Lara Zielin

Just in case you were wondering, here goes nothing:

When I was 17, I started regularly attending a small evangelical church in my hometown in Wisconsin. Almost immediately, my rudderless life suddenly seemed more on course, and I felt both hope and acceptance in my newfound Christian community.

That I emerged from my teenage years with a sense of self, with confidence, and with my sins washed clean is proof that there is a lot right with the evangelical church.

I also found out, in my early 20s, there’s a lot wrong, too.

I left Wisconsin to attend college in Minnesota. After graduating, I found an apartment in Minneapolis and started attending a megachurch in the city. My experiences there became the inspiration for Living Word Redeemer in my novel DONUT DAYS, because I saw that corruption, deceit, and greed can infiltrate a Christian community as easily as hope and love. For the first time, I felt lost in God’s house.

When questions were raised, the congregation was told to “have faith” and to “trust God.” All this while our tithes were misspent, and the pastors lied. I believe in God, and I believe in the church, but I wrote DONUT DAYS because I also believe that it’s okay to question absolute power, and that no pastor is infallible.

Many teens—and, I’d argue, people in general—in the evangelical church have doubts about what they’re seeing, about what they’re being asked to believe. The process through which they figure it all out should be embraced, should be acknowledged. Instead, it’s all too often labeled as doubt, and the person becomes a pariah. My great hope is that DONUT DAYS encourages people to thoughtfully question what they believe, and why, and to remember that even if people suck, God doesn’t have to.

[image: Arcade Fire, Neon Bible]

The DONUT DAYS release party on Thursday at Nicola’s Books in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was nothing short of smashing! It ruled so hard. So many people turned out to buy books and offer support, and Nicola’s even ran out of copies to sell! I was, and still am, floored by the outpouring of love and encouragement from friends and family.

For those of you who want to see photos from the event, I have a bunch! Here they are, and all photo credits go to the awesome Evan Hansen.

This is back when they still had books to sell. So many books!

Here is a smattering of all the people in attendance. They eventually ran out of chairs so some folks did have to stand. Sorry about that, all y’all!

So, Nicola sat me in this big leather chair and I did my presentation from there. Which was different. But totally okay. I talked about the process of getting published and how, as a writer, I found my voice for DONUT DAYS.

Then the signing started and the line was long. But everyone was really, really cool about it, and they stuck around and waited patiently. Thanks, awesome peeps!

As they say in Dirty Dancing, I had the time of my life. And nobody puts baby in a corner. But mostly I had the time of my life.

I signed and signed … and then afterwards we went to Zingerman’s Road House to celebrate with cocktails and food.

Thank you again to everyone who showed up and made it so fun and memorable. What a night! Let’s do it again tomorrow! Hee hee.

xoxo

Carly! Congratulations and thanks so much for leaving your thoughts on the blog!

I’ll definitely do more contests and author posts in the future, so never fear for the opportunity to win more free donuts and books.

For now, I want to share an awesome review that came in from Books Love Jessica Marie. I’m so glad you loved the book, Jessica! Yay!

OMG. I seriously had many moments where I wondered if this day would EVER get here. Ever. But here it is! My book, DONUT DAYS, is finally out on bookshelves. Yaaaay!

To kick off the release, I have the great honor of having author Melissa Schorr on the blog. Her book, GOY CRAZY, was a huge inspiration to me. Never before had I read such a funny, poignant book that managed to address some pretty serious issues (religion among them) but never took itself too seriously. There were still lots of laughs, not to mention cute boys and kissing. And yet the book’s messages stayed with me for a long, long time.

Melissa’s book helped pave the way for DONUT DAYS, so it makes enormous sense to me that she be part of this day on the blog. Melissa’s going to share her thoughts on how she found herself in the interesting role of being a YA novelist. If you leave a comment, you’ll be eligible for today’s prize, which is a signed copy of DONUT DAYS! Woo hoo!

And with that, I turn the reins over to my literary role model! Take it away Melissa!

