Caren Johnson Literary Agency

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By Stephanie Kuehnert

Since my book is steeped in rock ‘n’ roll and I’ve always wished I was talented enough to be a rock star, it was natural for me to want to do music-related promo events for my forthcoming debut novel I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE (MTV Books, July 08). I had this idea for a “literary Lollapalooza” of sorts, where bands and authors would share the stage. I wanted to try to do it in L.A. because I’m headed out there on vacation/tour. I knew I couldn’t do it on my own, so step one was finding a partner-in-crime.

Fortunately, through a teen lit yahoo listserv I belong to, I met Alexa Young, author of Frenemies, L.A. area resident, and former-music industry employee. She was just as passionate about doing a literature and music event as me, so Rock ‘N’ Read was born, scheduled for July 13th (my birthday!) in Hollywood! It took us a little while to land the venue (*cough* we didn’t get it confirmed ‘til a week ago!), but fortunately the amazing folks at Virgin Megastore at Hollywood & Highland decided they were game to host us. Alexa and I scrambled to get bands, a website, posters, flyers and last week was pretty crazy. But I gotta say, it’s shaping up to be a pretty darn cool event and if it goes well, who knows, we might bring it to your city next!

So, if you happen to be in the L.A. area on July 13th from 3 to 6 pm, you’ll want to swing by Virgin Megastore at 6801 Hollywood Blvd in Hollywood to take in musical performances by Lucid Nation, Noah Stone, Norfolk, Dirty Spanglish, and Moth Eaten and readings by N.L. Belardes, Cherry Cheva, Megan Crane, Kim Culbertson, Stephanie Kuehnert, Alyson Noël, Rebecca Woolf and Alexa Young.

If you’re not in California, there are still many ways that you can be involved. You can grab a banner from our website and help us spread the word. And if you are an author or musician, we are offering a unique promotional opportunity. Our event is free, but we’d like to raise money for Virgin Unite Charities so we are raffling off five identical prize packs. If you’d like to donate five (signed if possible) copies of your book, CDs, or other promotional items, we would love to have them! Contact me at stephanie at stephaniekuehnert dot com if you’re interested! I can’t tell you how excited I am about this amazing event!

By Carrie Lofty

*Note: this is a three part blog post; I’ll put the part number in the heading—CJE*

So, you’ve finished a manuscript. You listened to Jenny Crusie when she said “write with your head down,” and you took to heart Nora Roberts’ advice that “you can’t fix a blank page.” But your result is no bestseller. It’s terrible. Every thought you had during the writing process spilled onto the page, creating a murky, slobbering mess of a story. What to do? I sat down throughout the summer of 2006 and typed. I wrote every fool thing that came into my head. At one point, I decided my heroine’s father was a boring stick in the mud and stopped writing his character. Did I go back and delete him from previous chapters? No. I kept writing. Whoa, was that first draft ugly. But I had finished. That’s where the magic starts. I get a magic zing when an idea first hits me—I must write this story—and I find it again in the revision process. Now, friends of mine write emaciated first drafts and spend their revision time fattening every paragraph and putting meat on a strong skeleton. I’m just the opposite. I’m write ponderous first drafts. Come revision time, I know my story is in there—somewhere—but it’s hidden beneath a layer of word blubber. So I put my manuscripts on diets. Each and every one. And for each one, I’ve cut between 12-18% of the original word count. It can’t be helped. That’s just how I work. My actual revision process goes a little something like this, none of which is too bizarre or original. Depending on my proximity to a deadline, I give the manuscript a rest. I try to be gentle with my ideas, but by the end of that first draft, I’m completely sick of everything I’ve written. The momentary high of writing THE END gives way to thought exhaustion. So I take a mental holiday. Then I print out the whole thing. It’s not ecologically friendly, nor does the cost of ink do my budget any favors, but I need to see it on a printed page. I whip out a red pen and read it over, slowly, savoring and slicing in equal measure. The first thing that jumps to my attention is technical: echo words. With one manuscript, I was in love with the word “circles.” Everything had a darn circle. Circles of light, blood running circles. So I begin a list of echo words, and then do a search for each. I also search for overused words such as like, that, felt. The more of these I can eliminate, the fresher my writing sounds. I also use a trick I learned from editor Kelly Schaub: I begin a character list that includes everyone’s physical features, clothing, ages—anything that might have changed as I wrote. This helps establish consistency as I head into the final draft. During that first read-through, I live for the pleasant surprise that it doesn’t suck as badly as I thought. I mark in red where it does, in fact, suck, and find my will to continue by highlighting places where it really sings. I also make notes of strange happenings…like villains who die twice. I wrote this after reading the manuscript for WHAT A SCOUNDREL WANTS (12/08; Kensington):

