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I have been so happy to have SKIPPED back out in the world again.  This was the book that made me a published author, so it will always have a special place in my heart.  Thanks to everyone who’s read and shared it.  The listing with the new title and cover doesn’t have any reviews yet on Amazon, so if you’ve read the book and feel inclined, I’d love it if you’d pop over and leave one.

If you’re new to the book–and it’s been a while!–I thought I’d re-share some of the things I wrote about it back during its release in 2012.

• Here’s a post on John Brown’s blog where I talked about where I got the original idea for SKIPPED and how I turned that idea into a novel.
• And a piece I wrote for the Macteen blog about how I like to write about things that disturb me, and how that played into Ricki’s story
• And last, a post for Mary Robinette Kowal’s ongoing series, My Favorite Bit, where I talked about what I was most proud of in the book.

Last weekend I was talking to a friend of mine who had just gotten some devastating news regarding one of her novels. We talked at length about how she should respond to this news, but as the conversation went on, it became clear that there were two problems at hand. The first was what she should do professionally to solve the problem with her book. And the second was, how could she continue in this business when every time hard news arrives, every time a book is finished on sub without selling, every time her hopes are dashed by rejection or failure, she can’t help but fall apart?

I’ve been there. In my now-sixteen years writing books, I’ve had a lot of disappointments. I’ve cried a lot of publishing tears. I’ve spent years and years wanting to quit. I’ve been completely and utterly miserable with my work and all the outcomes that came from it.

But now I’m happy.

And I’m not any more successful than I was when I was miserable–in fact, by some measures I am less successful.

And as I tried to deconstruct why that is–both to help my friend and to understand it myself, this is what I realized:

I am happy even though I am no more successful than I was because my success never was relevant to my personal happiness. I only believed that it was, and it was this false belief, not my failure, that made me miserable.

When you’re in the early stages of your career, writing and working and dreaming, it’s easy tie your personal happiness to the future of your career.
I will be happy when I finish the book. But you do, and it’s not enough to make you happy.
I will be happy when I’m ready to query. But you do, and you’re more nervous than ever.
I will be happy when I get partial requests. But you do, and the “hope” that you feel makes you even less secure.
I will be happy when I get full requests. But you do, and it doesn’t make you happy. You want more.
I will be happy if I can just get to where agents are writing to me personally, not sending form letters. But you get there, and it’s still not enough.
I’ll be happy when I sign with an agent.
I’ll be happy when I get a book deal.
I’ll be happy when I get another book deal.
I’ll be happy when I find another agent.
I’ll be happy when I see my book in the bookstore.
I’ll be happy when I get fan mail.
I’ll be happy when I win awards.
I’ll be happy when I make a best seller list.
I’ll be happy when I hit #1.

But you can do all these things (and if you do, yay for you!), but they won’t make you happy all by themselves.

Because your success or failure was never relevant to your personal happiness.

Here is the truth, going with the agent example: you can enjoy working with your agent, you can benefit from it, you can be grateful for it, you can profit from it–but your personal happiness, security, confidence, and self-esteem are not going to increase by signing with an agent. Why? Because having or not having an agent was never a factor your personal happiness, security, confidence, or self-esteem. Those things come from other sources, and not from having or not having an agent.

I am happy now (and was miserable then) because I retrained my brain not to tie my happiness, self-worth, or the value of my work to publishing outcomes. I had to, if I wanted to survive. This is the truth about the industry: it is a hellish roller coaster that chews up and spits out basically everybody. Even the very most successful authors I know have had their editors and agents leave the business at inopportune times, have lost or needed to leave an agent, have had books orphaned or abandoned by their publishers, have waited for years on end for business deals to move that never do, have had book after book rejected. Not every bad thing happens to everyone, but if you last long enough in this business, some of them will happen to you.

And, for me, the key to surviving, to continuing to write books and seek publication (both traditional and indie), and to damn-well be happy while I did it was to stop telling myself the damaging stories about happiness and replace those stories with healthy ones.

I’m happy, now, because I have healthy beliefs about what publishing can and cannot do for me. I have healthy beliefs about what I can get out of publishing and out of my work, and I don’t ask it to carry the burden of my happiness, self-worth, value, or other voids that publishing can never fill.

