There’s a lot of advice out on the web on how to write a book. Some of it’s good advice, some of it’s awful.  What I’m noticing, though, is a dearth of information on how to approach writing a book.  This unsung step is crucial to the development of any novel. It’s where ideas are nurtured and shaped. It’s where worlds are born and characters are birthed. It’s where inspiration and intuition conspire to parent dreams.*

Here, then, is my contribution to this seldom discussed piece of craft.

HOW TO APPROACH WRITING A YA NOVEL**

1.    Get an idea (check the Sunday paper, sometimes Target has a sale).

2.    Make sure it’s a really good idea. Ask your cat. If she sleeps, it’s a really good idea.

3.    Research the YA market and learn that someone else did your idea.  Sort of like how you planned, only better.

4.    Buy a live chicken, some salt, and a ceremonial dagger.

5.    In a field near a graveyard at midnight, draw a pentagram with the salt and sacrifice the chicken.

6.    Curse the name of the author who stole your idea. Said curse might include, but should not be limited to, poxes, bodily leakage, poor judgment, spontaneous combustion, spontaneous tap dancing, unrelenting sorrow and porridge, intermittent gravitas, and mistaken identity.

7.    Google the author to see if the curse worked.

8.    If the curse did not work, repeat with step 1.

9.    If the curse worked, supply me with a list of ideas you’d like me to stay away from and I’ll do so unreservedly thank you very much and my you’re looking nice today unholy one.

*=Yes, I”m aware of how completely awful that metaphor is. I’m giving it to you as a gift. Consider it a weapon the next time someone criticizes your writing.  Whip that puppy on them and watch their brains implode. You can thank me later. Or now.

**=Please note that while the term “YA novel” is used, these methods can be invoked as you approach writing just about anything. The advantage of using this as you prepare to write a grocery list is that the chicken doubles as both sacrifice and dinner.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who hasn’t berated me for not exactly sticking to my Blog Manifesto mandate of blogging every Monday. (Those who’ve berated me? A pox on you.) I try. I really do.  But, in the words of the immortal Trekkie Monster: “Me busy.”

So, it will probably come as no small source of amusement to learn that, despite my inability to keep what should be a fairly moderate schedule, I’ve joined another blog, in addition to my activities here. The redoubtable Holly Schindler used her wiles and influence (AKA, she put me in a headlock and gave me the Noogie of Death) to get me to join Smack Dab in the Middle, a blog written by a diverse collection of middle grade authors.  Never mind that my first middle grade book won’t even by out until late 2012.  I’m diving in now and making my presence known there.  Holly won me over with the promise that I would only HAVE to blog once a month–on the 25th. I figured that would be doable.

I didn’t mention that I’d completely failed to even do ONE post during the entire month of February.  You know, just shortly after issuing the Blog Manifesto.

If nothing else, ya gotta stick around to watch me self destruct while I try to juggle what, in all reality, should be a completely manageable blogging schedule, yet I’ll find a way to change it into an earth-shattering cataclysm.  I am here, if nothing, to entertain.

My first post is up today.  We were asked to blog about why we write middle grade.  All the good answers were taken so I chose an unusual course: blunt honesty.

To be clear, I’m not giving up this blog. I will continue to blog here EVERY MONDAY (go ahead: laugh).  I will talk about the imminent release of my debut YA novel, WITH OR WITHOUT YOU (in stores just shy of one month from now).  I will talk about work on my middle grade series.  And I will talk about whatever else pops into my somewhat demented mind.

Lucky, lucky you.

With the new series of DOCTOR WHO starting in just two days, I had started a rather lengthy, rambling post about my lifelong love of the show with a butchered attempt at explaining my fondness.

Then Lis Sladen died.

I looked over what I’d written—an analysis of how gay men tend to be drawn to escapist fantasy and how DOCTOR WHO epitomizes the ultimate getaway—and it didn’t make sense to me anymore. I’m sure a psychologist would zero in on these reasons for my attraction to the show.

But really, I loved the show because of Sarah Jane.

