~~~Lara Zielin~~~

STATUS: The Oscar nominees are out, and now the rest of January and early February will be filled with either frantically running to the theater to see the movies I’ve missed so far, or being filled with guilt that I’m at home lazily Netflixing movies that aren’t even remotely connected to little gold statues (read: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants II). At least I downloaded the theme song to Slum Dog Millionaire on iTunes. That’s one step in the right direction.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: After Levar Burton was recently on The Soup, I had a hankering to re-visit Reading Rainbow. Here’s the intro to the show where they encouraged kids to turn off the television and pick up a book…on television.

A good friend recently sent me two copies of Writer’s Digest magazine. After flipping through both of them, I high-tailed my cursor over to their website to subscribe. It’s cheap — like $16/year or something — but the tips and advice they give are enormously worthwhile. One of my favorite things was a graphic interpretation of all the different book markets and genres using a tree. For example, one branch of it was science fiction, then on the branch were leaves representing all the sub-genres of sci-fi. Another branch was horror; another mystery; another romance, etc. It was such a great visual tool. What surprised me was that YA wasn’t a branch, but rather a leaf on all the branches.

So, I think there was a time a-way back when that I had a subscription to WD, and it’s a shame I ever let it lapse. I encourage any writer — publsihed or not — to sign up today. You’ll be getting great information in the mail and you’ll be helping a great magazine in a time when lots of print pubs are folding like card tables. Win-win.

STATUS: Really glad I DVR’d the Oprah “Best Life” series this week. Great way to start the New Year, especially the part with Suzie Orman.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: If getting your financial house in better shape is on your list of 2009 resolutions, you can download Suzie Orman’s latest book, A 2009 Action Plan, for free on Oprah.com. It’s only available for free for a week, so hurry and download!

Is getting published also on your list of resolutions for 2009? If so, what are you action steps to make that dream a reality? Here are three things you can begin doing, today, to get one step closer to your publishing dreams:

Read, read, read. Then read some more. Are you looking to break into YA? If so, do you know who Stephanie Meyer is? Is Sarah Dessen on your shelves? Dude, Laura Ruby has a new book out called Play Me. Get it! Consume this stuff like it’s food, like your soul will turn to dust and blow away if you don’t. It’s impossible to be up on everything, of course, but reading what you can is a strong step toward being able to write compelling YA that will make agents sit up and take notice.

Get a BFF. And by BFF I mean a writing BFF. Find someone you trust who can look at your work and help you make it better. I’d curl up in the fetal position and cry without my writer friend Ellen. I trust what she says and I take her comments seriously. She makes my writing better. The funny thing is, she doesn’t write YA. But she’s smart and she’s well-read, and she knows what makes a good story. If you don’t have an Ellen, then perhaps there’s a local writing group you can join. Or maybe there’s a writers’ conference out there where you can meet friends with the skills to help you. Writing is a solitary craft to be sure, but there are times we need other people in the thick of it with us.

Revise. Whether ideas for changes in your novel come from your newfound BFF or your own musings, make them. So, admittedly, I’m the queen of sending out things before they’re entirely polished, but I will say this much — when I need to revise, I do. Editing is hard. Revising sucks. But it’s part of the process. Keep hacking away at your book until it’s right. Donut Days went through, like, eight revisions before it was something that was close to halfway decent. I’d thrown it away at one point until Ellen encouraged me to fish it out of the recycle bin. So, hey, shelve your project if you have to and start on something else, but don’t stop making changes and revising. It’s as much part of the process as the act of writing itself.

Okay, so those are my three thoughts. For now. Any questions out there? What are your obstacles to being published in 2009? What are you struggling with?

STATUS: Friday I’m in love.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: I know this is sophomoric, but it made me giggle like a schoolgirl. It’s an ad for, and I’m not even kidding, the Wunder Boner. It’s not what you think. Just watch.

I love that line in Jerry Maguire when Jerry has his total mental meltdown, and then he has the epiphany for his “mission statement” and he says: breakdown, breakthrough.

I think, in life, the one precedes the other quite often.

I’d say it applies in writing, too. What do I mean? That to write authentically — no, wait, let me be even more specific — to get published — you have to get to that icky, raw, uncomfortable place where you’re facing everything with eyes open, and then put that place into words.

I’ll give an example from Donut Days. I was trying to write about my experiences in the evangelical church, but it wasn’t coming across right. It was wooden — it was like it was coming through a filter. And all the rejection letters I was receiving by agents and publishers was testament to the fact that it wasn’t resonating with anyone. Not one person.

One agent said on his website that he wanted to read stories that “transported him into a world he didn’t know.” I knew I could do that with Donut Days — if I could just find a way to express what I’d been through in an authentic way.

And then I saw Borat.

There’s a scene when Borat sleeps on the cement in front of an evangelical church, and you know what they do? They open the doors and invite him in (they even take up a collection for him at one point). The cameras are rolling as they sing, pray, dance, shake and start getting all kinds of touched by God. And Borat’s there, pretending to get swept up in it. They lay hands on him and he’s faking this whole religious experience, and it’s funny — but not funny ha ha. Funny squirm. Funny uncomfortable. Funny raw.

And boom. It hit me like a dusty Bible to the face. I had to show people the evangelical church the way Borat was showing them. Not the sparkly one you see on Bible TV, but the real one. The one that gets uncomfortable and makes you squirm in your seat.

And I’m not saying I did a perfect job of it, but I tried. And I tried to do it respectfully — because even in Borat, there’s a lot of redemption in what he’s showing us. I mean, they took up a collection for the dude.

So, forget what you think you know. Break it down. Have the breakdown. And then write from there.