2018 Bram Stoker Awards Nominee

I am thrilled to announce that BABY TEETH has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel! I am incredibly grateful to the Horror Writers Association and all of the members and readers who voted for BABY TEETH. The winners will be announced at StokerCon on May 11. See the full list of nominees here - and congrats to all!!!

Questions From Writers (Part One)

I recently posted a message on Twitter asking for suggestions for blog topics that would be helpful to writers. I decided to try and address as many of the topics/ questions as I can, so here is the first batch:

"When it comes to your own ideas for books, how do you ensure that it is an authentic idea and that you haven't unintentionally piggy-backed on an idea that may have been done?" This question covers a couple of different topics, as I interpret it as both "how do you write something that isn't derivative" and "how do you find a novel-worthy idea" – and these are both legitimate issues. To some degree we are all inspired and influenced by things we read and see, and I think it's great to be affected by the art we encounter, in addition to real life. And they say that there are only "X" number of plots and we are all writing variations of those. The thing that adds depth and originality to those tried and true plots is YOU—you, the writer.

It is incumbent upon each of us to dig deeply into our imaginations (or experiences) for character nuances, or plot twists, or details about some aspect of the world that we don't see every day. This could be related to your descriptions, or setting, or philosophy, or culture, or…? The possibilities are endless, which is how every book, even when related in theme or plot, is ultimately a unique story. The other part of YOU that comes into play is your "voice"—the style in which you write. Some beginning writers fret over this and want to adopt the writing style of someone they admire; this is another way that work can become derivative. With time, we each develop our own voice and sensibilities, and that helps to make every story unique, even if it isn't 100% "original."

And to briefly address this "novel-worthy idea" issue: I had never considered this until I read Les Edgerton's craft book, HOOKED. He very clearly explains a "surface problem" versus a "story-worthy problem." A novel needs to have a big enough "problem"—challenging enough to resolve—that it can span hundreds of pages, and is worth the investment (yours and the reader's). Novels require several levels of conflict, from the internal needs of characters, to the more "external" elements of certain kinds of plots. Another pair of craft books that I highly recommend are Donald Maass's WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL and WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL WORKBOOK. When a writer becomes more aware of all the elements a good story needs—all of the nuances that YOU will be creating—I think it becomes less likely that their work will seem to "piggy-back" on something that already exists.       

"Dealing with rejection during the query process." There are not a lot of ways to make constant rejection easier so, to the degree that you can, accept it as a rite of passage. Lest you think "What does she know?": In 2003 I made a 25-minute documentary about the first ONE THOUSAND rejections I received in my combined pursuits of screenwriting and playwriting (plus poetry and short story submissions). And I've received many, many more rejections since then. And you know what? It DID become less traumatic. And when I finally got an agent and sold my first book, I felt a certain confidence in having "paid my dues."

Let's break this down a bit for novelists, since querying agents often involves hitting certain milestones:

I would recommend paying attention to the effectiveness of your query letter and sample pages. If you send out 15 queries and don't get a single response—and I mean not a single "no thank you" form email—your query letter is broken and you need to rewrite it. If you send out a new batch of 15 queries and you get a few form responses, and maybe a couple of personal "no thank yous," and one full or partial request, you're definitely doing much better, but I'd never rule out the possibility of improving your query. Send batches; gauge the response; consider reworking your query before sending another batch.

Now let's imagine a scenario where you master that query and start getting a large percentage of requests. YAY you!! You've found the right way to excite agents with your story! But then, to your great disappointment, the rejections start coming in. And everyone knows it hurts more to get rejections based on a full or partial manuscript than on a 3-paragraph query. Not only is the manuscript a better marker of your overall storytelling ability, but the emotional excitement of imagining your career going to the next level is unavoidable. So what do you do?

In this scenario, you need to take a hard look at your book's first few pages. Is your story starting in the wrong place? Is there too much backstory or an unnecessary prologue? Is your grammar sloppy? Is there enough tension? Do you give readers enough reasons to keep reading? Do they know who the protagonist is? If you start getting a lot of requests based on your query, but no subsequent interest, I think the best next step is to look for likely culprits in your first 10 or 20 or 30 pages.

For all of these reasons, it pays to query in small batches, so that you can fix things before you run through your whole list of agents! I know this doesn't solve the emotional heartache of rejection, but maybe it will help you identify some of the reasons why those rejections are happening. Friends, it's a long process for most of us: don't give up!

