All I want for Christmas is 50 Amazon reviews!

And we're so close! Right now Woodwalker is sitting at exactly 45 reviews—it only needs five more! Amazon is perhaps the biggest influence in a book’s sales, and 50 reviews is sort of their threshold for determining whether a book has a decent following or not. If you’ve read Woodwalker, whether you loved it or wanted to gouge out your eyeballs with compass needles by the end, would you please consider leaving a brief, honest review?

Just like last time, as incentive, I have a second wave of spoiler art ready to go live on my website once we hit that magic number. Additionally, I’ll publicly post my most recent painting, a rather dashing portrait of Valien Bluesmoke, King of the Silverwood.

​Reviews on other sites, like Goodreads, are more than welcome, as well. As always, thank you so much for your support, and happy holiday season!

Barely two hours after this post went live, Woodwalker received its 50th Amazon review! As promised, there are ten brand-new highly spoilery pieces up in the Spoiler Gallery (spoiler: there are spoilers involved, so don't click if you want to remain unspoiled of the spoilers). And here is your GQ-esque portrait of cunning Valien, also on display in my portfolio: 

Thank you again for your support and feedback. Please continue to leave reviews for the books you read, particularly by lesser-known authors--they are the best tool for a book's success!

Time for my second Friendsgiving query critique! When I saw this Viking-inspired middle grade query in the inbox, I nabbed it right away. Check it out:

As with my previous critique, this is already a relatively good letter. It’s clear you did your research on what to include. As it stands right now, it feels a little stretched to me, like you have too much of the story included with not enough details about each event. In fact, I think you could end the pitch after your third paragraph, beef up the details provided, and have an even stronger query. Here are some thoughts:


Dear (Agent),
Thirteen-year-old Pippa is an impulsive Viking girl who spends tedious days caring for her beloved, sick aunt.
While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this opening line, it doesn’t hook me. Try to rework it into what she wants. “Thirteen-year-old Pippa longs to journey into the treacherous Scottish Hebrides to find her long-lost father. Instead, she is forced to stay home and care for her beloved, sick aunt.”
She longs to be reunited with her father, who was whisked away by a malevolent cloud when she was six.
The whuhh…? We need a little more information about this cloud up front. Does she know what the cloud is or what evil force is behind it? Is there folklore in her village that explains it? I’d spend a few more words on setting up what this cloud is and why it’s so dangerous.
 All she remembers of him is that his beard smells like pine.   
Meh, you can probably take this line out and put more emphasis on the rogue cloud.


Pippa and her older brother are stunned when their father sends them a warning to hide.
Again, we need a little more information here. She hasn’t been able to find him for years, but he can send a message to them? Is he magic? Beef this up a little. “Pippa and her older brother (you can name the brother here, if he’s a main character) are one day stunned to hear their father’s voice coming out of his old sparkly Barbiemobile, which they thought had fallen silent forever. It gave them a warning—tell the village to hide up in the Cave of the Wandering Dingbats, or else fall prey to the evil cloud. Despite their efforts… (etc)”
Despite their efforts, the cloud returns—and this time it takes Pippa’s brother.


The magic-wielding Bards on her island want Pippa to stay put--but she’s done with hiding. 
This is good—it tells us what forces are working against Pippa.
Pippa might be the cloud’s next victim. She fears for her brother, but Pippa’s no coward. Gutsy, armed with her father’s dagger, and determined to defeat the mysterious cloud—she vows to find her family.
Like I said, I’d end the pitch here with a more solidified idea of the stakes. Because we don’t know much about the cloud beyond that it takes people, it’s hard to say exactly what risk Pippa’s taking. Family bonds are a good universal concept that everyone can relate to, but I think you can punch it up a little more. If the cloud isn’t stopped, will it just keep taking people from her village? Will it spread, or grow stronger? Leave us with a sense that the problem has stakes beyond just her family (even though that’s important).

