It's Like I'm SEVENTEEN Again...

So, in case you've all been wondering if I fell off the face of the earth and into some kind of dark abyss: I haven't, really. I have been hard at work finishing the first draft of D2, and will be depriving myself of most Internet usage until I accomplish that task. But this is an exception, because something COOL happened.

A little while ago I got an e-mail asking me for a photo, because...*dramatic pause*...Ann Shoket, the editor-in-chief of Seventeen Magazine wanted to include it in her Editor's Letter for the March issue. Immediately I ran to my computer (okay, I didn't run, because I was sitting right there) and e-mailed my sister, because she and I used to get Seventeen when we were younger (or rather, she got it, and I stole it from her.). And we had a little freakout moment together. It was wonderful.

The other day while I was in the glamorous town of Stockton, IL, I bought a copy of Seventeen in the local grocery store. Let me tell you: I have experienced nothing more bizarre than purchasing a magazine that has my face in it.

To Ann Shoket and everyone over at Seventeen: thank you for this extremely cool experience. And for liking Divergent!

And to everyone else, here's the page so you can see it:

If you're of Seventeen age, I encourage you to go out and get the magazine itself.

Heck, even if you're not.

I'm going to retreat into my writing cave again. Hopefully I'll be out soon!

DIVERGENT ARCs!

(Sorry about the glare in that video-- it wasn't quite that bad before I uploaded it! Must...use...better...camera...)

For those of you who can't watch that video because you're hard at work (or for those who prefer to read rather than watch):

I GOT ARCS!

Yesterday I had a little Twitter conversation with my editor, the fabulous Molly O'Neill that went something like this:

M: Are you at home?
Clueless V: Yep! Soon I'll have a new address to send you, too.
(Note: I am moving soon, so that's not quite as random as it sounds.)
M: Check your front porch!
V: ...Really?

And then I sprinted to the front door in a state of pajama-clad disarray, as evidenced by these four-minute-later reaction shots...

...in which I disregard the need for a hairbrush, real clothing, or any semblance of dignity. Yes, that is me about to kiss a book.

The lovely people over at HarperTeen tweeted a picture of the box of ARCs soon afterward. Look at THIS!



A few notes about the ARCs:

1. My book comes out in May, so the ARCs won't be distributed to reviewers and bloggers for awhile.
2. I'm sorry for the tease.
3. But I had to share the excitement.

This is what I keep thinking to myself: My NAME is on it! MY name. And it's like...a thing! That you can HOLD! In your HANDS!

Bet you didn't know I was so inarticulate while thinking to myself.

AHHH! I can't wait for everyone to read!

Signed. Sealed. Delivered.

Two nights ago I received one of those emails you never think you're going to get, also known as the email that contained my publishing contract.

And as I browsed the first three pages, one thing in particular stood out to me:

HarperCollins

bought

my book.

I know what you're thinking. "Duh, Veronica. They bought it in APRIL. You went to their HEADQUARTERS and ogled at their pretty board room. Get a grip."

But I am telling you that even after I got The Phone Calls and announced everything on Twitter and the blog and saw the PM announcement with my own two eyes; even after I jumped into a tub of marshmallows to celebrate; even after I shook hands with people I never thought I would meet; even after I did my best to wrap my entire body around the HarperCollins pillar; even after I talked covers and jacket flap copy and revised the crap out of my manuscript and it was sent to the copyeditor...it still didn't feel real.

And then it was on paper. In writing.

And I thought: "No, really. Really, actually, legitimately...published."

Here are some factoids about contracts:

1. They are long. Mine is 16 pages, single-spaced. And oh so pretty.

2. One copy is not enough. See also: my conversation with The Editor of Wonder yesterday.

Molly: "You only sign your first contract once."

Me: "True. Well, actually, you sign it four times."
3. Signing those four copies will probably make you smile like THIS:

4. You may be tempted to sleep with them under your pillow. But you should not. Because then they will get wrinkly. Also, what are you doing waiting an entire night to send them? FEDEX THEM BACK ALREADY.

