Literary Circles: Blogger Interview with Katie Mills!

Today I’m interviewing Katie Mills from her blog Creepy Query Girl. Katie’s posts are full of voice. Whether she’s blogging about her own writing journey, interviewing authors, or posing interesting questions to evoke discussion among her very devoted followers, her voice and personality are distinct and entertaining. She’s collected over twenty blogging awards in the time that she’s been blogging since April 2010 with her first post "Oh yes she did..." Katie lives in France with her husband and her three girls.

The title of your blog cracks me up. Can you tell us a bit about your blog’s concept and what inspired you to start blogging?

When I started querying my very first book, I started with the old fashioned method–Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook and sending out hard copies to British agents. But the more I researched, the more avenues I discovered: things like querytracker.net, online contests and writing conferences. And most of this information was found through blogs. Writer blogs, author blogs, agent blogs, editor blogs… First, I fell in love with the community. Then, I decided I needed to be a part of it.  But I didn’t want to force it. The blogs I loved most featured people being who they are and doing what they do. At the time, I was diving into the query pool head-first and writing and querying were taking up a lot of my daylight hours. I spent tons of time researching agents, sending queries and stalking my inbox. I’ve never been one of those girls you see on tv who scream and cry and faint when celebs are near– I’m not much of a ‘fangirl’. But agents had become this big, reverent phenomenon in my mind that made me get all squealy from the slightest interaction.  I started to feel, well…creepy :) So, the name of my blog just kind of fell into place. ‘The Agent’ has since lost a lot of its all-powerfulness in my eyes (thank God) but I think it happens to a lot of new writers when they first start querying.

With over a thousand followers, you have clearly built a strong lit community surrounding your blog. While I have my own opinions (strong, engaging voice and Friday Morning Follower’s Bloffee which I’m now addicted to like caffeine), what do you think has drawn people in and kept people coming back?

Thanks so much! I think what draws people in, at least in the beginning, is the platform. I’ve had a lot of new followers tell me they were intrigued by my blog name and liked the way my blog was set up. But I think if you want to draw people in, you have to be out there. You can’t just post every other day and sit back and expect others to visit and comment. Even the big-time publishing industry blogs lose hits if they stop interacting with the community. I try to visit and comment a little bit every day, even if it’s just hitting a few of my regulars. My facebook writing account consists of mostly blogging friends so I try and keep updated through that, too. I’m able to do more on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays so those are the days I post and comment most.

I think what keeps people coming back is content. My blog has a theme (querying, writing, publishing industry and all that comes with it) and I try and stick to it. Most of the time :)  I also try and remain very ‘real’. I don’t sugar coat how hard this process is. I do often put a comedic spin on things because that’s just who I am. When I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, I usually cry first and laugh later while sharing the laughter with my followers if I can. Aspiring to be a published author can be so frustrating and there are so many ways to be brought down. But there’s also something empowering in never giving up, putting yourself back out there and trying harder and I try to remind myself (and my readers) of this whenever I can.

  

How does blogging affect your writing?

Blogging keeps me writing. It’s as simple as that. Throughout the ups and downs, rejection and writer’s block– the blog keeps me on my toes and pokes at my creativity all the time. Keeping updated about the industry, interacting with aspiring or published authors, making supportive friends, betas and crit partners, learning about the craft- all of it has kept me in the game. Without blogging, I don’t know if I’d still be here. So yeah, pretty important :)

What lessons have you learned from blogging? Good or bad?

Sometimes it’s good to take your muse by surprise. All of my posts are written on the fly and the improvisation keeps me on my toes.

You give what you get. A blog is one in a million and you get out of it what you put into it and into the community as a whole.

What is one of your favorite blogs? What makes it one of your favorites?

Oh God. I have so many favorites.  Maybe this happens for everyone, but when I first started blogging, I was lucky to fall into a fabulous group of new bloggers, most of which have made pretty big names for themselves around the blogosphere. We all kind of ‘grew up’ together blog-wise.  If you go back to some of my earliest posts and then see who commented today, you’ll see a few of the same people. It’s amazing some of the bonds we’ve formed.  There are too many favorites to name but I do have a ‘posse’ list on my side bar that features the blogs I interact with most.

Can you talk a little bit about a current project you are either promoting or working on and where you are in the process?