Robin Hood: I actually think I got him right, which shocked me. Back in June, I thought his character stank. Sex: DANG. Somehow, in selfless devotion to my craft, I managed to write curtains-on-fire happiness. Villains: five. Yes, five villains. Lots of happy deaths. One of them accidentally dies twice, of a broken neck and by burning—a goof I’ll have to remedy. Pages 1-30 and 150-THE END: Nice. Hardly any editing aside from the double-death villain and some typos. Pages 31-149: Frankly shit.

So what was it about pages 31-149? Let’s talk more tomorrow… In the meantime, I love to hear how other authors operate. How do you go about your revisions? Do you put your manuscripts on a diet, or do you pump them full of protein to fatten them up?

So what was it about pages 31-149? Let’s talk more tomorrow… In the meantime, I love to hear how other authors operate. How do you go about your revisions? Do you put your manuscripts on a diet, or do you pump them full of protein to fatten them up?

I recently came across a website featuring picture books called Lookybook. It has an interesting theme. Readers can view entire picture books online, reading them from cover to cover. The site asserts that nothing will replace the feel of an actual book, but this gives new books, non-bestsellers, obscure books and hidden gems a chance to stand out from the crowd. Now I was skeptical about this site before I really looked around. Immediately the issue of copyright came to mind. But now that I’ve had a chance to really look around and read a few books (and place a few orders for my niece; she’s four and happily learning how to read so that her auntie can put her to work in a couple of years and read manuscripts—but that’s a different story), I have to say that this is a great site. It’s easier than browsing through the picture books at B&N or Borders since those sections are usually populated by nannies with baby carriages or parents with baby carriages that are a little difficult to dodge around. And it’s pointed me to a few books that I may not have found otherwise. Copyright isn’t really an issue because, like the site states, nothing replaces the feel of having an actual book in your hands to read to a young reader. So I can happily and heartily recommend it.

 

I had lunch with an editor yesterday who I hadn’t seen in a while. Like all good lunches, we spent a lot of time talking about what we’d been reading. Now I should say that the editor has bought an erotic novel from me so we bond over talk of bondage and sex. So when she asked me what I was currently reading, I sheepishly replied that I’d just started reading a book on the cold war. She cocked her head to one side and asked if I’d read any other good books. Before I could think of the wisdom of my response, I raved about reading The Wal-Mart Effect. She grinned as I stopped talking mid-sentence and asked if I was really a romance agent. Hmm. Come to think of it, I haven’t read any romance that’s really made me sit up and take notice in a while. So here’s the challenge: I want to find 3-4 romance authors who have great contemporary romances (sorry paranormal and romantic suspense authors—as I keep saying, I have some great authors already writing this in my stable so I don’t want to have too much competition within the agency). Please send me great stories with well developed characters, fun plots and great locations (I’m an armchair traveler so don’t hesitate to set your stories in your hometown of Wichita, Kansas or Phoenix, Arizona; I’d love to hear about those places). Send all queries via email—submissions@johnsonlitagency.com— and let’s get some good stories going.