September is National Preparedness Month! In my young adult novel, Pandemic, the main character is faced with an emergency situation when a deadly contagious disease strikes. (Sound familiar?) During the writing of Pandemic, I researched “sheltering in place” (also known as staying at home during a quarantine -- an experience we all know about now) and experienced a hurricane. It’s important to know what type of disasters could strike your geographical area and to be prepared for them. For more information, visit Ready.Gov, the American Red Cross, or the CDC's post about coping with trauma-related stress. And don't forget about pet care during emergencies! Visit the ASPCA site for more details.

IWSG Blog Hop: 

Every month, the Insecure Writers Support Group poses an optional question that members can answer in their blog posts. Special thanks to Alex Cavanaugh for founding IWSG and to this month’s blog hop co-hosts: Rebecca Douglass, T. Powell Coltrin @Journaling Woman, Natalie Aguirre, Karen Lynn, and C. Lee McKenzie!

Success is a tricky concept because so much of the publishing business is outside of a writer’s power. Lately, I‘ve been trying to focus on  what I *can* control – the quantity and quality of my writing. Coming up with a new idea, finishing a revision, writing even when I don’t actually feel like it, continuing to learn how to better tell stories – these are some of the current ways I try to think about success.

This week's links:

For readers: 
ICYMI -- The Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award-winning books

For writers: 
Analyze texts for complexity using Renaissance
​
For productivity: Tools for better thinking and why multitasking is bad for your brain.

“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.” ~Louisa May Alcott

I'm keeping this summer blog post short, so you can read it before your ice cream melts. Here are six helpful links:

Writers’ Dilemma: What Writers Need To Do To Stay Productive
by Arooha Arif

Comp Titles—An Elevator Pitch for Your Book by Andrea Bachofen (an older but still useful article) 

Connections Déjà vu by Bobbi Miller -- links to help writers feel connected
 
How to increase the open rates of your email newsletter by David Ramos

Feeling emotionally exhausted? 6 things you can do to release your stress
by Emily Nagoski PhD and Amelia Nagoski DMA

Lastly, enjoy this fun YA book trivia video from the Mercer County Library System (NJ).

​So many good craft books! My current favorite is Writing the Intimate Character: Create Unique, Compelling Characters Through Mastery of Point of View by Jordan Rosenfeld because it examines viewpoint concepts in-depth. It's my new go-to book for everything POV-related.

​Here's the official description: The key to excellent fiction lies in its characters: the unforgettable protagonists, antagonists, and secondary characters who populate the world of your story. Understanding and effectively using point of view allows you to write a powerful narrative that draws readers in and engages them with characters in a meaningful way.

​The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman. Despite the book’s title, Lukeman’s advice often applies to the whole manuscript, not just the opening.
 
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr., E.B. White. This writing classic makes it easy to look up problematic word usage, like lie vs. lay. 
 
Writing Irresistible KidLit: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers by Mary Kole. Geared toward children’s writers, this guide provides many examples.
 
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print by Renni Browne and Dave King. My copy has lots of highlighting. (And I’m using the passive voice here on purpose!)
 
Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder. Although this is geared toward screenwriters, there is lots of useful storytelling information for novelists as well. (There is a “novel” version of this guide, but I haven’t read it yet.)

Get Known Before the Book Deal: Use Your Personal Strengths to Grow an Author Platform by Christina Katz.  I think "platform" can be a tricky concept for novelists, but I love the idea that there are things writers can be doing *today*, even without a book deal. 
 
What To Do Before Your Book Launch by M.J. Rose and Randy Susan Meyers. Sometimes book marketing is overwhelming. And sometimes even books about marketing can be overwhelming. Not this one! This guide is helpful and succinct. It contains useful lists and a great sample timeline of activities.

Sell Your Book Like Wildfire: The Writer's Guide to Marketing & Publicity by Rob Eager. Chapter 14 is dedicated to fiction writers and this book contains an interesting section explaining Amazon rankings.
 
Everyday Book Marketing: Promotion Ideas to Fit Your Regularly Scheduled Life by Midge Raymond. This book is divided into useful sections that each end with ideas on how to break the big steps into manageable ones. The end of the book contains some interesting interviews with authors and experts.
 