——————-

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Or so they say. And one the greatest mysteries in my own life is exactly how I ended up as a young adult novelist.

True, I read like mad as a child, loving everything from Nancy Drew to Sweet Valley High. But somehow, writing kid lit myself never occurred to me.

No, I was gunning to be a big-time journalist, preferably the next Anna Quindlen. So I served as an editor at my high school paper and set off for college to collect my (aptly named) B.S. in journalism.

Somehow, in between fetching coffee as an editorial assistant at a glossy women’s mag and accosting celebrities as a stringer for People magazine, I landed a gig as a fact checker for Gentlemen’s Quarterly (GQ).

In between verifying factoids about Jackie Chan and silk ties, I somehow convinced my editors to let me pen an essay, to be called “The Joys of Goys,” about my perpetual inability to bring home a “Nice Jewish Boy” to meet my increasingly fretful Jewish parents.

Like anything that pokes fun at religion (as Lara will doubtless soon find out), the piece struck a nerve. Upon publication, I was besieged with letters – from irate rabbis, lovesick prison inmates — but most notably, a literary agent, who believed my piece had the makings of a New York Times bestseller — a sort of Jewish girl’s “Sex and the City.”

I eagerly banged out a proposal of all the hot Goy Toys I planned to date. It all seemed too good to be true. Then, along came the man of my dreams, which promptly killed my book deal. My future husband–to-be was cute, crazy for me and –irony of ironies — had actually been bar-mitzvahed.

Sadly, I closed that chapter in my life. Or, so I thought.

But again, see above re: Ways, mysterious.

Flash forward seven years. I’d checked big city columnist off my life’s little to-do list and had moved on to a shiny new literary dream: screenwriter. After penning a rom-com and enrolling in the famed Robert McKee Story seminar, I phoned my old book agent, hoping for a few La-La land contacts.

Instead, he tossed out a random idea. Ever thought of writing a young adult novel, he asked offhandedly. You might even revisit your old proposal. Fictionalized, of course.

The idea struck a nerve. Like a woman possessed, I dredged up my high school diaries, wrote all summer long, and finished a chunk of the book.

The proposal sold in a week.

I must confess: my peculiar path to publication at first made me feel like a fraud. After all, I’d skipped the MFA. The writer’s workshops. The critique group. Everything the powers-that-be say you must to do, if you aspire to be a Novelist.

Until I noticed one conversation I was having over and over. Adults would marvel, “How do you remember what it feels like to be a teenager?” And I’d stare back at them, my response always the same: “How do you not?”

So I guess you could say it was fate, or the Lord, or destiny, or what have you, that I ended up back to my first love, creating books for teens.

In retrospect, the greater mystery probably isn’t how I ended up where I did. It’s why I never thought to take this path from the start.

Congratulations to DeDe, who left a comment on Rhonda Stapleton’s awesome post and won a $10 Dunkin’ Donuts gift card!  Thanks everyone who participated and, never fear, there are more opportunities to win tomorrow. Why, you ask? Because DONUT DAYS is finally released tomorrow, that’s why! Aaaaa!!

In case I haven’t mentioned it enough, the amazing and incredible Melissa Schorr, author of GOY CRAZY, will be posting here on the book’s launch day. For me, it’s the perfect way to send DONUT DAYS into the world because Melissa’s book was such an inspiration to me.

I’m also doing a few guest posts and interviews on other blogs. Here’s one at reviewer Jessica Marie’s site, and I was also interviewed by the Divining Wand, which you can read here.

Thanks to everyone who’s let me ramble on their interwebs space. You guys rock.

Till tomorrow then! Squee!

Rhonda Stapleton is just one of those authors I dare you not to like. She’s smart, funny, and her book, STUPID CUPID, a romantic comedy, comes out this December.

Many authors (and I speak from experience here) think we’re funny when maybe … not so much. So how do you fold comedy into your writing? What makes something funny? Rhonda is going to tell us all about it today on the blog. And, as ever, there’s a $10 Dunkin’ Donuts gift card up for grabs for one lucky commenter.