It’s a job. And it’s unfair to ask any job to take on that burden.

What follows are some examples of the thoughts I used to replace the unhealthy ones. I don’t know if they will be helpful to anyone but me, but I thought I would throw them out there just in case. Anytime I find myself feeling crushed by a failure, or feeling undue anxiety about the performance of a book on submission, during publication, or otherwise, I know I’ve lost my center. And I return to these stories, which, for me, are a balance of hope and realistic expectations.

• I hope that my book sells to a good publisher, because a publisher can potentially open doors for my work that I cannot open myself. I hope that my book sells to a publisher and is offered a good advance because the money would benefit my family, and it would be a privilege to work with a good editor on my book.

  However, if my book sells to a publisher it will not mean it is a good book, because whether or not a book sells is not relevant to its value. There are many books of poor quality that sell; there are many books of great quality that do not. If my book does not sell, it will not mean that it is a bad book. A publisher has the power to decide whether or not they will offer to publish my book and how much money they will offer, but not whether or not my book is of quality or has value.

• I hope that I will be able to work with–or continue to work with–a good agent, because I think that having an agent is valuable to my career, opens opportunities I would not otherwise have, and helps me to maximize my product and earning potential as a writer. However, signing with–or retaining, or pleasing–an agent will not make me feel like a real writer, because having–or keeping–an agent is not relevant to my self-identity as a writer.

  Losing or being rejected by an agent does not make me a hack, or a bad writer, or a hopeless case, because having–or being liked by, or keeping–an agent is not relevant to my value as a writer. I hope to have a long and healthy relationship with an agent. But if I do, I will be about as happy as I am now. And if I don’t, I will still be about as happy as I am now, because having an agent is not a contributor to personal happiness.

• I would like my book to sell well because I want to share it with readers–that’s why I wrote it in the first place. Also, I hope it will sell well because I could use the money for my family, and to facilitate my continued work. However, good sales will not make me happy, because book sales are not a relevant factor in my personal happiness. Poor sales will not destroy my happiness because book sales are not a relevant factor in my personal happiness.

  Whether my book sells well or not, I will be about as happy as I am right now because my happiness is influenced by other factors in my life–not by my book sales. I hope my book does well, but whatever happens, I will be okay. Book sales do not have the power to make me okay, or to make me not okay.

• I work hard on my books because I get a sense of accomplishment out of the work, because I feel better when I am productive, and because I get a sense of satisfaction out of a completed product. Therefore I will write today because I want writing to be done, and because doing so will help me progress as a writer. But I am not going to do it because I think it will give me control over my life, or because I think the external results (acceptance, sales, awards, etc.) of my writing will make me happy, because the external results of my writing have never had power to make me happy, and producing words only grants me power over my ability to produce words, and not over any other aspect of the industry, my life, or my career.
• I have no control over the outcomes of my efforts, and that is okay, because outcomes have no power over my personal happiness. I do have control over my personal thoughts and actions, and that’s good, because my personal thoughts and actions do have an influence on my personal happiness.

I’d like to be clear that I have not abandoned hope. It’s so tempting to try to squash hope so that you don’t feel disappointed, but this really isn’t a path to happiness either. This is because I’m not sure it’s possible to write a novel without some hope for its future. The key is to have that hope without heaping unnecessary burdens on top of that hope–hope that publishing will fix you. Because it can’t, and it won’t, and asking it to do so isn’t fair to anyone, especially yourself.

After reaching a breaking point–a rock bottom where I couldn’t imagine where I would find the creative energy to write another novel, I had to take a hard look at what writing and publishing were adding to my life. And this is what I learned:

For me, writing books does affect my personal happiness, because the work and the stories are important to me. The sense of accomplishment I get out of finishing difficult tasks, overcoming obstacles, carving out time, solving plot problems and creating a novel I am proud of gives me confidence and a sense of progression and identity that I don’t get out of any other work that I do in my life.

I am proud of my work, regardless of the outcomes in the publishing industry. Continuing to write books sometimes frustrates me, the results often disappoint me, and the work itself is frequently difficult. But the work I do in my own time is under my control, and is relevant to my personal happiness. I experience that happiness best and most fully when I focus on my own work, and do not hand power over my happiness to external factors that are out of my control.