Promote Your Book: Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author by Patricia Fry. The techniques are geared toward self-published writers but some of information can be useful to the traditionally published as well.

​Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott. Lamott provides witty, meaningful insights about getting the writing done.
 
I'd Rather Be Writing by Marcia Golub. Golub’s book may not be as well-known as some of the others, but her combination of humor and practicality (“try this” exercises) are effective when you’re not feeling motivated.
 
The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas is an in-depth analysis with specific examples of writing, race, and fantasy.
 
Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True by Elizabeth Berg. Berg follows each of her helpful essays with homework assignments. 
 
Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. A classic book of writing advice broken into short essays.
 
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King combines memoir with craft advice in a practical, no-nonsense style. From the spike in his bedroom wall for rejection letters when he was fourteen, to his wife taking the Carrie manuscript from his garbage can, King shares his creative struggles. Each time I read this memoir, I take something new away from it.
 
A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation by Noah Lukeman  is a thoroughly enjoyable read about punctuation and how it can change the written expression. The essay about commas was my personal favorite.

​Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping by Matthew Salesses
 
Story by Robert McKee

The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop by Felicia Rose Chavez

A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver

"Pen to Paper," a one-week online writing intensive for teens, is coming at the end of July, and there are still spots available. Run by Vermont College of Fine Arts alumnx Marianne Murphy and Evan Griffith, and featuring guest author Jason June, the upcoming Writing Barn camp takes place from July 26 through 30. A few full and partial scholarships are still available.

Murphy and Griffith say, "The program was created to offer teens a space to come together in community and deepen both their love of storytelling and their writing craft. As a virtual camp, the program brings together teens with shared interests from all over and creates connections across state and even country lines. Past students have formed friendships that have gone beyond the program!"

For more information, visit Pen to Paper 2021.

I think a different take on this question is what keeps us writing? I’m sure people have all kinds of reasons. For me, one is a sense of community that comes from connecting with other writers. Another is the joy that comes from creating characters and settings and stories. :)

This week's links:

For readers: 48 books by Indigenous writers to read to understand residential schools, curated by David A. Robinson.

​For productivity: I recently started using Habitica, and I find it oddly satisfying to complete my tasks for pet eggs, hatching potions, and "gold." I've had to experiment whether to classify something as a habit (which you can do more than once a day), a daily (which should be done every day), and a task (which can have a longer due date). Overall, I have some good habit streaks going! Let me know if you've tried the app.

More about Words Composed of Sea and Sky:
Michaela Dunn dreams of getting into an art school, but when her stepfather refuses to fund a trip there for a poetry workshop, she enters a local contest searching for a poet to write the dedication plaque for a statue honoring Captain Benjamin Churchill, a whaler who died at sea over one hundred years ago. While searching for clues about this Cape Cod legend, Michaela discovers the diary of Leta Townsend from 1862 and gets a glimpse of Churchill that she didn't quite anticipate.

In 1862, Leta writes poetry under the name of Benjamin Churchill, thinking him dead after being attacked by a whale. Leta is astonished when Captain Churchill returns, completely unscathed, his death just a rumor. She quickly falls for him. But is she falling for the actual Benjamin Churchill or the boy she constructed in her imagination?

Over the years, I've posted some tips that still hold true today. Here are a few oldies but goodies. 
​
Tips for:
​Beating writer's block
Self-editing your work
Staying organized while marketing your book
Achieving your writing goals
​

Other blogs from this week you might like:
Why We Need Diverse Books Is No Longer Using the Term #OwnVoices by Alaina Lavoie
Writer Unboxed added a new post in their Book PR and Marketing Q&A series by Ann Marie Nieves. If you want to read them in order, check out Part One, Part Two, and the recent Part Three.
Here's a compilation of "Top productivity resources on the Internet" by Dunja Jovanovic, including 50 apps, blogs, and podcasts.

