Writer's Voice Contest Edition! (Entry #184)

Hi readers!
I'm entering a contest that asks me to post my query letter and first 250 words of my young adult novel, HANNAH'S HALF. The contest is based on the premise of the TV show, "The Voice." Four fabulous YA authors will pick their teams, "coach" them (help make the entries all sparkly) and then pitch to agents. What an amazing community of writers! 200 writers made the cut -- best of luck to everyone!

Mandy

QUERY

18-year-old Hannah Spencer would give anything for a dead-free day. For most of her life, she’s ignored the Visitors who appear in her bedroom each morning. After all, they’re dead, they don’t speak and they rarely stay more than a few minutes. 

Her communications with the deceased are pretty one-sided until Adam, a recent casualty in a car accident, appears and demands her help to move on to the afterlife. Troubled by her intense attraction to him, Hannah uncovers the truth about their connection: Adam is her  twin flame — the other half of her soul— and the two have spent a number of lifetimes together, each one ending in Hannah’s untimely death.

Unable to ignore their bond, Hannah and Adam rekindle their ages-old romance. However, when she links this mysterious ghost to the disappearance of his sister and the terrifying recurring dreams she’s been having, she must decide if helping him is worth risking her life … again.

Hannah's Half is a young adult paranormal mystery, complete at 62,000 words. I hope you find the premise intriguing enough to request a partial or full manuscript.

FIRST 250 WORDS

“You got a name, kid?”

The boy sitting on my bedroom floor couldn’t have been more than four or five years old. The cowlick in the back of his blond hair needed taming. As he sat cross-legged, holding a half-inflated red balloon, I noticed that the bottoms of his bare feet were dirty.

I rarely asked questions anymore because the Visitors never speak. I mean never. I’ve been seeing dead people for as long as I can remember and it’s always the same routine. Stare with haunted eyes, linger in the room, disappear.

“The silent treatment again. How original.” I sighed and pushed back my comforter. I’d gotten over being shy in front of the dead a long time ago. If they were going to invade my space, then they’d have to deal with seeing me in my panties.

As I rummaged through my dresser to find a pair of jeans, the sweet, burned smell of kettle corn filled my nose and carnival music played in my head. In strobe-like flashes, I saw the little boy walking hand in hand with a girl about his height. She handed him a cardboard cone wrapped with mounds of pink cotton candy. 

I shook my throbbing head as if that could make the images disappear. Unless the Visitors suddenly decided to tell me why my room was a ghost magnet, I vowed to ignore them.

God, I’d give just about anything to have a dead-free day.

Sing Your Song (Even If No One is Listening)

Yikes! Where did April go? And how did I forget I had a blog?

Oh yeah…

• I finished revising my third novel and began pitching it to literary agents. (Three have already asked to read it!)
• I developed and presented a writing workshop for Goodwill senior-level staff who are in a development program to become Goodwill CEOs one day. This was some of the most fulfilling work I’ve done in my almost eight years working for Goodwill’s national office.

Because I don’t have time to develop anything original for my own blog, I’m going to direct you to a mind-blowing, thought-provoking pieceby Seth Godin. He advises us not to expect applause for the work we do.

An excerpt: If your work is filled with the hope and longing for applause, it's no longer your work – the  dependence on approval has corrupted it, turned it into a process where you are striving for ever more approval.

The one line that still resonates is: To play a beautiful song for two people or a thousand is the same song, and the amount of thanks you receive isn't part of that song.

Thanks to all of you who sing your songs day in and day out, who put yourselves out there in the world without expecting anything in return. You rock.

Throat Chakra: Strangle with Care

Friendships between women are exhilarating, transformational, messy, necessary, life-giving and sometimes devastating. This past week, I made the decision to leave a friendship. Over the years, I felt less and less authentic. My emotional and physical health began to suffer – but I put myself second so I wouldn’t hurt her. Well, I did hurt her. But I’d hurt myself much more.

In dealing with my decision, I found a very interesting passage online about the throat chakra:

The throat chakra is the fifth chakra in the body’s energy system, and its purpose is to act as the voice that is able to speak your authentic truth. This chakra provides clarity between what is right and wrong for you. It helps to form the authentic truth in your belief system, and it enables you to be assertive in expressing that truth to others.

My first reaction to this passage was “Oh no! Someone’s had their hands wrapped around my throat chakra because I haven’t been able to speak my truth!”

Those hands were my own. Thank goodness, I loosened my grip before passing out.

In comforting me, my sister left me with this wonderful and fitting imagery. A garden choked over with weeds takes hard (sometimes painful) work to clear. But only by doing that hard work and preparing the soil will you know what new growth can occur.

I’m glad it’s finally spring. What kind of emotional and physical clearing are you doing this time of year?

I'm Not Really an Extrovert, I Just Play One on TV

I’ve taken several personality/work styles tests over the past 20 years, including the well-known Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Most recently, my employer had us take a test from Emergenetics. My results held no surprises for me:

• Low on the social and expressive scales (I prefer one-on-one time to big parties; I prefer to work in solitude)
• High on the structural and analytical (I meet and beat deadlines, I like lists and rules and order)

Several co-workers said my scores had to be wrong. (“You’re such an extrovert! You’re so creative!”) I never think these types of tests are wrong, or good/bad. I think they say more about our comfort level than about how we act and interact in our work and personal lives.