And, finally, my work, in the end, is only one small part of my general happiness. In truth, the grand majority of my happiness comes to me through my family, through my faith, through self-care, through service to others, through my friendships, through play, and through healthy living.

When I do mental housecleaning and make sure that the stories I am telling myself are healthy ones–even if it means repeating that story to myself each and every time I sit down to write, each and every time I interact with the industry, each and every time I turn on the internet–then I’m able to be happy, no matter what happens external to me. When I am centered in healthy thoughts, assigning my happiness to things that can actually contribute to it and not mirages that are not relevant, no failure can destroy me.

It’s not easy to learn to think differently. Doing so takes a lot of work (and, in some cases, a therapist. And, if the problem is clinical, sometimes also medication, because some negative thought patterns are actually symptoms of mental illness.) But for me, anyway, learning to change my own beliefs gave me control over my own work in a way that I’d never thought possible. It allowed me to continue working, and not quit. And I did so not because my worth hinged on it, but because it’s what I wanted to do.

I’m happy now, and I wasn’t before. And if I never achieve any more success than I have at this very moment, I can be satisfied with that.

And that, friends, is real happiness– the kind that lasts.

Today I am happy to announce the re-release of my first published novel, complete with a new (old) title and a brand new cover.

There are a few changes in this edition, now available at Amazon in print and ebook, and also at most other e-book retailers.  (See links below.)

What’s new?

The Title

Skipped is actually the original title of the book, which was changed to Chasing the Skip by the marketing team at my publisher.  I’ve always preferred Skipped because of the multiple meanings–Ricki, the main character was skipped out on by both her mother and her father, and to me, the title (and story!) was always mainly about her.  Then of course there’s the skip she and dad are chasing, who plays a non-trivial role in Ricki’s arc.  Plus, I’ve always thought the Chasing part of the title made the book sound a bit too much like romance, which it isn’t.  More on this below.  All of this meant that when it came time to do a new edition of the book, I decided to roll back to the original title, and I’m excited to finally get to release the book this way.

The Cover

As many of you know, publishers design covers, often with little to no input from authors, and they own the rights to those covers.  Because my publisher wasn’t involved in this edition, the book had to have a new cover.  I was excited about the opportunity, however, because I’d always wanted to put a cover on this book that looked more like a character story and less like a romance.  (I love romance!  Some of my books fall into this category!  But this one doesn’t, so I worried I was disappointing readers who expected one thing from the cover and got something very different when they read the book.)  This beautiful cover was designed by the amazing Melody Fender, and I think she did a great job expressing the tone of the book.

The Content

Ah, the content.  I changed very little when I was reformatting this book–if you’ve read it before, you might not even notice that anything is different.  There were a few extraneous dialogue tags that I cleaned up in layout, but that’s about it.

Except.

I went through the book and removed all of the more offensive swear words, doing my best to express the same sentiment in other language.

Let me go on record that I don’t have a problem with swear words in books, especially when they’re used sparingly and to good effect.  I still think that the way I used those words in this book was artistically legitimate.  When you’re writing about fugitives running from the law, their language is probably not in reality going to be squeaky clean, and I think that’s okay, because it’s an expression of character.

However.  After I released the first edition of this book, it became clear to me that many people did not agree with me.  Which was their prerogative–I know I can’t please everyone, and I’d be foolish to try.  But I received several emails from people who loved (loved!) my book, but told me that while they wanted to recommend it to others, they couldn’t because of the language content.

That really hit home to me.  Artistically legitimate or not, it’s not worth it to me to include heavy swear words if they offend my audience to the point that my books can’t spread by word of mouth.  I had some tough conversations with myself about whether my choices were the right ones.

And I decided that, for me, they weren’t.

It’s been years since I made that decision, but it’s taken this long for me to have the opportunity to correct the problem.  In the meantime, while my other books still contain mild swear words, I’ve steered away from the harder ones, choosing other language to reflect the same sentiment.   And now, I’m happy to finally be able to correct the problem in this book.  And I’m happy to say that I don’t think altering the language in those two or three places in the story hurt the narrative any.  I’m just as proud of this version as I was of the last one.

