and youth.

How did you juggle college and writing?

The best answer I can give to this is: I prioritized writing. That sometimes sounds misleading, so I'll say this-- I did work hard, attend class, and maintain good grades. But: I also figured out exactly what was necessary to be in good standing in any given class and did only that. I didn't always finish all the reading. I didn't always revise every paper to the best of my ability. I didn't always study until I felt confident about the material. Certainly I regret not engaging with some of the more interesting material as much as I should have.

But it's important, whether you're a writer or not, to remember that while you are a student, you are also a person. And I think you should prioritize being a person-- being healthy, sleeping, resting, hanging out with friends, exploring the world-- even at the expense of your grades. For me, part of being a person was writing. And I found that if I allowed myself time to be a person, when I did sit down to be a student, I worked HARD. I was far more focused during the time I set aside to work than I would have been if I had tried to work all day. So it's also a matter of using your time well. And you'll be able to use your time well if you have your priorities in order. That's my theory.

Sometimes the juggling was difficult, and didn't turn out well. Most of the time it was okay, if not great. So...there it is.

Is it hard being a "baby" in the published world? Does being so young hurt your chances or help?

Just to set the record straight: I was 21 when I wrote Divergent. BUT other talented authors like the delightful Kody Keplinger were even younger than that when they wrote their books. So this age question is an interesting one.

Being young didn't hurt my chances because it wasn't a factor. I didn't mention my age in query letters to agents; sometimes I didn't even mention that I was a student. JSV knew my age only because she'd met me in person, and she didn't care. She just wanted to see a good manuscript, and in that, she's not alone. I haven't met many people who care how young you are, as long as you write a good book.

In a certain sense it's difficult, because I'm just not as wise or mature as I'd like to be. That's not to say that I'm unwise and immature, because I'm not-- but sometimes I seriously struggle to handle the things that are on my plate, sometimes I react to things like a young person does (with stubbornness!), sometimes I get anxious about what's ahead of me because it feels too adult, too soon. Maybe older writers also have this struggle, but some of it is specific to my youth and my personality. I also know that I can only push my writing so far before I just have to say, "Wait. With time, wisdom. With wisdom, better writing."

But as far as my reception among other writers, or people in the publishing industry...being young is not a hindrance. Some people will make a thing out of it, but only in a good way ("And she's so young, too!"), in which case I try to remind myself I still have a lot to learn, so that it doesn't go to my head.

I'm a senior in high school who just finished all her college applications from hell and I'm quite curious to read of what you thought of the process when you were going through that period of application stress and all. I'd also love to know how Northwestern is like, as I applied there as well.

Applications! Ahh! Congrats on being finished with them, first of all. My application process was pretty easy, since I applied early decision to Carleton College, got my acceptance letter in December, and didn't have to think about anything after that. And then, when I decided to transfer, I applied to UChicago and Northwestern. Some people freak out and apply to a dozen; some people freak out and make a very logical list involving a few safety schools and a few "reach" schools; and I freaked out and made very intense, not particularly well thought-out decisions. But everyone freaks out. And you really never know about a school until you go there.

My one piece of advice is: don't make a decision about a school based on your perception of the people there. Even small colleges have thousands of people, and in any group of over a thousand people, or over a hundred people, you're going to have all KINDS of different personalities. You will find people to get along with wherever you go. It's just a matter of locating those people.

Northwestern is a great school, and I met a lot of wonderful people there. If you want me to get more specific, I will gladly do that-- just send me an e-mail! (veronicarothbooks@gmail.com)

I am currently a senior in high school and plan on majoring in English in college-hopefully creative writing-but I am a little hesitant. Since you majored in that area, I was wondering if you always knew that you would eventually publish a book or if you had some other idea of what you would do after college with a creative writing degree. Thanks!

I certainly hoped I would get a book published, and was even determined that I would eventually do so, but I didn't know if selling that book would supply me with enough income to write full time-- and in fact, I knew that would be nearly impossible, so I was fully prepared to seek other employment. My plan was to work in publishing, if at all possible. I was an editorial proofreading intern at Sourcebooks, and later did freelance proofreading for them, so I knew that my skills leaned toward the nitpicky editorial (copyediting! Proofreading!), and would have tried to get a job in that area somehow.

This isn't The Absolute Truth, but here's my experience: it doesn't really matter what you majored in. Study what you love. Get involved in an activity or two. Get good grades. Get an internship. Get a degree. Then your past internship and your degree will help you get the next internship/job. (Hopefully.)

You will be much happier if you spend your time in college studying something you're actually interested in, instead of something that seems practical, and I say with a reasonable amount of confidence that it won't harm your future if you're determined and lucky enough.

Note: I feel a little nervous giving advice about this, so...take it with a grain of salt. I have a very narrow range of experience.

(Oh, and if anyone still has questions, you can either keep asking them in the previous post, or e-mail me with them! I love them. Really.)

Strive Always for Normalness!: My Advice for Super New, Unagented Writers

First of all: this post isn't really for people who have been querying for awhile and have done their research and all that. This is for newbies.