Take it away Rhonda!

Lara, I wanted to quickly thank you for hosting me–I’m thrilled to be here today!

My name is Rhonda Stapleton, and I write YA romantic comedy. I’ve always been a fan of books that can make me laugh–they stay on my keeper shelf for a long, long time.

As I started writing comedy, I realized just how freaking hard it is to make someone consistently laugh. And not just one person, but many, many people who might potentially read my story (oh man, I hope so. LOL). It’s like going up to complete strangers and telling jokes–some might think you’re really funny and laugh hard. Some may chuckle a little. Some might shrug, but will keep on listening to you. And some may outright get irritated, because HELLO, you were supposed to be funny, and since you didn’t make them laugh it’s totally false advertising, and now they’re going to tell everyone on Goodreads and Amazon how unfunny you are.

Welcome to the challenging world of comedy writing!

For anyone interested in writing comedy, here are a few tips from auntie Rhonda. Take these all with a grain of salt, of course–comedy is sometimes very personal, and what works for one person may not work for all.

1–TIMING. IS. EVERYTHING. Seriously. You have to fit the jokes into the writing at the right time, or else it will fall flat. Some jokes are one-liners, while others may extend an entire scene or more. So, decide what’s right for that joke and run with it. Sometimes, you want to set up a joke slowly, get people anticipating it, and then give them a good payoff. Sometimes though, it’s good to flat-out surprise someone and not let them see it coming. How many times have you been reading and then come across a line that was so unexpected and funny, you laughed out loud? I love those moments. *happy sigh*

2–There are different kinds of funny out there in the world–don’t be afraid to mix it up and pull from all of them! Sometimes a situation itself is funny. Sometimes there are funny-looking people (yes, that’s not PC of me to say, but there you go). Sometimes your characters may say funny things. Physical/visual humor doesn’t always work well in a book though. I’d keep the pratfalls to a minimum–reading about a woman slipping on a banana peel, or a guy getting punched in the joeys, just doesn’t make me laugh. Okay, maybe the second one does a little.

3–Keep in mind that humor is different for genders, too–what makes guys laugh and girls laugh are often very different. You can look online for more details about this, but it’s a good idea to keep this in mind.

4–Shock humor can be SUPER effective when done right. However, be careful not to overuse, or your entire story will simply seem too over-the-top, and the humor will lose its effectiveness. I tend to avoid the crazy shock humor for the most part and instead go for exaggeration–I find making a situation crazier than it normally would have been is very fun to write. Or, on the flip side, understatement can often be really funny too–if a character has some wild, crazy event going on, and then makes a really low-key statement about it that is obviously not the appropriate reaction, that can often be funny.

5–Often, the funniest things aren’t wild situations you made up, or over-the-top shock humor, but REAL LIFE. Life is weird and ironic and unfair and cruel and totally ripe for plucking humorous situations from. Look around you, see what’s going on in your life. Listen to what people say. How can you use those situations? Great humor, in my opinion, usually has a flare of reality and heart behind it, so the reader can identify with it and comisserate with you.

6–You can’t win all the time. It sucks, but you’re never going to make everyone laugh. Trust me, I’ve tried. Dear GOD, I’ve tried (ps, desperation wins you neither a date, nor a laugh, *sigh*). Unfortunately, there are lonely, bitter, evil sadsacks out there in the world who were somehow born without a funnybone. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit–that’s what I do. LOL. Anyway, as mentioned before, humor is personal, individual. Not everyone is going to like what you write, and THAT IS PERFECTLY OKAY. That’s the risk you take–but let me tell you, the intense pleasure of having a joke make someone lose it and laugh hard is the BEST feeling in the world. To me, it’s worth the risk.

So, what are your favorite comedic movies or books or TV shows? What elements in the humor make them work for you? I’d love to hear about it, and I’ll leave a comment here with my own examples.