"One way to make meaningful progress towards your aspirations is to shift your actual goals into smaller micro-habits that require less effort and mental strain, knowing they will collectively drive you closer to your end goal." ~Mark Hall, Forbes

IWSG Blog Hop:
Every month, the Insecure Writers Support Group poses an optional question that members can answer in their blog posts. Special thanks to Alex Cavanaugh for founding IWSG and to this month’s blog hop co-hosts: J Lenni Dorner, Sarah Foster, Natalie Aguirre, Lee Lowery, and Rachna Chhabria.​

To paraphrase Neil Gaiman (you can read the quote with a cute cat pic here), I put a draft aside until I can look at it with a fresh perspective. If I can read it without remembering exactly what I’ve written, that definitely helps. I can more objectively judge what needs to be fixed that way.

When I was eight years old, I came to the United States and didn’t speak English. My parents were afraid of public school because we were undocumented. So they enrolled me in a tiny parochial school called St. Mary’s. There was no ESL class in my new school, so they put me in a regular classroom while the teacher and kids spoke an indecipherable tongue. How would I ever understand anything? I wondered. I remember the despair and the enormity of the feeling. My first relief came at math class. Numbers! Numbers I recognized. I would start there and decipher things one little bit at a time.

I gave that relief of math class to Ana, my main character in LOVE IN ENGLISH, and many of the other thoughts and dreams and dreads I once had as I learned English. Ana was a poet in her native Argentina and feels like the thing that she most relied on – her voice – has gone away in her new life. She is a bit older than I was – sixteen – so her problems are different than the ones I experienced. There’s Harrison, the oh-so-cute American boy she wants to get to know but can’t understand. There’s Neo in her ESL class (the ESL class I wish I’d had!) who shares her experience of being new in the U.S. and who offers her friendship as they navigate this new language.

​So there’s a love story at the heart of LOVE IN ENGLISH, but, to me, the real love story is the one with the English language. Despite my tough start, I soon found solace in books, words revealing themselves easier than spoken language did. English could be maddening at times (why rough, bough, dough, cough?) but in its intricacies it revealed a magical cleverness, a complicated history.

I was the one kid in class absolutely absorbed when our high school English teacher played us an episode of the PBS series, The Story of English. I learned about Beowulf, the Angles, the Saxons, William the Conqueror, the church, all bringing their own languages into this crucible where English was born. That same teacher read us Chaucer in the original Middle English. She made me see language as a living thing, subject to the push and pull of conquests, the words of the kitchen vs. those of the drawing room. I devoured everything I could read. I marveled at Nabokov and his non-native speaker’s playfulness with the language, turning it over on the page like a pretty object which reveals another facet if you see if from a different angle.

​So it was this love of language I worked to bring to LOVE IN ENGLISH.  It's all one immigrant’s ode to the language that at first concealed itself and then revealed itself magically, generously. I love my native Spanish, the language of lullabies and my mother’s stories, the first tongue that springs to mind when I stub my toe. But there are the loves we’re born to and the ones we choose. And I choose English with my whole heart. I hope it shows in LOVE IN ENGLISH.

More about Maria:
Maria E. Andreu is the author of Love in English (Balzer + Bray, 2021), an Indie Next Pick and Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, as well as an upcoming book (B+B, 2022) . Her work has appeared in Literary Hub, Teen Vogue, Newsweek, The Washington Post, NJ.com, and the Newark Star Ledger.
Her debut young adult novel, The Secret Side of Empty is a Junior Library Guild Selection, a National Indie Excellence Book Award winner, an International Latino Book Awards Finalist and has been called “captivating” by School Library Journal. She lives in New Jersey.

More about Love in English:

A fresh, breakout YA novel that is layered with themes of immigration, cultural identity, and finding your voice in any language.
​
Sixteen-year-old Ana is a poet and a lover of language. Except that since she moved to New Jersey from Argentina, she can barely find the words to express how she feels.
At first Ana just wants to return home. Then she meets Harrison, the very cute, very American boy in her math class, and discovers the universal language of racing hearts. But when she begins spending time with Neo, the Greek Cypriot boy from ESL, Ana wonders how figuring out what her heart wants can be even more confusing than the grammar they’re both trying to master. After all, the rules of English may be confounding, but there are no rules when it comes to love.