Today I’m proud to host Lissa Price, author of STARTERS, a new dystopian YA novel.  Starters is available now.  After reading the premise, it’s definitely going on my to-be-read list.

 Lissa was kind enough to answer my questions about what she would do in various bounty hunting situations.   Welcome, Lissa.

First, tell us what your book is about.
In the future desperate teens rent out their bodies to seniors so they
can be young again temporarily. But one senior plans to do more than
party.   She plans to murder someone.

Now, for the bounty hunter questions.  You’ve skipped bail, and a bounty hunter is looking for you. What
three things do you bring with you?
A Diet Coke, my iPad, and a SuperTruffle.

Where does the bounty hunter find you?
At my favorite beach.

Now you’re the bounty hunter. When three things do you bring with you
while tracking your skip?
My iPad, my phone, and night-vision glasses.

You’ve found your skip, right where you thought they would be.
Describe your location and approach.
They’re hiding in an abandoned office building, on the roof. I call in
a helicopter assist (a favor owed me). I snab the skip, cuff him, and
grab the ladder to climb into the copter.

You’ve just caught a skip, and you’re surprised to find them
attractive. What three things make them irresistible to you?
He’s funny, smart and knows Shakespeare.

Want to meet Lissa? Here’s where you can find her:
5/19 At Costco Los Angeles, on Los Feliz Blvd 1pm-3pm.
6/2 Klindt’s Bookstore, The Dalles, OR
6/16, 1-3 at Costco Westlake Village 5700 Lindero Canyon Rd
7/11-15 ComicCon
8/3-8/5 SCBWI Century City giving three talks

Can’t make it to any of those appearances? You can also find Lissa online in the following places. Check out her website for links to contests for a chance to win a copy of STARTERS.

www.LissaPrice.com
@Lissa_Price
LissaPriceAuthor on FB
www.StartersBooks.com: Official Random House website
StartersBooks on FB for game app

“I can’t believe that chapter was that bad,” I said.

My friend was shocked.  My chapter was fine, he told me.  In fact, he quite liked it.

I couldn’t believe it.  The group had elaborated on the problems of my chapter  for as much time and with as much enthusiasm as they had another submission, which I felt needed a lot of work.  In fact, I realized, they went on about the problems in everyone’s work with this same passion every week.  Good stuff, bad stuff . . . all the criticism was punctuated equally.

“How then,” I asked, “am I supposed to know how much work I need to do, if we all critique everything with equal fervor?”

(Okay, I didn’t really use the word fervor.  I probably didn’t use any of these words.  I just counted the number of years since I had this conversation, and it took me two hands.)

Huh, my friend said.  That is a problem.

And on that car ride, the levels system was born.  What we needed, we decided, was not to tone down our excitement about various critiques, but to find a way to label them, so the writer can tell whether a problem is small or large.

When we critique, we always start with good things.  No matter how many problems a piece may have, there are always good things to be said.  Listing them first helps to set a positive tone to the discussion, and helps the writer not to feel despair when the problems are numerous.

Then come the Level Three comments, or the problems that, if you encountered them in a published book, would cause you to put the book down and walk away.  In an ideal world, there won’t be any level threes.  (But sometimes there are.  That’s why we have writing group.)

Next come the Level Two comments, or other things that bothered you about the piece.  And last are the Level Ones–line-level problems, funny typos, and issues that you want to mention but that you really don’t feel that strongly about.  (Level Two is best defined as everything that is not Level One, or Level Three.)

My writing group has changed a lot in the intervening years since my friend and I invented the system, but we still use it, and I still love it.  I don’t mind when the group carries on enthusiastically about my typos or miswritten lines.  I know they are Level One problems.  I dutifully write them down, but I don’t have to feel like I need to rewrite the chapter over it.  I can begin to sort the comments everyone feels strongly about from the ones that are just idle conversation, right from the beginning.  (It also helps keep us on topic–inevitably when the conversation wanders, someone will ask, “what level are we on?” and we get back to work.)  I get better feedback, I’m better able to organize my thoughts for others, and I can begin to decide what magnitude of changes need to happen when I get ready to revise.

It makes my organizational heart happy.

*I know I’ve blogged about this before, but I’m pretty sure the post is lost somewhere in the depths of my livejournal, so here it is again.  Sorry if this is a repeat.

But trying to catch up on that hurt my work productivity. And I had a project that needed doing. It sat for several days. I kept prioritizing it last, which of course was the problem.

I get this loop going in my head sometimes. If I didn’t get the work done that I wanted to do today, that means every day will be like today, and I’ll clearly never get it done. Cue despair.

But there’s still work to be done. It’s still sitting there. So I whine about it.

And then I just do it. And you know what? Once I start working, I remember that I’ve been doing this for years. I’ve completed many, many projects. Why should this be the one that never gets done?

There’s no reason. So I just do it. And then it’s done. Time to move on to something else.

Maybe someday I’ll learn to just do it without the whining first. But I’m not counting on it.

The fisheye lens was a Christmas gift. It works best with subject matter I don’t normally treat, so I’ve been having fun switching it up.