Oh dear. I wasn’t planning on talking about my current WIP for awhile because I feel like a crazy person for writing it. But basically this project poses the question of whether a person is born with talent or it’s nurtured into them. My sixteen-year-old protagonist accidently discovers that everyone in her life are actors playing a part. Armed only with a mysterious list of names and places, she runs away from home in hopes of discovering the truth about where she came from. Her search eventually brings her to Hollywood where she and her newfound allies suspect a big-time talent agency has been cloning well-known icons from the 1950’s and planting them in different locations around the United States in an experiment to see if their talent develops. I’m about 30k into it and I hope to have finished the first draft before summer’s end.

Thanks so much for having me Kimberly! Loved your questions!

Good luck with your WIP Katie! That's something I would absolutely pick up off the shelf to read. I hope I'm able to!

Stop by her blog, check her out, and keep your eye out for Friday Morning Follower's Bloffee!

Literary Circles: Blogger Interview with Matt MacNish!

Today’s interview is with Matthew MacNish. MacNish is a writer and blogger for YA Confidential, Project Mayhem, Afterglow Book Reviews and his own blog, The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment. Among his posts for The QQQE, which focus on the path to publication, MacNish posts a weekly query for open critique and then offers a critique himself. He is a strong advocate for all writers and a talented writer himself. MacNish’s first post for The QQQE can be found here. And just because I love it, his first and recent post for YA Confidential can be found here.

Can you tell us a little about your blog’s concept and what inspired you to start The QQQE?

Well, this is kind of funny, but I actually first decided to start blogging after seeing that blogging movie, Julie and Julia. Cheesy, I know, but I was so frustrated with the query process and the path to publication at the time. I was ready to give up. So I decided to start a blog and share the mistakes I’d made so that other aspiring writers just starting out could learn from them and avoid making the same ones.

From there, as I was exposed to and “met” more talented writers online, my writing improved, and I learned more about queries. I started to feature examples of successful queries. That evolved into me featuring the critiques you mentioned above.

I read that you wanted to wait to query your recent YA Rural Fantasy, WARRIOR-MONKS, after exceeding 1000 followers on your blog. Other than having a strong concept and writing interesting posts, what networking strategies did you use to build the lit community surrounding your blog?

Well, that was really kind of an arbitrary personal goal. Fun for me, but not really crucial to the submission process. Mainly, I was still revising the novel, cutting, cutting, cutting … because it was too long, so waiting for the followers to come gave me time to finish.

As far as making a real world difference, it’s unlikely. I mean agents are glad to see a strong online presence as a bonus, but a popular blog is not going to sell a bad book any more than a great query will. The writing and the story will always have to stand on their own.

As far as networking strategies, I really don’t have a magic bullet. Building a blog following takes a lot of work. The most important part is reading a lot of blogs, following a lot of blogs, and commenting on a lot of blogs. There are a few obvious things you can do, like joining blogfests, A to Z in particular, and poaching commenters from your friend’s blogs, but if I had to say one thing that was key to my own success, I think it has to do with the fact that my blog offers actual concrete help to other bloggers. Being selfless, and paying it forward, seems to bring a lot of traffic.


How do you feel blogging has benefitted your writing?
For me there’s no question. The act of blogging itself does not affect my creative writing much, because the processes are so different. But the results of blogging -  mainly connecting with other writers, learning how to critique their work, and have yours critiqued without letting it destroy your love of the craft - those things have been invaluable.

In addition to writing and blogging, you are also a Tech Support Coordinator and a father of two girls (MacNish has encouraged his middle school and high school daughters to start blogs of their own. As a middle school English teacher, I love seeing that!) How do you fit it all in? What’s your time management secret?

Well, first of all, the biggest secret I have is that I work in a job (managing an international account) in which I have to get to work very early (6 AM).  So even though I’m here in case the phone rings, my responsibilities don’t really pick up for a few hours. That gives me time to write my own post (yes, I almost always write them the morning of) and then visit blogs for an hour or two.

Other than that, it’s very difficult to get as much writing done as I would like to. I get most of my drafting done on weekends, and I try to revise during the week. But driving kids, making dinner, walking the dog, working out … it all adds up.

You are an avid blog reader. I think I read that you visit between 50-100 blogs daily. What is one of your favorite blogs? What makes it one of your favorites?

In the beginning, I really did visit that many blogs. And during April, for A to Z, I stepped up back up to that level, but most days it’s more like 25-50, and I know that still sounds crazy to some.

Here’s the thing, though: I do it because I enjoy it. I’ve made some great friends, blogging, many who I’ve now met in real life, and it really has made a huge difference in my writing career and life. I don’t think I’ll ever stop, but I have had to dial back in order to focus on other things.

My advice to others would be visit who you can, visit those who visit you, but only do it because you enjoy it. I know visiting a lot of blogs can build a following, but we can’t all be Alex J. Cavanaugh! Not that he doesn’t enjoy it, Alex is a good friend of mine, and I know he does. 