Steven Moffat, the current showrunner, once commented that DOCTOR WHO isn’t about the Doctor. It’s about the companions. They’re our surrogates. We get to live the adventures through them. And while the Doctor has indeed flown solo a few times, he always manages to surround himself with people the audience can identify and sympathize with.

Sarah Jane was the first companion I knew. She was my first connection to the show. Sure, I was thirteen and a sci fi geek and that alone should have drawn me there. But being drawn there and staying there are two different things. And I stayed for Sarah Jane. She was funny. She was flawed. She was clever. She was strong.

Companions came and went like the Doctors but losing Sarah Jane was hard. She’s one of what I call “the tragic companions.” The list is relatively short: Jamie, Zoe, Adric, Peri, Rose, and Donna. Most of the Doctor’s companions left of their own accord. They chose to leave on their terms. Turlough returned to his homeworld, Jo got married, Mel went to explore the galaxy with Sabalom Glitz. The tragic companions didn’t get a choice. They had to leave the Doctor. Their departures tend to hit me the hardest. Largely because it’s obvious that most wanted to travel with the Doctor for much longer. Lis often said how much she treasured her association with DOCTOR WHO and how it brought so much good to her life.  I can’t help but think that, when she passed, nothing pleased her more than to know she was still making children happy playing Sarah Jane, some 30 years after originating the role.

I’ve met a few of the WHO actors over the years but I regret never having met her. The online tributes have been astounding and the one consistent fact in everything people are saying is what wonderful person she was. Sure, everyone says that when somebody dies. But not this effusively. Not this convincingly.

In many ways, I owe my writing to DOCTOR WHO.  But that’s a story for a different time.

Thanks, Lis, for having such a profound effect on my life. When the TARDIS flies again on Saturday, your presence will be felt.

The New York Times has an interesting article on the history of the Muppets franchise and how, essentially, it’s been almost destroyed several times over by mismanagement since Jim Henson’s death.

I’m a huge Muppets fan. HUGE. Don’t believe me? Here’s our wedding cake.

While the article refers to MUPPETS CHRISTMAS CAROL and MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND as bombs, I liked both movies.  Liked, but didn’t necessarily love.  They both have their moments.  Odd as this may sound, I believe one of things that’s led to a sense of disembodiment for the Muppets is the strange decision to put Kermit into the background.

In both the aforementioned movies, Gonzo has a more prominent role and the disastrous MUPPETS IN SPACE centers around him.  MUPPETS TONIGHT (which I did love, if it was a little uneven) gave hosting duties over to Clifford. (I like Clifford a lot but, again, I kept wondering why Kermit wasn’t featured more.)  I think in most people’s minds, Kermit is the heart and soul of the Muppets. It’s always been peculiar to see him relegated to second banana duty. (Full disclosure: I’ve never been much of a Gonzo fan.  He tends to irritate me. So my analysis may be biased a bit. But you can’t deny a correlation between the downward spiral of the Muppets and the sudden, inexplicable prominence of Gonzo….)

I agree with the article that the Muppets are best when they’re being themselves, not when they’re taking on roles in THE WIZARD OF OZ or such. I have high hopes for the movie that’s coming out this fall.  It sounds like the people working on it have returned the Muppets to their roots.  Definitely a step in the right direction.

I still watch episodes of the original Muppet show and wonder why they aren’t more prominent in today’s culture.  There’s something timeless about the sketches. (OK. Not all of them.  The Mummenshanz?  Seriously?)  Or maybe nostalgia provides a sheen that mimics timelessness.  Sales on the DVDs have been iffy at best.  I just don’t get it.

Well, I sort of do. I think this article hits on some ugly truths.  And an ugly reality is: can the Muppets unique style and brand of humor compete with evolving tastes and technology? DOCTOR WHO essentially re-invented itself when it rebooted in 2005, shedding the shaky sets and awful SFX for cinematography and spectacle more in tune with 21st century audiences.   BATMAN was been re-imagined so many times, it makes the original comic books look cutesy and quaint by comparison.  Is there such a revamp that can make the Muppets hip again? Or are they destined to become memories of a different time with a different sense of humor, going the way of Little Orphan Annie, Captain Kangaroo, and Kukla, Fran, and Ollie?  And will such a reboot remove what made the Muppets who they are?