And if you’ve been avoiding telling people about this book because of the content, please.  Spread the word.

Where to find Skipped:

Amazon: Print Edition

Amazon: Kindle Edition

Nook

Kobo

Google Play 

Itunes 

News!  Up until now, all my books have been available in e-book only from Amazon.  But as of now Giftchild is available from most e-book outlets.  Links are below!  (I’ll consider doing this with the other books in the future, but have started with this one.)  So if you like e-books but don’t by from Amazon, check it out!

Amazon: Print Edition
Amazon: Kindle Edition
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
Ibookstore
Google Play
Scribd
Oyster

 
Also, for the month of October, Giftchild is also available on Netgalley.  So if you’re a reviewer, please feel free to request.

My new science fiction novel, A THOUSAND FACES, is now out in the world!  You can find it on Amazon in e-book and print, and also on Kindle Unlimited.

This book is a little different from the others I’ve released.  It’s a science fiction spy thriller about shape shifters, and it’s one of my favorite things that I’ve written.  I’m delighted to finally get to share it with you.

My new science fiction novel, A THOUSAND FACES, will be out near the end of this month.  This is one my favorite parts of releasing a book: the part where I get to show you the cover:

Here’s the cover copy!

In her debut YA science fiction novel, Janci Patterson presents a thriller that #1 NYT bestseller James Dashner calls “a fantastic book” and #1 NYT bestseller Brandon Sanderson calls “hands down one of my favorite novels of the year.”

In the world of high-stakes espionage, it pays to be able to change your face. And that’s just what sixteen-year-old Jory and her family of shape-shifting spies can do—alter their faces and bodies to look like anyone. Jory is in training to be a full member of the family business—when she can convince her parents to let her help with their elaborate cons.

But when Jory’s parents go missing on the job, Jory is thrown into a world of secrets, lies, and stolen identities that will put all her training to the test. Jory’s always wanted to be a member of the team—

But saving her family may be the most difficult job of all.

Other Praise for A THOUSAND FACES:

“A Thousand Faces is a well-plotted race of a story with fantastic world building. A paranormal Mission Impossible for teens, Jory’s world and story are so meticulously parsed together they make you want to look twice at every face you see on the street.”
— Aprilynne Pike, #1 NYT bestselling author of the Wings series

A Thousand Faces is one of those rare books that can include heartbreaking and swoon-worthy romance and equally skillful action and suspense. It’s a terrific novel.
-Robison Wells, author of the Blackout series

A THOUSAND FACES is the YA thriller I’ve been waiting for: a fantastic, troubled heroine, struggling with an incredible power she only barely controls, trapped in a web of supernatural espionage where she can’t trust anyone. The pace is quick, the intrigue is devious, and the magic is absolutely fascinating. A brilliant combination of romance, science fiction, and the supernatural.
-Dan Wells, author of the Partials Series

My friend Katherine Cowley has a story coming out in the Steel and Bone anthology,

and asked if she might do a guest post about differences in the way we think and how

those differences can be our greatest strengths. She has some beautiful things to say, and

I'm happy to have the opportunity to host them here. Hope you enjoy. 


Art: “Color Cave in the Sea of Synesthesia” by garlandcannon via flickr, Creative Commons 

license

All of us have differences, things that set us apart. It’s a common observation that in high school 

people either hide those differences to try to fit in, or they flaunt then. High school and its social 

angst aside, our differences can be frustrating, even challenging.

A few years ago I was part of a writer’s group. We spent hours every month at Whole Foods 

discussing writing and life. Our conversations touched on things which helped me through some 

of my later struggles. 

Many in the group had experienced depression at one point or another, a mental illness that is 

more common among artistic people than among the general population.

(According to Swedish researchers, it’s even more common among writers).

One of my friends spoke of her struggles with anxiety and described her panic attacks.

About six months later, I was at home, stressed, 

and suddenly my heart started pounding uncontrollably. I couldn’t breathe, my body shook, and I 

felt like I would die. Because of my friend, I knew it wasn’t a heart attack: it was a panic attack.

It was also in my writer’s group that I first heard of synesthesia—a condition shared by three of 

those in the group.