Matt also added as one of his favorite blogs Adam Heine's Author's Echo. Stop by and check it out. It's easy to see why he includes it among his favorites!

Can you tell us about a current project you are either working on or promoting and where you are in the process?

I’m currently querying WARRIOR-MONKS, and I have two fulls and an R&R out, with about 6 other queries I’m waiting to hear back on. 

Other than that, I’m working on something new, which I can’t talk about, but will say that it’s Contemporary YA, with a touch of Magical Realism.

If you haven't already, check out his blog and read through his posts. You won't be disappointed! 

Thank you Matt for the interview!

Literary Circles: Blogger Interview with Melodie Wright!

Today I have a fabulous interview to share with Melodie Wright of Forever Rewrighting. Melodie is a YA writer repped by Tricia Lawrence of Erin Murphy Literary Agency. Her blog features Manuscript Mondays and Friday Funnies. I’ve been following her for several months now and have had the pleasure of enjoying her interviews with authors, her writing advice, and the cartoons and videos she posts at the end of each week which always provide a good (and much needed) laugh. Melodie lives in Palmer, Alaska with her husband and three kids. She has been blogging since June 2011 with her first post found here. She also LOVES to critique and graciously offers assistance if you need it. Read more here. If you haven’t already done so, check out her blog and follow her!

I love the title of your blog. It’s so perfect for you! Can you tell us a bit about your blog’s concept and what inspired you to start blogging?

I started blogging when Deana Barnhart hosted her Gearing Up To Get An Agent blogfest last July.  Because my plan was to start querying that fall, I needed feedback and the fest was a great way to get it…provided I had a blog. So I started one, after resisting for a long time. As a former journalist, I know all about the never-endingness of keeping a media monster fed. Since I love to revise, I came up with the title based on my husband’s name. His initials are R.E. so put those together with his last name and voila! Forever Rewrighting, bc it feels like we’ve been married forever. *grins*  (BTW, I hear Deana is hosting another GUTGAA this summer. If you’re querying, I highly recommend checking it out!)

What networking strategies have you used to build the lit community surrounding your blog?

Well, starting in honor of a blogfest was one way. I met other newbie bloggers who kept in touch for the first crucial weeks of posting, and I returned the favor. In fact, blogging is very much a reciprocal activity – the more I hop and comment, the more activity I get on my own blog. I also interviewed debut authors like you’re doing. And now I’m moving to more established authors, like Matthew Quick and Sarah Rees Brennan, who is awesome. I can’t wait to share her interview before UNSPOKEN comes out this fall.

Being a teacher, a mom, a writer, and a blogger are all demanding (and rewarding) roles. How do you fit it all in?

I teach in the afternoons, so I write in the early mornings when the kids are at school. After school, I tend to blog or critique or hop around friends’ blogs. Life happens and when it does, my blogging is what suffers. It has to. For me, my family and writing and job take precedence, as they should. That’s the case for a lot of bloggers. When things get too much, take a break! Everyone understands.

What do you feel is the most rewarding part about blogging?

Oh, the people! Hands down. They are why I keep blogging – just to ‘hear’ their voices when they comment. We are all on this journey together and it feels like we have blinders on sometimes. Blogging reminds me that somewhere, someone else is facing exactly what I am at that moment.

What is one of your favorite blogs? What makes it one of your favorites?

Hmm. It’s very hard to narrow down and there’s no way I’m picking just one. For sheer fun, it’s The Intern. For query contests, it’s a cross between Krista VanDolzer (Mother.Write.Repeat) and The Authoress (MSFV).  For sweetness, it’s Amy Sonnichsen (The Green Bathtub). For help to those of us in submission hell, it’s Mindy McGinnis (Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire).  For industry stuff,  YA Highway. For author awesomeness, it’s Maggie Stiefvater.  There are too many to list – and I feel guilty stopping there.

What current project(s) are you working on?

I just finished a WIP called RUNNING WITH WOLVES. You can read the blurb here. I LOVED writing this, and it’s killing me to put it aside for a month before I start the revision process. In the meantime, I’m waiting on betas for THE TALISMAN, which will go to my agent next month.  And I’m outlining a shiny new idea about the Olympic dive team, an ocean treasure hunt and a girl caught in the middle. Fun!!

Thanks for having me, Kimberly! It was an honor.

Isn't she lovely? Thank you Melodie for sharing your insight with us! It was a pleasure getting to know you better! I look forward to reading more from you!