A lot is riding on this new movie. No pressure, though.

My debut novel, WITH OR WITHOUT YOU, is out next month. May 24, to be precise.  A bit earlier than I’d anticipated. Yay for being out early but AAHHH! now must think promotion sooner than I’d planned.

But, thankfully, the internet works in mysterious ways. (Or rather, I’m learning I have very cool writer friends who hook me up with very cool websites.)  See my first official GUEST BLOG POST over at Gay YA where I talk about resonating with readers and one YA book in particular that did so with me.

I guess I consider this the official kick-off to my WOWY (ain’t that a great acronym?) media blitz. Other promotional plans (a blog tour, for example) are in the works AND a contest.  In fact, TWO contests!  Details forthcoming in early May.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go avoid spoilers for the upcoming series of DOCTOR WHO, which premieres three terribly long weeks away on April 23. (Seriously, if the anticipation doesn’t do me in, fighting off the temptation to read spoilers will.)

It was an amazing week and a half but, alas, the honeymoon is now–quite literally–over.  We enjoyed six fun-filled days at Walt Disney World and Universal/Islands of Adventure, followed by four decadent days aboard the Disney Dream for a cruise to the Bahamas. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is every bit amazing as people have said. I actually enjoyed the pumpkin juice more than the butterbeer and the Forbidden Journey ride only gets better with each successive ride (we went three times).

We hit all four Disney parks (some multiple times) and enjoyed every minute. (Tip: If you go to Hollywood Studios, the Toy Story Midway Mania ride is a must. Go first thing in the morning when they open, ride it once, then get a Fast Pass to come back later.)

Apart from being thoroughly entertained for the duration of our sojourn, we also had a chance to be educated and get schooled on bits of Magic Kingdom minutiae and trivia.  Thus I present….

Little known facts about Walt Disney World:

–“Where dreams come true” was actually the second choice for a slogan.  The first choice–“Terrible parenting on parade”–was nixed when someone pointed out that too much truth in advertising could be detrimental.

–If the Disney bus driver pulls into the parking lot and says, “Welcome to the most magical place on earth” and you reply, “We’re at Hogwarts?”, you will be met at the gate by a legion of truncheon-bearing costume characters and bludgeoned in time to “It’s a Small World.”

–Six out of seven Dwarves aren’t happy.

So, quite a bit of book news to share this week.  First of all, my debut book has a new title!  The book formerly known as CHASERS is now known as:

WITH OR WITHOUT YOU

I dig it. Well, I should. I suggested it.   And the best part of the name change?  The initials: WOWY!

With the new title comes a slightly new cover (man, I love my cover):

And if all these changes weren’t quite enough, the release date has also changed.  Look for WITH OR WITHOUT YOU nearly two months earlier, on May 24, 2011.  Yes, that’s right: the day before Towel Day! Or maybe Towel Day Eve.  It will be all the more important to be a hoopy frood who knows exactly where your towel–and copy of WITH OR WITHOUT YOU–are. *

And I’m thrilled that Jason Myers, author of the fabulous EXIT HERE (and the forthcoming DEAD END), gave me the following blurb: “A near perfect book for the times as Brian Farrey has provided the entire LGBT community, especially it’s teens, an important novel that’s as unnerving as it is page turning. A tough task to do and Farrey pulls it off with ferociousness and grace.”

Moving up the release date means I’m doing my headless chicken routine to prepare for book promotion on a slightly accelerated schedule.  Stay tuned for news of a blog tour, contests, and other nifty events.  Go-Go-Gadget Book Launch!

*=Just to be clear: WITH OR WITHOUT YOU has nothing to do with THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. Absolutely nothing. I’m just excited that my book is coming out so close to something associated with one of my favorite books of all time.