Pippa’s unlikely group of friends secretly commandeer a Viking longship. They brave ruffians and fickle oceans in the Scottish Hebrides while uncovering clues to find her missing brother. 
Desperate, Pippa trades away her voice for a spell to defeat the sinister cloud. She’s elated when her brother is nearly saved, until a close friend betrays her. Pippa realizes she may have traded her voice for nothing—and lost her brother in the process. 
​
LIKE A RICH JEWEL is a middle grade fantasy novel steeped in ninth century Norse and Celtic folklore. It is complete at 71,000 words. The novel can stand alone but has series potential. 
Excellent. This is where you would put comp titles, if you have them. “Readers of (A Book, by An Author) will enjoy the Vikings and clouds and Barbiemobiles.”
Most queries will have a brief bio of the author at this point. Even if you don’t have writing credentials, it’s a good idea to give the agent a little idea of who you are. “I am a Barbiemobile assembly manager and lead bodhran player in my Celtic rock group, the Scurvy Thistlepunchers.”

​Thank you for your time and consideration.
Best Regards,
(Author)
(Author’s contact info)
 
Good letter. Cut it down and punch up the rest to really make it stand out. Thanks for sharing, and good luck querying!

Don't forget to join us on Twitter this coming Friday (December 2) at 4 PM and 8 PM for a chat about writing, querying, and publishing! Bring yer tough questions and keep an eye on #FFChat.

For the other Friendsgiving Feedback critiques, see:
Michelle Hauck, author of GRUDGING and FAITHFUL
Laura Heffernan, author of AMERICA'S NEXT REALITY STAR
Liana Brooks, author of HEROES AND VILLAINS series
Sarah Remy, author of THE BONE CAVE

Happy Thanksgiving to all near and far! Today I am thankful for authors and artists working to make the world a better place, and for the opportunity to critique a fun and unique spin on the jinni-in-the-bottle story! 

​Here is the original query:

​So, right off, I’ll say that this is already a good query letter. You’ve clearly done your research on what details to include and not include, and you convey the tone and setup of your story very well. Not only does this bode well for your letter, it says good things about your manuscript, too. I think with just a little bit of clarity and polish, you’ll have a really strong letter than will hopefully catch an agent’s eye.
 
When Zahara, a young and not-so-terrifying Jinn from an ancient and evil family, is conjured up by a hapless but well-meaning New Yorker, she finds herself thrust into a battle to save the world from one fallen angel…and save her heart from another. This is a good "elevator pitch" for your book, but it's not needed in your query unless an agent specifically asks for it. Three main sections are generally sufficient: the hook, the book, and the cook. Basically, introduce your main characters and the stakes of your novel, then provide details like word count and genre, and then give a little relevant info about yourself.

Complete at 90,000 words, SUMMONING ZAHARA is an adult fantasy novel for readers of Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files and Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles. This is tough because it’s such a subjective thing, but it’s often best to jump into the stakes of your novel and leave the nuts and bolts for the end. Now, I know there are some agents who say the opposite, so don’t feel like you have to hold fast and true to this. And certainly, if an agent has a specific format they provide, follow that. But you have a really strong opening sentence below, and I think you may be better off starting with that.

Additionally, I'd break down and re-word this section. Consider: SUMMONING ZAHARA is a 90,000-word epic fantasy. Fans of Jim Butcher's THE DRESDEN FILES will enjoy x (insert what would appeal to them, and do the same for Hearne). Also, keep your book title formatting parallel---either do all caps or italics, but not both.
 
Zahara has high expectations for any sorcerer brave enough to summon her to do his nefarious bidding, and Daniel Goldstein succeeds in satisfying exactly none of them. 

Like I said above, this is a strong sentence, and I would start with it. It introduces the tone, main characters, and main conflict right off the bat. However, I think it would benefit from being shorter and more concise. You can do this by splitting it into two sentences, and giving me a different transition than "and." Try: ...to do his nefarious bidding. Unfortunately, Daniel Goldstein succeeds...

