So, recently I got to have dinner with some actual teens to learn more about their tastes in YA books & entertainment. Teen entertainment tastes will have significant bearing on the success of my writing. I only realized in the last few months that my books would be categorized as …
Violet Glass Was Originally Named Lillah Grey As a protagonist name, Lillah Grey fit all the criteria—short, straightforward, but interesting and nicely thematic, with no problematic strings attached. That is, until 50 Shades of Grey became popular. That changed things. So Lillah’s last name had to change as …
Rejected Terrible Titles Your titles can make or break you as an author—they are the first thing a reader sees about a book—and the first bar most books fail. Waxing Dark actually went through multiple title changes. It started out as Ending Academy, which was unbelievably dull. Deciding I needed …
I Imagine My Readers as Dragons Surrounded by their hoard of books stacked high in their cavernous domain. Books layered in towers, that climb to flirt precariously with the stalactites of the vault above. A wild-piled djinn’s treasure trove of tomes—for draconic readers to to curl up amidst. The phantasmagoria …