It’s the same with right brain/left brain theory. It’s no surprise that I “test out” as more left brain (more logical, critical thinker; retains information through words and symbols).

I think we possess characteristics from all personality and work types. We must choose when, where and with whom we show these traits. My hope is that we don’t pigeon-hole or stereotype anyone based on these tests. I believe we benefit immensely when we stretch ourselves and our comfort levels, and that it can make us better at what we do for a living and in our leisure time.

For example:

• Mary is an accountant by day but is learning to play bass guitar at night.
• Fred is a graphic designer who enjoys skateboarding.
• Christina is a cyclist who teaches yoga.

I’m a writer/editor by profession but I love to decorate cakes and prepare gourmet meals. I feel I use a completely different part of my brain when designing beautiful cakes or following new recipes than when I write fiction. I think writing makes me a better cake designer and chef; and that my culinary skills help me be a better writer.

Do you stretch beyond your personality and work “types”? How does that work out for you?

A Sussie a Day...

My head is swimming from all the big ideas I picked up from speakers during my company’s annual meeting in mid-February. Themes from the talks are sure to come up in future blog posts but today I’m going to write about humor. (Mostly because I am in a humorless mood today!)

I’m not talking about one’s ability to tell a good joke, or put on a lampshade and become the life of the party. I’m talking about one’s openness to joy, laughter and lightheartedness even when the world seems to be crumbling down around you.

Peter McLaughlin, a management consultant for Fortune 500 companies, listed humor as one of four requirements of a successful executive or organization (the other three points being energy, positive emotions and happiness). I’d venture to say all four are interconnected.

So, despite heavy workloads and stressful work environments, McLaughlin stated that employers who put a high priority on humor and laughter had more effective and productive employees.

Let me share two examples: one work-related and one personal.

When I was in my early 30s, I ran the publishing division of a large nonprofit in Washington, DC. My boss would regularly bring staff to tears with her shouting, changing moods and unrealistic expectations. The three managers who worked for her (myself included) had to work hard not to let her negativity trickle down to our own staffs. On an especially tough day, I bought each of the women who worked for me a roll of Lifesavers candies. The levity it created buoyed us (sorry for the pun) the rest of the week.

My sister, Tessa, has been one of my greatest teachers when it comes to finding joy on a daily basis. She is known for her “sussies” or surprises — little gifts she gives to people to make them smile. She once told me she tucks a sussie into each room of her home. Whenever Tessa catches a glimpse of one, it reminds her to smile. It may be a funny photo next to her computer, or a goofy looking stuffed animal on a bookshelf. The photo to the right is a sussie that Tessa gave me. This silly looking fairy hangs above the toilet in my guest bathroom — and has brought smiles to many visitors.

Do you look for joy on a daily basis? What shape does it take? Do you think humor is an important part of your workplace?

Busy Bee, Just Be

I’m in that weird space between books – meaning I’ve finished writing one and don’t feel like starting another just yet. The manuscript is now out with a few beta readers and then the revision process will begin.

I think this ebb and flow of energy and creativity is something we all experience. We put in time and effort toward a goal – all hands on deck, so to speak – and it’s natural to feel low energy when the goal is accomplished.

It’s also natural to feel like we’re being lazy if we don’t jump right back in and DO something.

Alas, it’s the human BEING versus human DOING dilemma. The state of just being can feel unnatural because we’ve been wired (taught?) to go-go-go from morning to night. Busy, busy, busy bees, buzz, buzz, buzzing around.

So…Mondays are my dedicated ‘writing day.’ I didn’t write today – at least not fiction. I slept in, had coffee, watched the snow, baked Valentines cookies, had tea with a friend and read a book. Nothing I did had anything to do with productivity or accomplishment! Hurrah!

I even managed to ignore my work emails for most of the day.

My wish for each of you this week is to take a break from doing – at least for an hour – and just be in the moment. If we practice, maybe it will start to feel natural.

Little Bites of Self-Care Easy to Swallow

We writers – and I suspect all creative types – tend to get down on ourselves a lot. A couple (or a dozen) rejections arrive in the email box and it’s “I’m crap! How did I think I could write and sell a novel? Are my thighs getting bigger?”

Back in December I blogged about showing ourselves some tenderness. And this blog has a similar theme: self-care. And more precisely, internal self-care.

A good friend gave me a book titled The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present In the Life You’ve Got.
After I read a few pages, I immediately bought a copy for my sister and my brother. The messages were that powerful (dare I say life-changing). Each day’s “meditation” is short, sweet and filled with wisdom we already have but sometimes forget or ignore.

At about the same time, I found a great web site called Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Complex Lives. The tidbits of inspiration come from people like you and me. The site is divided into sections like happiness and fun; meaning and passion; change and challenges; mindfulness and peace; letting go, etc. The success of the site had led to a book of the same title. And it’s fantastic.

My spiritual journey of self-care has been a long one – filled with curbs and potholes mostly of my own making.

That's why I’m so thankful for the lessons these books impart. Won’t you join me for a little bite? I swear you’ll want to savor it over and over again.

What constitutes self-care for YOU? And how do you remember to take care of yourself?