She needs to trick a human into giving up his soul to impress her infamously evil mother. The main thing I tripped over here was the switch in motive. The previous sentence led me to think you would tell me why Daniel is unsatisfactory. I would answer that question first before switching to her motivation. Additionally, you've given me part of the stakes here, but not all of them. Why does she need to impress her mother? Is there something her mother has that she wants, like her goodwill or special powers? What's at stake for Zahara? He's dealing with a recent break-up with his boyfriend and his Jewish grandmother's ghost. I first read this as him breaking up with his boyfriend AND his grandmother's ghost. Remember agents are often reading quickly, and you don't want them to have to do a double-take. I'd get rid of the mention of his boyfriend---you allude to his sexual orientation in the next paragraph, so unless his breakup is part of the reason Zahara finds him unacceptable, it's probably not needed here. Also consider adding punchier language than "dealing with." Is this a normal occurrence for him? Is it surprising, or inconvenient, or tormenting? Making your word choice just a little more colorful can convey more of his situation without adding to your word count. His bubbe has reached out from beyond the grave to tell him to raise a mighty Jinn to stop two fallen angels. From doing what? Clearly it's something evil and significant---give us a better idea of the stakes.  The nymphomaniacal, shopping-obsessed Zahara isn’t exactly the otherworldly ally Daniel had in mind. I'm a little confused as to how you're portraying Jinn. Having Daniel "raise" a Jinn makes me think of the classic jinni slumbering for thousands of years, but "shopping-obsessed" makes me think they live average, daily lives like humans.  A not-so-evil sorcerer who wants to do good wasn't what Zahara was looking for, either. This is where you might put the sentence about what's at stake for Zahara.

Stuck in a magical contract with each other, the two travel to Morocco, where Zahara’s handsome friend Zaid, a Jinn who's converted to Islam, reluctantly joins their quest. The conversion to Islam also confuses me in terms of what your Jinn are and what they do. Practicing organized religion seems so pedestrian for a mighty Jinn. Giving us a peek into your worldbuilding might help---is this just a world where Jinn and sorcerers and ghosts are ordinary beings that live ordinary daily lives? As Daniel and Zaid struggle against paranormal mercenaries, bumbling terrorists and their attraction to one other, Zahara is forced to join forces with the fallen angel's gorgeous but infuriating brother to stop a plot to throw the human and Jinn worlds into a cataclysmic war. Okay, we got a little scrambled here. I thought Zahara had been raised to stop the angels? Even if there's a bait-and-switch in the story, it might be too much to introduce in your query. Remember, you just need to entice an agent to request pages. At the very least, I'd split this sentence into two.

Also, is this a multiple POV story? You haven't mentioned that it is, but you're putting equal emphasis on both Zahara and Daniel, including setting up a romantic arc for him and another character, which tells me he's a joint protagonist. However, your title only mentions Zahara, and below you mention just one protagonist. If this is primarily Zahara's story, put more focus on what's at stake for her, particularly in this paragraph. What does she want, and what's stopping her from getting it? What good thing will happen if she succeeds? What bad thing will happen if she fails? On the other hand, if it's not just her story, make sure to mention it's multiple POV.

This is where I'd put the "book" paragraph: title, word count, genre, and comps.

A neurosurgeon by day, I blog about Middle Eastern mythology at (website URL). Unlike my protagonist, I can't pop over to Morocco in a swirl of pink brimstone and fire when I feel like it, but my vacations there have given me some wonderful inspiration for my novel. This is a great little bio section---it gives your relevant background and strengthens your voice without being too wordy.

Thank you for your time and consideration, Exactly the right closing for a query letter. Well done!

​I realize that looks and sounds like a lot of edits, but like I said, I think you're almost there. Give us a more concrete idea of what your protagonist (or protagonists) want and what the implications of their actions are. Solidify your world just a little bit more to give us a sense of tone and scope. Overall, excellent job!

Thanks for offering your letter for critique, and good luck querying! 

For the other Friendsgiving Feedback critiques up to this point, see:
Michelle Hauck, author of GRUDGING and FAITHFUL
Laura Heffernan, author of AMERICA'S NEXT REALITY STAR
Liana Brooks, author of HEROES AND VILLAINS series

"What else did you bring?" I asked. "Tell me you brought something besides traveling tunics.”

Mae glared at me. “In case you’d forgotten, we left the Silverwood in a bit of a hurry after a night of no sleep. I packed for battle, not tea and cookies.”

“Rivers to the sea.” I pushed back my chair and stood. “You’ll have to borrow something of mine.”

“Impossible.”

“Why?”

“Three reasons.” She pointed to her breasts. “One. Two.” She slapped her hips. “Three. And you’d have to hem about a foot off the bottom.”

I went to my trunk. “We’ll make it work.”

“Never.”