Art: Synesthesia by FitoComics via Deviant Art, Creative Commons license

According to Science Daily, synesthesia is “a neurological condition in which two or more 

bodily sensations are coupled.” There are currently more than sixty known types of synesthesia. 

By some estimates, one percent of the population has some form of synesthesia. One of the 

common forms of synesthesia relates to color. Someone might associate each letter or number 

with a different color (“A” might always look red). In some forms of synesthesia, different 

numbers inhabit different spaces, and could be perceived as closer or farther. Other people with 

synesthesia hear shapes or taste sounds. 

Recent research demonstrates that “synesthetes have stronger connections between different 

brain areas…Those connections lead to a triggering effect, where a stimulus in one part of the 

brain would cause activity in another.”

When I started drafting “The Clockwork Seer,” I never set out to write a character with 

synesthesia. It was not in my outline. But as soon as I wrote the first paragraph I realized that 

synesthesia was what made Medina different than those around her, more so than being a seer 

and having a typewriter in her hip. Because of her synesthesia, she connects people, experiences, 

and emotions with tastes and smells.

And because Medina has synesthesia, whenever her clairvoyance strikes it overwhelms her, the 

images, tastes, smells, and sounds becoming so magnified as to be crippling. As a result, her 

friend the Tinker installed clockwork parts in Medina’s body which dampen the effects of her 

visions.

Medina lives on a large, highly populated island, isolated from the mainland. Due to geography 

and perhaps geology, most of those living on the island finds themselves with an island gift, 

though Medina has one of the larger ones. One of the perennial questions on the island is are 

these gifts, or are they actually curses? 

Medina tends to side with the curses theory. At the beginning of “The Clockwork Seer” she 

wishes that she were normal, that her visions would leave her alone so she could live a normal 

life.

And don’t we all at times?

Art: Microglacier by Jason Samfield via flickr, Creative Commons license

I spent several years suffering from depression of different levels of severity. I remember giving 

my toddler a box of yarn to play with (in other words, tangle). I would curl up under a table and 

cry for hours, wishing the pain would go away, that I could be normal, or at least even a glimpse 

of who I used to be.

Depression treatments, books, speaking with a counselor, and medication, are all a bit like 

Medina’s clockwork parts, and make it possible to survive with a mental illness. 

Yet Medina’s synesthesia and clairvoyance are only partly curses. They are a beautiful 

component of her, which give her advantages. It is the same with depression and other mental 

illnesses.

A 2003 study by researchers from the University of Toronto and Harvard showed that creative 

people “appear to be more open to incoming stimuli from the surrounding environment” and less 

able to ignore or shut out stimuli. That’s a trait that is also associated with psychosis, yet can be 

beneficial for a writer or artist. Psychology professor Jordan Peterson explains, "The normal 

person classifies an object, and then forgets about it, even though that object is much more 

complex and interesting than he or she thinks. The creative person, by contrast, is always open to 

new possibilities."

Creative people have much higher rates of bipolar disorder or manic depression, but this also 

gives them a larger emotional range which studies propose may aid in creativity

(a different study proposes a genetic link between these disorders and creativity).

Art: Intermezzo Abstract by Peter & Ute Grahlmann via flickr, Creative Commons license

One researcher, Simon Kyaga, explained, "If one takes the view that certain phenomena 

associated with the patient's illness are beneficial, it opens the way for a new approach to 

treatment. In that case, the doctor and patient must come to an agreement on what is to be 

treated, and at what cost.”

One of my good friends can’t write when she is taking depression medication. The medication 

eliminates the emotional range she needs for her stories, and her drive to write. Other friends 

manage their illnesses and write better when they are taking medication. 

While I am grateful I no longer face depression on a daily basis, I can’t look at my experiences 

with depression from an attitude of regret. They are part of who I am. Depression made me 

willing to put my characters through hard things, it taught me about emotion and desire, and it 

gave me a need to write and make meaning out of life. 

I still have days when I wake up and can feel the chemical imbalance in my body. I feel 

worthless, even though cognitively I know it is not true. On some days I feel depressed even 

when I practice dozens of self-treatment approaches that normally work on me. On very hard 

days, I remind myself, “I feel deeply. I embrace every feeling, every experience, for it will help 

me tell stories.”

