YA Nov Con

Today I went to a little convention for young adult novels.
I wasn't sure about going at first, since I didn't know any of the writers that would be present, or the books they would be talking about.
But I'm glad I did.
It was a cool experience.

It started off with a panel of three writers - Neal Shusterman, Ann Jacobus, and Stephanie Kuehn - and an additional guest speaker. They talked about their novels that featured mental illness, and also about how mental illness had affected them, or those close to them.

I think I can embed a video of the talk here, though I haven't had a chance to watch it yet.


( Edit: Aaw heck, I'm in the video @_@ )

There was a brief Q&A at the end, and I went up to ask a question. I was second line, with a girl behind me. And some other girl came up in front of us, probably not even realizing we were there planning.
Which annoyed me. Not because my question was super important (I was going to ask the girl behind me if she wanted to go before me). But since the other girl cut in front of us, we ran out of time to ask our questions.
When the talk ended, I was at the "whatever" stage, not really caring anymore. But then they asked the three of us who still had questions to step aside. They brought us to a room with the three authors, so we could ask our questions.
And one of the girls started talking about these awful emotions and anxiety that she felt. And how her parents told her she didn't need to see a counselor or anyone, because she had them to talk to. But they didn't think anything was wrong with her.
The three authors and the two of us girls each gave her a hug.
She got some good advice, so I wish her the best of luck.

Depression is a real, serious thing. I know that, and a lot of the people around me know that. I forgot how common a thing it is for people to deny its existence.

So, yeah my question felt pretty unimportant after that. I was mostly interested in how to do accurate research to portray mental problems, since I have a story planned that will draw on that (I've written a practice chapter about it, as well as a short story about one of the side characters, but I still am missing a lot of the story).

We were there for a while, so I missed most of the next talk. I don't regret it though.


The next talk was about diversity in stories. Though again, I only caught the tail end of it.
It's about how most YA heroes are white. Or "typical" in other ways.
My characters tend to be rather... oddly diverse. Katani is half white, quarter Tibetan, and quarter Indian.
Ashlyn from my grad story is mixed too.
And Briena, from my older stories (she's getting a big revamp) is half Native American.
I don't even know what Evva is yet.
I think it's my strange mixed family that brought about all these blends. I love them all~

One lady, Lindsay Holland, talked about her book with a Chinese boy as the protagonist. She is not Chinese, or a boy. And yet so many of her readers were convinced that she was, and were shocked to find her a white lady. Her writing must be super convincing.
Heheh. I hope I can do that with Katani...


Next was a scifi/fantasy panel, which I was most excited abouty. YA fantasy is my genre!
Except scifi/fantasy was pretty much not discussed at all. Most of the questions were about the authors way of prepping themselves before writing, what their elevator pitch might be, ex.


After that panel, I dashed over and bought a book to get signed.
The one I really wanted was already sold out. I got Scythe by Shusterman. No doubt I'll write about it some time in the future.

Man, I really need to read more.
I'm so behind in reading.
And everything else...

For the next event, the crowd broke into fifteen groups - one for each of the 15 authors. So we got a few minutes to talk to each of them.

Neal Shusterman
Alexis Bass
Martha Brockenbrough
Jessica Brody
BT Gottfred
IW Gregorio
Lindsay Holland
Gordon Jack
Ann Jacobus
Stephanie Kuehn
Stacey Lee
Gretchen McNeil
Sara Santana
Andrew Smith
Mariko Tamaki

I'll share this highlights.

I asked Neal Shusterman if he had any general advice about query letters.
I didn't tell him anything about my story.
And he said that if it has dragons, or wizards, or mermaids, of vampires, ex, then no one will look at it no matter how good it is, because those topics are overdone.
...
Dragons and "wizards" are 2/3 of what I write.
I didn't tell him my query had dragons in it.

I don't believe that no agent will accept stories with dragons or wizards.
But judging from his advice, I guess it's really really hard.
I guess a story that includes them has to be really unique.

I guess my goal is even harder than I thought. And it's never been easy...


Lindsay Holland wrote the story about the Chinese boy.
She told us that she never reads online reviews of her books, for good reason. But her husband sometimes picks out good ones to read to her.
There was one review that only gave two stars, and she didn't want to hear it. But her husband insisted.
The review said "This is a good story, but it's too autobiographical."
Whoa, awesome. Her book is real enough to trick readers.

I asked her about how she researched to write for a Chinese character. She didn't really read any books. She had never been to China either. And when she had people who were from China go over a draft, they only had some minor corrections.
Unlike me, who has a couple shelves worth of culture books for Katani's story...

I really need to find a writing/critique group...
My old one is now too difficult to reapply to, because of the damn school limits.

So, that's one of the many books I learned about today that I need to check out.
I couldn't buy all of them...

Andrew Smith told us about how someone randomly approached him on facebook, asking to write a screenplay for his book.
He linked them to his agent, and that guy ended up being a famous Hollywood screenplay writer.
And then after that, some famous director contacted him about making it into a movie.
Every writer's dream - to have famous people begging to turn their book into a movie XD
Definitely impressive.


So, the good thing about going here without knowing any of the authors is that I didn't get nervous and awkward while talking to them (like I was during the few seconds I spoke to Hugh Jackman).
It was exciting to talk to them, ask questions, and hear their stories. Although since I wasn't familiar with their work, it was hard to pick out specific questions most of the time.

I'm glad I went. It was a good day.
I learned a lot, though not all of it was heartening.
I know it won't last, but right now it feels like every time I get close, something happens to push it away again.

blah blah blah
I hope to go back next year. I wonder if any of the same writers will be there. Hopefully I'll get the chance to read some of their stuff beforehand.