Let us all freely acknowledge that I am no expert, and that in many ways I am not qualified to dispense advice about querying or agents or any of these things. I was not a seasoned query veteran when I got an agent. But I did make a lot of mistakes you don't have to make, and I did do a lot of things well by accident that you can do on purpose, and because I've been getting some "do you have any trying-to-get-published-advice?" e-mails lately, I thought it might be time to write this post.

Okay. So you finished your manuscript. What now?

1. RESEARCH. You must know the answers to the following questions before you do anything with that manuscript:

A. How does the publishing process work?

B. Do I submit my manuscript directly to publishers? (This is, hands down, the number one question I got asked by laymen after the book deal happened: "Did you just send the manuscript to publishers?" I know they don't know any better, because they aren't writers and they don't know how it works, but I get so unnecessarily frustrated when people ask me that.

I think it's because the question makes it sound so easy, like I just printed out my fabulous manuscript and sent it in a fabulous envelope and editors just read it at their leisure in fabulous leather lounge chairs-- which, by the way, completely neglects that middle step in which my agent did crazy work to get my manuscript ready for submission and then pinpointed exactly who it should go to and crafted this pitch and then pitched it to them and then negotiated all of this madness. Seriously, let us give credit where credit is due.)

B. What do literary agents do?
C. Do I need a literary agent? (My answer: "Um...definitely.")
D. How do I get a literary agent?
E. What is a query letter?
F. How do I write a query letter?

...among other questions, which will probably come up as you go. And rather than hunt down some knowledgeable person and demand that they tell you all they know, you can use this newfangled "google" website all the young people talk so much about these days. Or you can do yourself a favor and go to Nathan Bransford's blog, to the left sidebar, and read ALL OF his "before you query" posts. Seriously: all of them. Actually, even if you've been querying for awhile and are no longer a n00b, and you still haven't read those posts, I recommend it. They're very helpful.

2. RESEARCH SOME MORE. Because now that you know How This Works, you need to know How to Query Without Embarrassing the Crap Out Of Yourself. I was lucky enough to stumble upon Elana Johnson's blog, which has several posts about query letter writing. She also has some posts up at the QueryTracker blog, in the "Querying" section. Thanks, Elana, for keeping me from looking like an idiot without even knowing that you were doing it. Monsieur Bransford also has a post about it, but you know that already, right? Because you took my advice and read all of the posts on his sidebar, right?

I have my own advice, though, and it goes like this. When in doubt, be a normal human being.

You would think this would go without saying, but it doesn't. I don't know what it is about querying that turns us from rational people into awkward crazies, but it does, so everything you do while querying, measure it against what you would do in real life. Some examples.

A. Don't brag about your book in the query letter. You know how, in real life, you don't go up to people and introduce yourself and then start talking about how awesome you are? You don't do that because you know that it would make people hate you immediately, right? Yeah. EXACTLY.

B. Don't insult your book in the query letter. This is just common sense. If you want someone to like your book, don't give them a reason to hate it.

C. Make sure you know who you're sending it to and what they want. Do you send other e-mails without making sure that the e-mail is addressed to the right person and that the contents of the e-mail actually apply to its recipient? No, of course not. And this is no different. So find out what each agent is looking for, follow their query guidelines, and for heaven's sake, use the right name in the e-mail. Repeat after me: agents are humans. They have wants and preferences. Respect those humans by finding out those wants and preferences and honoring them.

D. Be patient. Know that the publishing industry moves at the pace of jelly on a slightly-inclined surface. Start to think in terms of months instead of days.

Basically, no matter what you're wondering about, ask yourself this: "If I were having a professional conversation with someone in person, how would I handle this situation?" You would be respectful and as concise as possible. And you would not pester them.

3. GET BETA READERS. This can be tricky, because you might not know if the person ripping your manuscript to shreds knows anything about writing, in which case you might not want to take their advice. I was lucky enough to get some good beta readers on my first manuscript, but I also got some bad ones-- it's just part of the deal. Oh, and I found most of them at the Absolute Write forums, in case you were wondering. Some additional advice about betas:

A. Get more than one. Actually, get at least 3. One opinion is completely subjective. But if 3 people agree that something in your manuscript sucks, they might have a point.

B. Ask them to be brutal. Dangerous, I know. But while some people will hear "be brutal" and give a sadistic cackle and start writing terrible, offensive things on your manuscript (no, I am not kidding), others will feel like they can actually be honest with you, and that's what you want. You can always throw nasty feedback away. But honest and wise feedback, while it may still hurt, is invaluable, and worth the risk.

4. GO TO A WRITER'S CONFERENCE. Okay, so this isn't absolutely necessary. But if you can afford it, or if your school will pay for it (find out if they do that, by the way. Because my school did, but I had to ask about it), I definitely recommend it. You can learn a lot there, especially if you're just starting out. You can also meet fellow writers there, and maybe even some beta readers. And you can often pitch to an agent in person instead of through a query letter, which is a good experience, whether you're freaked out about it or not.