“You doubt my sewing skills.”

“I do. You’re not a miracle worker. Just let me wear my uniform.”

“I saw it when we met with Atria. The knees are filthy. Tell me, what color is the cleanest pair of breeches you brought?”

She sighed and propped her boots up on the end of her bunk. “Probably brown. Most of them are brown.”

“Do you have gray?”

“No, I don’t have gray. What does it matter?”

“Brown’s a bad color for you. Muddies you.”

She fanned herself in mock distress. “Oh, you cruel thing. To think I’ve gone this far in life not knowing…”

I pulled out the richest color I had brought, a midnight blue gown with a square neckline. “You should consider wearing reds, or pastels.”

“Pastels?” She spit the word out as if it tasted bad.

“Something other than olive drab and brown.”

“Maybe I’ll just go naked, so Celeno’s not offended,” she said vehemently. “And don’t slam green—it’s the color of our banner.”

“Then let it stay on the banner. Get up,” I said, dragging a chair into the middle of the floor. “Let’s get to work.”

“I thought we were supposed to be talking about something practical?” she said.

“On the chair.”

-Ashes to Fire

One of my favorite exchanges between Mae and Mona in Ashes to Fire! I really love how the relationship between these two grows and changes through the two books. After the events of Woodwalker, they're able to appreciate and trust the other a lot more, leading to some great dialogue and action between them.

Ashes to Fire releases as an e-book on January 31, 2017! The paperback will follow a few weeks later. You can pre-order the e-book through HarperCollins for just $3.99.

There are three new prints for sale in my INPRNT shop. The first two are pen-and-ink illustrations done as part of the Inktober challenge, when artists post ink drawings every day of October. The first is the now-beloved mantra of Mae in Woodwalker, while the second is the mantra of book two, ​Ashes to Fire!

The third one is a pencil sketch done during a book signing a few weeks ago, once again featuring Mae and her favorite saying!

To celebrate these new prints and the month of October in general, you can now take 10% off any purchase of my prints between today (October 7, 2016) and next Friday, October 14, 2016. Just use the code AZQASUII when checking out! Know someone who needs to remember to take things one crisis at a time? Get those holiday gifts purchased early! Maybe you need such a reminder plastered above your bed? Treat yo'self!

Ready for a descent into madness?

Let’s go!

When I wrote Woodwalker, I had the title pretty well set from the get-go. Short, relevant, evocative of the protagonist’s past, present, and future goals. As soon as I had given a name to Mae’s office, it naturally morphed into the title of the book. My agent and editor liked it. Easy peasey.

The cover was the thing I got stuck on. It was important to me to get it right, and I didn’t always trust myself during the process (for the whole story, see my Evolution of a Cover post). It took a lot of pinning, redrawing, late-night crying, and faltering emails to get it to a place I felt comfortable. But the relieving thing was, once that design was set, I knew it would be no problem to design the other covers in the series.
​
And I was right. I started the cover for Woodwalker’s follow-up novel shortly after finishing the first, mimicking the theme and altering the imagery to fit Mona’s story. Everything came very easily—her determined posture, the dramatic lighting, the stylistic fire overlay. I had a decent draft pretty well in hand before my editor ever got hold of the manuscript.

​Setbacks notwithstanding...
​

However, the thing didn’t have a title.

It was early, I reasoned. I had months before the manuscript would come up in my editor’s hopper. Plenty of time to ponder and pull apart the symbolism in the story, or to contrive some meaningful name from the dialogue. I didn’t worry about it, focusing instead on wrestling with the third manuscript—which, incidentally, does have a working title, as well as a mental draft of the cover.

Time passed. I got angry at my third manuscript and started something new. That hit an unexpected wall and was replaced by another story. I focused on promotion for Woodwalker. I took on a bunch of art commissions for people. I did some book signings. I put on my park ranger hat and chased elk, and they chased me back. All the while, in the back of my mind, I was sure that one day, that elusive title for book 2 would effortlessly pop into my head.

Spoiler: it didn’t.

And so came that fateful day that my editor emailed me asking for a draft of my cover and the title I had in mind.

Oh. The title. That I had in mind. About that…

With nothing to send to him on that front, I started doing some title worksheets, teasing apart the main themes and struggles of the protagonists, writing down the imagery woven throughout and what it represented.