We can flee from the things that make us different and try to hide them from others or ourselves. 

Or we can let our differences be a part of us—manage them, prevent what is preventable, cure 

what is curable, but realize that the things that give us struggle can give us much more than just 

that.

One of the reasons I love being a part of the anthology Steel and Bone is that each of the stories 

addresses things that make people different. It’s a common trait in the steampunk genre as a 

whole. Yes, there are standard steampunk tropes: cool, steam-powered machinery, gears and 

gadgets, punked-out Victorian costumes, automatons and the like. Yet steampunk also addresses 

deep, rich questions: Can I control my fate or overcome my circumstance? Am I my limitations? 

What sacrifices are necessary for progress? Is the status quo the ideal?

When I write and read steampunk, it gives me hope that my differences will not cripple me, and 

that perhaps I can use them to my own advantage.

Steel and Bone is a collection of steampunk short stories and novelettes. It will be released on 

Saturday, June 27th, 2015, as both a print book and an ebook, and is available for preorder.

There’s this binary that gets tossed around a lot in the writing community.  Often I’m asked: are you a planner, or a discovery writer?  Are you a gardener, or an architect?  Are you an outliner, or a pantser?

I usually tell people, I’m a hybrid. But what I want to say is, no.  I don’t respond to any of those metaphors.  Believe me, I’ve tried. I plan a lot, but not very well.  I discover a lot, but I can’t write a story without a road map, and a lot of what I discover really sucks.  If those are the only two ways to write, well.  I don’t know what it is that I do, but it’s not that.  I once heard Shannon Hale say that for her, first drafts are filling up the sand box to make sand castles with later.  That one hits closer for me, but it’s still too…pretty.  My process?  It ain’t pretty.

And then yesterday, while I was digging through a piece of crap first draft, I finally thought of a metaphor I respond to.

I am a dumpster diver.

I’m not joking.

I outline.  My outline is a lot like the process by which things get into the garbage in the first place.  I think these things will be useful.  I design them carefully.  And then I throw them into a huge dumpster-sized pile, and let’s be honest.  Most of the things in that dumpster are utter garbage.

But that’s okay.  A good dumpster diver knows that you don’t need to take home half the heap to be successful.  You just have to find the pieces that are truly useful.

So I go diving in my pile of crap.  I leave behind a lot of stuff–sometimes the grand majority of the heap.  I find the things that are truly useful, and then I try to find more things that go with them.

And then I throw out a lot of those things, too.

This is why my writing group is invaluable to me: they are my appraisal team.  Keep this, not that.  Love this, hate that.  Sometimes I can tell they are stressed by the amount of crap in the drafts that they read.  But I’m not stressed about it.  I’m no more attached to my drafts than people normally are to things they’ve put in dumpsters.  It’s not like I have to publish it like that.  Like any good dumpster diver, I know how to leave the crap behind.

And I do.  Somewhere at the end of this long winnowing process I end up with a book full of things that are good and useful.  Things that contribute.  Things that can stay.  But, like dumpster diving, it’s a long, messy, and sometimes miserable process to get my work where I want it to be.  It would be so much cleaner and more efficient to be a gardener or an architect or some other respected profession.

But the good news is, to the reader, the writing process doesn’t matter.  All that matters is the end product.  And my books get there, eventually.  And while my process is a true and utter mess, I still produce books faster than most of the gardeners and architects I know.

Excuse me, please.  I have a dumpster to fill.

This weekend I’ll be at the Life, the Universe and Everything Symposium in Provo, Utah.  This is my home convention, and also my favorite.  If you’re in the neighborhood and of the writerly or fannish persuasion, it’s well worth the effort to attend.  They put me on some gaming panels this year, which I am SUPER excited about.

Here are my events:

Thursday
3:00 PM    GMing: Keeping your players from wanting to kill you

Friday
2:00 PM   Writing Dramatic Scenes

Saturday
10:00 AM  YA Protagonists
12:00 PM   Are you ready for an agent?
5:00 PM     The Magic of Minis

I won’t be at the mass signing, but I will have a few copies of my books for sale.  If you’re at LTUE, please come say hi!