5. They take a long time to compile. You may think that because you got your book deal last week, the contract should be coming your way any day now, but that is not the case. They take months to get together, and that's a good thing. That means that everyone is being careful about what the contract says. The crazy-awesomeness of mine only taking 3 months to assemble does not escape me. It is thanks to some pretty fantastic people doing some pretty fantastic things.

I think those are the only factoids I have to share. If I missed something, let me know.

Quick summary, though:

SIGNED.

(Also: did you see the Publisher's Weekly Spring Sneak Preview? Because DIVERGENT is in it! There, now I've freaked out on all social media platforms.)

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.

Story Time. PART TWO.

MAN do I have a story for you guys today.

Last Monday, when I had officially been on submission for about four days, I received a phone call from JSV (Joanna Stampfel-Volpe, for those not In The Know) telling me I should probably finish my synopsis of Divergent's sequel that day. I knew something was happening, but she (wisely) didn't tell me exactly what it was, so I crossed "working out" off my to-do list-- because let's face it, it's the first thing to go-- and sat in front of my computer in my pajama pants for about an hour, typing away.

I was three sentences away from the end when she called me again. And it went a little like this:

JSV: "Are you tired of me yet?"

V: (Thinking, with eye-roll: yeah, Jo, I totally HATE phone calls from my nice, funny agent.) "No! What's up?"

JSV: "So that synopsis...yeah, I'm going to need that like now."

After which she informed me that there was some interest in my book. And I promptly lost feeling in my legs.

I know people say that as kind of a joke, but seriously? I lost feeling in my legs. I was standing up, and looking at my feet, and thinking "are my feet still attached to my body?" I think I also let out a kind of strangled scream.

And then I waited for more details. With my tense face on. Like this:



Later that day I was in the elevator and I heard The Ringtone. Earlier I had assigned JSV's number a special ringtone so I would know when she was calling me (so I could take deep breaths before I picked up). It was the most urgent ringtone I could find-- it basically sounds like the phone is screaming "IF YOU DON'T PICK UP THE PHONE, THE PLANET WILL HURTLE INTO A BLACK ABYSS."

I got off the elevator and went into this creepy hallway in my building that leads to the loading dock, where all the dumpsters are. It has beige tile floors and beige walls and it basically looks like a place where people get murdered. And then, you know, conveniently recycled.

That was where I was standing when JSV told me that Harper Collins wanted my book.

My response?

V: "I have to sit."

(I sat.)

V: "Okay. I'm going to cry a little now."

JSV: "All right, but I'm going to keep talking."

V: (Laughing and crying and numb legs again.)

There's a little more to it than that (isn't there always?), but those are the juicy parts.

I have loved Harper Collins since I was little, even though at the time I didn't know that a lot of the books I loved were HC books. Never did I think "one day, I'm going to be published by HC" and actually believe it.

Does it get even better? Yes it does.

The next day I talked to Molly O'Neill, editor at Katherine Tegen Books (the wonderful HC imprint I'll be working with). For an hour. Let me tell you something about Molly O'Neill. She's one of those "instantly put you at ease" people. Which helps a lot, because last Tuesday I was a 21-year-old ball of nerves and energy, and "ease" was not something I had going for me. Actually, if "ease" and I had been on a spectrum, I would have been at one end and "ease" would have been at the other.

After that phone call, I knew that she would both love my book and improve it-- basically, that it was in great hands.

And then I had to wait.

And my face looked like this:



And simultaneously:



(That would be my in-chair happy dance. I know I look pained. My pained expressions and my happy expressions look very similar.)

I have also been getting teary-eyed at random moments throughout the week. And when I say random, I mean RANDOM. I mean while driving on I-94, just past the tollbooth. Or sitting at my desk, staring at the origami paper I just bought. Suddenly? Crying.

I don't get serious very often on ze blog, but I will say this: I know what an incredible blessing this is. I will try my hardest not to take it for granted, and to remember that it isn't a wage-- it's a gift.

Want a link, though?