Full disclosure: while I live in Minnesota, I was born and raised in Wisconsin. I’ve always held an affection for my homestate, though I was severely disappointed when they passed a very hateful law preventing marriage equality a few years ago.  In particular, I’ve always loved Madison, a shining oasis of progressive values in an otherwise frustratingly conservative state.  So when presented with the opportunity to travel there this past weekend and present a DECA scholarship in memory of my mother at an awards ceremony, it required little coaxing.

Everyone  knows that times are turbulent in Madison right now. The city is no stranger to conflict like the one that’s been brewing there for several weeks since Scott Walker created a budget deficit and proposed to eliminate it by destroying unions (a curious solution at best).  With some time to kill before the ceremony, my husband and I created our own protest signs and joined the thousands who were rallying outside the state capitol.  It was exciting to see so many people standing up and giving voice to their grievances.  No violence,  just civil disobedience acting as  a cornerstone of true democracy.

State Street was lined with anti-Walker signs

The start of the rally.

As I said a few posts ago, dissertations on craft just ain’t my thang.  There are people who do it far better than me ontheir blogs.  But every now and then, a topic comes up that I can’t resist talking about.  And this one interests me as both a writer and an editor: the idea of world building.

I’ve seen discussions of this come up online more and more lately. The consensus seems to be that readers love “good world building.” But when I see this, it’s almost always when the discussion involves genre writing (sci-fi, fantasy, etc.).  Because of the nature of genre, a high premium is placed on skillful world building. It’s the backstory that explains the horrific events leading to the creation of the dystopian society. It’s the laws that govern the use of magic.  Genre world building can be a bit tricky, especially when it comes to avoiding the dreaded info dump. (Also known as Death by Exposition.) It can be even trickier depending on the voice (first person narrator world building should be an Olympic event). And because of that,  genre writing is where world building is most likely to go awry, when laying out the societal infrastructure takes pole position over building the character’s world. Some writers fall so in love with their own backstory that they forget not ALL of it needs to be spelled out or that the story is about the characters, not the fifty years of imagined history that preceded them.

In this year’s Printz award winner, SHIP BREAKER, Paolo Bacigalupi does a great job of building his main character’s world. You get plenty of information about how the world works but you get it through the lens of Nailer, the protagonist.  His day to day struggle to survive says more about the world he lives in than three or four pages of info dump. Or just look at the first page of MT Anderson’s FEED (an oft cited, yet I still feel vastly underappreciated, book) if you want a master’s class in down and dirty world building.

Ultimately, though, I think it’s a mistake to default to genre writing when discussing world building.  It’s easier to admire because it turns reality on its head in ways the brain can’t ignore. It’s also easier to deride when it becomes something that is applied with a turbo-powered sledgehammer. But all writing should be about world building. From your two paragraph flash fiction to your 115,000 word first novel that should probably be half that size. From the story of a young man who extricates himself from an abusive family to the story of a deaf girl who becomes the manager of a rock band.  There’s no spellcasting, no matter transporters, no arenas where children fight to the death.  But there are still worlds that these characters live in. It may bear a strong resemblance to the world you see every day but it’s not the same. Because, when done correctly, you’re seeing it through the protagonist(s)’s eyes.

Done correctly? Yes. Because just writing isn’t world building.  It’s far more calculated than that. For me, world building doesn’t always come out in the first draft.  I might hint at it but it’s later passes where things really begin to flesh themselves out.

The best kind of world building happens without the reader even realizing it.  It builds slowly, offering insight at impeccably timed intervals. It’s insidious, lurking in an offhand comment from a secondary character, tempering the old with the new, taking the familiar and giving it a twist. Most importantly, it’s an intimate experience. It’s a protagonist (or protagonists) offering a private, totally subjective tour of their personal human condition. Reliable or unreliable, our narrators accomplish as much through their observations, their philosophies, and their actions as was accomplished in a very famous six day period.

I’d like to see more appreciation for world building in non-genre writing. It’s there. Don’t let the familiar fool you.