And I’ll tell you what, the results I got were a glorious pile of steaming offal. I mean, they were terrible. When they weren’t terrible, they were obnoxiously cliché, things like “Fire and Water” and other names I really don’t want to write down because they are terrible.

I tried a few more worksheets, copying the styles of famous titles using the imagery in my book. I tried re-wording certain passages in the book to force a meaningful string of words out of them. I even approached it like I approach my ranger programs, making lists of the tangible, intangible, and universal concepts present in the story.

I appealed to my agent and editor, who both suggested I might be overthinking things. I didn’t know how else to approach it, though. I had tried not thinking for about four months, and that did no good.
As with the cover rigmarole for Woodwalker, I brought the matter to my husband, and we began a sort of hilarious late-night quest deep through Thesaurus.com, searching for words to describe Mona’s physical and emotional journey. This produced some quality gems that would have probably necessitated having Fabio on the cover alongside Mona—things like Smoldering Ember, Virgin Flame, and Vestal Smoke.

“Swank!” my husband cried, now half an hour deep in the thesaurus. “Swank is a colloquial synonym for ‘new!’ Swank Blaze!”

“God, I don’t know what to do,” I said.

“Swank Blaze!”

After extensive note-taking and telling my husband I would include Swank Blaze on my list (I didn’t), I wound up with a page of titles I disliked less than others. Embarrassed at their poor quality, I sent it out to my beta readers for feedback. At the very bottom of the list was:

“Ashes to Fire (okay, I lied, I hate this one, but it sucks less than some others)”

I did not like Ashes to Fire. To me it screamed melodrama—intense, meaningless words with a nonsensical article thrown in between them. Boo, you piece of crap title. I went to bed angry at words in general.

I woke up with an email from one of my beta readers. This particular reader I can always trust to hone in on the symbolism and heart of the narrative. Okay, so it was my mom. She had zeroed in on Ashes to Fire.

“I like this one best,” she wrote. “It’s a paradox—how do you go from ashes to fire? You can coax a fire from ashes if there are still embers burning.”

Bam!

She had, in essence, summed up Mona’s emotional journey, the political intrigue, and the spirituality of book 2’s narrative in one short sentence. Ashes to Fire turned from being a string of meaningless words into a short, dynamic summation of the heart of the book.

(As an aside: many authors I talk to are surprised that several of my beta readers are my immediate family. They say they’d never send their unpublished work to their family members. For my part, I can’t imagine not sending mine to them. This is, in part, why: my family is pretty fly.)
​
I sent the title to my agent, who sent it to my editor, who responded quickly that he liked it, and that was that. I got him the final draft of the cover, and within a few days, he sent it back with that title slapped across the top.

This publishing world is weird. Some things create massive drama, some barely cause a whisper. I have gotten far more worked up over these manuscripts than I have over parenting (“what? Oh, here, slap a Band-Aid on it and have a cookie.”). I described myself as an over-emotional pudding cup to Twitter during one particular meltdown, despite having assisted in search and rescue and solo-backpacking 40 miles through New Mexico. This is just how it is. This is just how I am. This is how I create and write.

Nothing arrives on paper fully-formed. Every book or painting or other masterpiece is the result of effort and a lifetime of work. And I know I, personally, couldn’t do it without my pool of supportive family, friends, community of authors, and bastion of literary professionals helping me keep up the appearance of sanity.
​
On that note, I hope my husband will forgive me some day.

This evening I experienced what has been, so far, the most fulfilling moment of my fledgling career as an author. I had a book signing at our local Books-a-Million, and I signed and sold a decent number of copies. Things started off slow, so I had ample time to sketch in between interested readers. Behind me was the poster I put together showcasing the five main characters of WOODWALKER—Mae, the protagonist, Mona, Colm, Arlen, and Valien.

Sketching is often a good way to draw people in, and it worked for a mother and her two twin daughters, probably ten years old or so. They came to see what I was doing and exclaimed over the picture of Mae I was doodling. They asked about the book, and while they were a few years younger than the intended audience, I told them about how it was an adventure story starring a girl, which got them excited. They begged their mom to buy the book, and she agreed, saying that even if it was a little old for them, at least they would learn some new vocabulary words.

