Winners!

The day has come to announce the winners of my EPIC book deal contest. First of all, thank you to everyone who tweeted, blogged and Facebooked the contest. You guys are so amazing. If I could give you a hug I would.

Thanks to Rafflecopter, it tallied up the totals and determined winners for me.

Here they are:

Writer's Pack: Joy McCullough

Reader's Pack: Jude Griffin

Traveler's Pack: Jaime Heller

Email me your address at farley dot christinaL at gmail dot com

Congratulations!!!

Smart Ways to Sweat It Out

The other day, I was sitting on the sidelines watching my son's soccer practice. On the field behind me a football coach was yelling at his players, saying, "If you're not sweating, you're not working hard enough!"

My first thought was, “Man, I’m glad you’re not my boys’ coach.”

But that line bothered me for the rest of the day. Was he right? Will working hard make them better players? My thoughts turned to writing. If I worked harder, wrote more, would that make me a better writer?

The conclusion I came to was ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Yes, in that the more you do something, your craft is developed. But at the same time, if you’re doing it wrong, it’s like banging your head against the wall. It can hurt your craft and frustrate you.

How can we as writers be smart in our craft?
 

1.      Write as often as you can. I work a full time and part time job. I’m a mom and I’m taking classes. Time is more valuable than gold. But if I want to write, I just have to suck it up and sit down and write. That means I might only have an hour a day. But the reality is, the more I write, the better I get.

2.      Read. When you read, study the way the author has constructed the story. Pick one or two elements that you feel are lacking in your book such as plot, character arcs, or conflicts within a scene. Focus on those two elements as you read and see how that author has developed them. Write down notes in your journal at what worked and what didn’t. Read another book and do the same thing. I find I learn so much by reading other author’s books.


3. Find critique partners who know their stuff. These people don’t have to be writers. Sometimes your best critiquers are actually readers that have the eye for when a character isn’t being true to themselves or the plot is sagging. Trust them. Listen to them.

4. Attend writing conferences. Develop your craft by learning from experts. Your focus might change over the years, but there will always be new ways to develop yourself as a writer. You will never be too accomplished of a writer to not learn.

5.      Try something new. One of the best ways to stretch yourself at anything is to break out of your box. If you have this fabulous new idea of a book you’d love to write, but you think it will be too hard to accomplish, that means you need to write it. It may end up taking you many drafts and many years, but you’ll be a better writer by challenging yourself.

6.      Get online and know what’s going on in the market. If you’re reading this right now, you are already doing this point. I learn so much from other bloggers on what’s happening in the market as well as ideas to make myself a better writer.

 

What about you? What are smart ways that you make the most of your writing time?

My First Lucky13s Post!

After I announced my book deal, I joined The Lucky 13s which is a group of children and YA writers who are debuting in 2013. I'm really excited to be a part of a group of authors who are going through the same ups and downs as I am.

Today is my first post on The Lucky 13s blog. All week long on the Luckys we're interviewing members from the Class of 2012 as well as talking about characterization. My post is about Creating Three Dimensional Characters. I hope you'll stop by and say 'hi'!

At the MiGs- After the Book Deal

Over at the MiGs, I wrote a post called After the Book Deal- The First 3 Months, which will end up being a series on things you can do after you get your book deal. The whole process can be daunting and you might wonder, where do I begin? Hopefully this series, After the Book Deal, can help you navigate your way through it.

Facing Your Fears

Every day we as writers face fears.

Fear of rejection, fear of reviews, fear you'll never land an agent or editor, fear that your next book won't sell, fear your agent or editor won't approve those edits.

The list is endless. But the only way to overcome those fears is to face them. While I was in Europe this summer, I filmed this short vlog with tips on how to face those fears.



Do you have any tips that you'd like to share?

Epic Book Deal Contest!

This weekend has been overwhelming. I've been blown away by the well-wishes on Facebook and Twitter, the emails and blog posts. It's moments like these that all the years of late-night writing, tears over rejections and fighting self-doubt become worth it.

I'm so excited to celebrate my book deal with you that I'm giving away three prize packs. I know some of you are readers, some are writers and some are travelers, so I've created a pack for each of you.

Writer's Pack

• Critique of your first 10 pages by me
• $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card- your choice!
• $10 Starbuck's gift card
• Journal and writing pens
• Query critique from my writing partner, Kate Fall, who has just opened her own editing business 

Reader's Pack

• Copies of my writing partner's books: autographed copy of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE by Beth Revis, I'M BORED illustrated by Debbie Ridpath Ohi, and a preordered copy of PROPHECY by Ellen Oh 
• A Samjokgo amulet (or some spell it as Samjogo)- this represents strength and was considered the most powerful symbol in Korea during the Koguryo Kingdom. This amulet has a big role in my book!

Traveler's Pack

• Traveler's journal and writing pens
• "Woman On the Go" traveler kit
• Kindle or Nook (your choice!) versions of these great YA books: TEN by Gretchen McNeil and DEFIANCE by C.J Redwine.

Fill out the Rafflecopter form below to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My Book Sold!

Finally, finally I can scream from my rooftop that I've got a book deal! I've been keeping this little secret for a hundred years now. (Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration).

I am so pleased to announce that my young adult paranormal, GILDED, sold to Amazon Children's Publishing (formally Marshall Cavendish)!

Here's the blurb from Publisher's Marketplace:

Christina Farley's GILDED, in which a 16-year-old Korean-American girl with a black belt and a deadly proclivity with steel-tipped arrows discovers an ancient Korean god has been kidnapping the first-born daughters of her family for generations, to Miriam Frank at Amazon Children's, in a nice deal, for publication in Fall 2013, by Jeff Ourvan at Jennifer Lyons Literary Agency (world).

I know you're waiting for all the gossip on how it happened. So...

Let's rewind back to January, when on Martin Luther King's birthday I got this stop-your-heart kind of email from Margery Cuyler, Publisher of Marshall Cavendish, saying she loved my book and was taking it to acquisitions. (Wow!!!!! She loved my book!!!!!!)

For the next week I was on pins and needles. Waiting, staring at my phone, waiting and staring at my phone some more. Then I got the call from Jeff, my agent. THE CALL. It was during my school day and I'm not allowed to answer my phone so he sent me a quick email first. Amazon Children's had offered to buy my book. Squeal!

Somehow I got through the school day. I have no idea what I told my students or if I even taught the math lesson correctly. All I know is that I had this huge smile plastered across my face. As soon as I herded my students out the door, I was dialing Jeff to talk about all the juicy details.

 

Signing my contract

 

I am just so thankful to my agent who knew how to navigate through the whole submitting maze because the next few months after that were a bit insane. And he put up with my bizarre emails that looked something like this:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I know, who sends crazy emails like that?)

Yes, he's totally a black belt in agenting.

I am thrilled to be working with my editor, Miriam Frank, who said she fell head-over-heels in love with GILDED (I can't help but love her already).

Below you will find a short video I made that highlights my journey in writing this book. If you have read my blog over the years, these pictures will be familiar to you. Most of the pictures my husband or myself took while living in Korea.



Thanks as always to my crit buds who have endured emails and reading too many versions of this manuscript among others: Casey McCormick, Beth Revis, Larissa Hardesty, Ellen Oh and the amazing girls from the MiGs!

I hope you will stop by later this week to celebrate with me because I'm holding an EPIC contest giving away books, critiques, gift cards, and jewelry based on GILDED.