My agent-specific conference advice is, again: be normal. Go ahead and sign up for a pitch session, but restrict your pitch to that session and that session alone. Consider not approaching that agent with Greedy Pitching Eyes at any other point in the conference. Maybe even consider introducing yourself to them and then just talking to them, not about your work. At all. Because if you signed up for a pitch session, talking about your work will be completely non-annoying then. But the bathroom pitch? Or the "standing in line for lunch" pitch? ANNOYING.

Think about it this way. When you approach someone with the sole objective of getting whatever you can from them, you are treating them like crap. I don't know if we always think about it that way, but we should. Agents are people, and you should treat people well, in life as in the publishing world.

5. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY ON THE INTERNET. Don't insult anyone. Don't publicly keep track of your rejections. Don't present yourself like a bratty little jerk. Don't whine and complain. People can see it. And they won't want to work with you if they think you're a butthead.

6. BE LIKE A SPONGE: ABSORB. This applies especially to criticism. I have this friend who just finished her first manuscript and started querying. She got a rejection on her manuscript with some very detailed feedback, and rather than get pouty about it, she got excited and inspired and revised the crap out of it. I'm so impressed with her, because I don't always react that way to criticism, but I should. Feedback should excite us and spur us on.

If I had some kind of motto for unagented writers, it would be this: work hard. There is no shortcut, no easy solution, no escape. Research is work, query writing is work, querying is work, revising is work, beta reading is work. If you want to get published, writing is no longer your hobby. It has become your job, whether you get paid for it or not. You don't go into any other job thinking "this will be easy! I won't have to do anything!" (okay, maybe you do, depending on what you're doing, but that's beside the point). Sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's boring and a lot of it makes you want to tear your hair out, but it's completely worth it. When you finally get The Call from an agent, when you finally sign your publishing contract, when you finally get your ISBN number, you will be happy you did all that work.

Trust me.

Equal Opportunity Preparation

(First of all: if you haven't entered my crazy-ridiculous contest in which you can win a gun that fires large marshmallows over 30 feet, please do so. It ends on Thursday.)

Here's one thing we're good at in the writing world: preparing you for the worst. Every writing book, blog, magazine, website, and message board tells you what to do in the worst case scenario. If you get rejected. If you get revision notes you don't agree with. If your dream agent packs up and moves to Mars on your favorite donkey (laugh all you want, but that would put you in quite a pickle.) How to wait. How to cut. How to handle disappointment with grace.

That is all awesome. Don't get me wrong-- that advice prepared me for some tough times. It helped me to ward off bitterness when I got rejected, to pick myself up and try again. I'm not knocking it.

Here is my question, though: what if everything goes well?

This is, of course, something I've been thinking about for the past two weeks. I think the assumption is that when things go well, you don't need to be prepared, you'll just "go with it." But I don't think that's necessarily true.

The other day I sat down with my notebook and wrote out my goals. But I didn't think about how many books I want to sell (because the answer to that is: as many as possible) or who I want to star in my autobiographical Lifetime movie or what I want my hair to look like when I'm on Oprah or whatever. No, no. My goals are an answer to the following question:

Who do you want to be, if everything goes well? What kind of person? What kind of author, writer, client, friend, wife?

I'll admit that some of this has nothing to do with the book. Forgive me if I sound all serious and intense for a little while. I'll try to lighten the mood with this picture:

(picture removed)

I guess you can answer these questions no matter how things go. But I can see that it would be tempting to take what you have for granted, when you're used to it, or to let the allure of new, cool things carry you far away from who you were before. I think one way to prevent all of that from happening is to decide, right now, what you want success to look like on you. If success doesn't come, then it doesn't matter, you've still isolated what's important to you. And if it does, you already know exactly how you're going to handle it. There's no uncertainty.

There are a few things I value. I'm not saying I've got them all down already and I'm just trying not to lose them. Heck no. I'm saying there are qualities I'd like to have, that I might already have and I'm working to strengthen, that I don't have the opportunity to develop but may someday.

I don't want to get all "inspirational post-y" and write my list here. But I will tell you that most of my goals boil down to being kind, humble, and honest. I have more specific examples of when and where. As in: I'm not going to talk around or deny my beliefs. And: I'm going to accept criticism with grace. And: I'm going to approach revisions with enthusiasm.

I think it's time.

(picture removed)

Anyway. You get the idea. I'm deciding, right now, what my author/writer/client trajectory is going to look like. There are some things I can't control, like whether my book is successful or not. But I can control how I carry myself, no matter what happens.

This is me encouraging you to consider the brighter side of the future. I mean: it could happen. And: it could happen so fast you don't know what hit you.

*cough*

Basically, here's what I think: you can never sell enough books to compensate for being an unkind, pompous jackass. What you can do is figure out how to love people deeply, widely, and authentically. And to me, that's light years more important.

So: are you going to be the kind of author who engages with the writing community? The kind who answers questions, beta reads, responds to twitter @s when possible? Or the kind who shuts herself/himself in a cabin in the woods and refuses to talk to anyone? Are you going to broadcast the dollar amount of your advance on the internet? Or are you going to keep learning, even if you establish yourself, even if you top the bestseller list, even if you achieve formerly unheard of levels of fame and wealth?

What kind of author are you going to be?

Ponder it. I'm going to.