After I wrote their names in the book and signed it, I showed them the picture I had been drawing again.

“She’s the main character,” I said. And I pointed behind me at the poster, which is full color. “And that’s her, too.”

“Girls,” said their mother. “Look at her skin.”

The two girls looked at the poster and saw that Mae’s skin was brown like theirs. One of them looked back at me and put her arm around my shoulder.

“Can I give you a hug?” she asked.
​
I hugged her and her sister tightly and told them I hoped they liked the book.

​Despite how important the issue of diversity and inclusivity is to me, I find it very hard to talk about. I don’t post about it much, concerned about coming across as a “theater ally,” someone who acts a certain way only in the interest of having it reflect positively back on them. I think Twitter is partly to blame. For every sound opinion, there seems to be an equally sound conflicting one. Some people think white people should use our privilege to be vocal, some think we should be silent to let marginalized voices be heard. Some say we should identify ourselves as allies, some say we should cut it out with labeling ourselves allies in the interest of avoiding the aforementioned theatrics.

I struggle with whether I have the right to write a Cherokee-inspired character in Mae, or a black character in Rou, or a Latina character in Gemma. I struggle with how to write an epic fantasy set in an American world without appropriating culture. I struggle with wanting to tell everyone about my diverse cast of characters, wanting to insert myself in the “we need diverse books!” hashtags. I worry about unconsciously stereotyping. And I know I have little right to complain about the complexities of writing these characters, when at least I have the privilege of my voice being heard, rather than silenced, misconstrued, or told to change.

So I tend to err on the side of silence, hoping that instead my work will just speak for itself. And tonight, it did. Two little girls saw themselves represented in the hero of a fantasy-adventure novel, just like I saw myself in Daine, and Matilda, and Saaski.

Even this post feels slightly theatrical and disingenuous. But my gratefulness to those girls and their mother is real, and not because it makes me look good, but because this is the ultimate goal I've been working towards all this time--using my work to nudge inclusivity just a bit further. I wanted to tell them to wait until book two—that the romantic interest, and perhaps my favorite character I’ve written so far, is a young black man. But I didn’t. I just hugged them and thanked them for buying my book. I thanked their mother, and I told her this was important to me.
​
I hope they like it.

Here’s the thing. I have THREE SKETCHBOOKS full of Woodwalker art. Some of it you’ve seen already, and some will never see the light of day, but much of it I haven’t been able to share because it contains massive spoilers. But, many of you have now read the book and joined Mae and the others in their adventures, and I’d like to post a special exclusive fancypants portfolio for you on my website—filled with nothing but spoiler art.
​
SO here’s how this will work. Right now I am sitting at 23 customer reviews of Woodwalker on Amazon. The magic number is 50—that’s when Amazon starts taking a book somewhat seriously. Help me reach 35 reviews—that’s 12 more—and I will upload my Spoiler Gallery to my website, with much of my sketchbook art and some finished pieces. Help me reach 50 and I’ll upload a second wave and do a prize giveaway.

Reviews don’t have to be long or involved, and they don’t even have to be good reviews (though, of course, it’s preferable). They can be one sentence, or even just a few words.

“Thrilling! Would recommend!”

“Boring! Don’t waste your time!”

“Appalling! Who approved this crap?”

Or it can be a multi-paragraph dissertation on my shallow worldbuilding and overuse of the word “folk.” Whatever moves you! But in the publishing industry, it’s the reviews that count, not just the ratings.

This is kind of like when the teacher says if the entire class completes end-of-semester course evaluations, they’ll all get a reward—only instead of a bonus point on your final, you get kissing pictures.

We've reached 35 reviews on Amazon! That means the Spoiler Art gallery is now live! Thank you all so much!

For a second wave of art and a prize giveaway, let's work on getting 50 reviews!

My next Woodwalker book signing will be at the Books-A-Million in the Anderson Mall on Friday, September 9, from 5-8 PM. I will have some fun new freebies that I'll be debuting there, so come stop by!

Woodwalker Signing 
Friday, September 9
5-8 PM
Books-A-Million
Anderson, SC

Also keep your eyes open for a big new addition to my Explore section, featuring scads of new artwork! I'll announce details about it in the next few days!