Brenda Drake conducted another great blogfest last week…Can you Hook a Teen?
Each person had to enter the first 250 words of their YA novel and get it critiqued by the talented teen editors/authors of Teen Eyes – Taryn Albright and Kate Coursey. There were a lot of entries and they all were really, really good. I know there were a few that blew me away. But as with all contests, a winner had to be chosen and it was Tracy Jorgensen with her novel The Girl with the Brown Eyes. I have to say it was one of my favorites and I am so glad she won. I wish her lots of luck in getting published.
I also wanted to give a shout out to all the other writers that didn’t win. Try not to take it personally or feel that your novel is no good. It is. Remember, stories and novels are subjective and you’re not going to please everyone with your writings. I’ve talked to a lot of people who absolutely despised the Harry Potter series. As a reader of adult fantasy, I love Raymond Feist but don’t care for George R.R. Martin though they write similarly.
The same goes for editors and publishers and all readers. Your novel may get rejected 60 times (like Katherine Stockett), but if you hold true to yourself and your novel, you’ll get published. If you don’t know Katherine’s story: The Help was rejected 60 times, but look where she is now – a best-selling author and her novel was turned into a movie. You just can’t give up.
So, congrats to Tracy for her fantastic, well deserved win, but remember we’re all winners because we participate in great events like this and in turn, get wonderful critiques, perhaps make new friends, and get our works out there for others to see. Someone out there is going to like what you’ve written. You just have to believe in yourself.
I know I do. Next contest/agent/publisher please….. 🙂
YA Chit Chat 
aww, thanks, Jen. I like my revisions, too. I truly do believe that two people don’t make or break a novel. I’ve had five teens read my first 3 chapters in the last week and they LOVE it. One of the readers was a friend of my son, but the other four were blindly selected from a group of eight guinea pigs anxious to participate. They asked for a couple of changes and voila, they were made. They’re begging for the next 3 chapters. I think I’ll make them wait a bit longer. Torture them just a bit. 🙂 “An-ti- ci-pa-tion…it’s making me wait.”
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Door’s locked, move on to the next one!
At least I got a shout out.
I really liked your revise. Keep pluggin away!
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