"Any suggestions for own-voice writers, especially in light of Dan Mallory's recent deception about what his true medical issues are?" I hate that there are pathological liars in the world, and they don't deserve a reward for their dishonesty. With that said, all you can do is be your authentic self; we have no control over what other people do. Dan Mallory/A.J. Finn manipulated people with tales of personal and family health tragedies; it seems to have worked for him, but that is no reason to either inflate your own background, or hide it. If your background is relevant to the story you're telling and you want people to know it's #ownvoices, don't fear that it will be held against you now because of Mallory/Finn (as the asker of this question was concerned). Most people in publishing are both smart and honest, and most writers are smart and honest. Mallory/Finn's story registers with many of us as being "unfair," but that is primarily because he was awarded a certain kind of privilege as a charismatic white man (who, frankly, sounds a bit sociopathic). Whatever the publishing business ultimately takes away from this (if anything), I don't think it will negatively impact people who have genuine experiences with physical or mental health issues. 

Happy Writing!! 
- Zoje

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (Turn and Face the Strange)

Things are going to be different this year, on multiple fronts, and some of these changes are already in motion. For starters, I have dedicated this entire month of January '19 to celebrating my birthday, as I'm about to turn half-a-freakin'-century old! Maybe it's my age, or just who I am, but I need to reflect on things: putting things into words helps me understand my world better, and be appreciative. And I want to acknowledge these things at the start of the year, not the end.

1) I'm about to be kicked off of Disability. Some of you already know, I had hoped my publishing dreams would allow me to work my way off of federal disability, but it had been my intention to keep my Medicare as a safety net until my career was solidly established. Well, the Social Security Administration had other ideas. Though they declared it a "medical termination" they didn't include a single reason (or doctor, or medical report) to support their claim, and I'm highly suspicious that the SSA is just not on board with my self-employed career as a professional novelist. I've been required to report all of my income, work months, publishing contracts, etc. which has resulted in a shit-ton of confusing paperwork, and I think the SSA has just had enough. But you know what? The frustration is mutual.

I've been providing documentation about every aspect of my life for years, and the entire social service system is set up to feel like a punishment. My first reaction to the Cessation of Disability Notice was horror—I got it just before Christmas, and had only days to file an appeal (over Christmas) if I wanted to preserve my benefits. But after the shock wore off and I got more information (like how much I'd pay for a Silver Plan through my current healthcare provider), I started seeing the upside to being truly independent.

I will no longer have to report—multiple times a year—every aspect of my health & finances to an agency that does not actually care about my quality of life. I will no longer have to endure weeks/months of anxious waiting, fearful about my benefits being cut off or screwed up by the documentation I regularly report. The more I thought about it, the freer I felt! I started to wonder if my health might even improve, once free of being forced to focus on my limitations (which is the constant mandate while proving your worth to receive benefits).

Of course there is some risk involved here, especially since I don't currently have a publisher for my next novel. The re-application process for Disability could take years (there's a mandatory 24 month waiting period for Medicare) if I really can't go it alone. But there is hope, and I'm working hard, and maybe the half-century mark is the time for a whole new level of independence?

2) I'm not a debut novelist anymore. Though BABY TEETH has existed in the world for only six months, I feel the imperative to take the things I've learned in this whirlwind education of becoming a professional author and apply them productively—starting now. In basic ways this means I want to be more involved in my career—making active suggestions when I have projects going "on sub," and consciously developing a relationship with an editor like the one I developed with my agent (which I've yet to have the opportunity to do). In the past year I have often felt like I didn't know what I was doing, or had little control over what was going on: the writer is really not the key member of the team, as life-altering decisions can be made without my input. It makes it even more important to focus on what I can do, actively, in addition to the writing itself.

3) The writer's "team" is other writers. As many authors before me have experienced, it can be very isolating to write books for a living, and not just because you work alone with only your imagination for companionship. Very late in the process the contract for my second novel was withdrawn, and I reached a whole new understanding of what it means—beyond the tax implication—to be self-employed. In a lightbulb moment I understood that editors have other projects, and colleagues—and the support of the company for which they work. And in the exact same way agents have other clients, and colleagues—and the support of the agency for which they work. Sure, we were all disappointed about what happened with my book, but I was the only one who both didn't have another revenue source, and took a direct financial hit.

We writers are encouraged to be secretive about the "downs" of the business (though we're free to trumpet about the "ups")—but what aspect of life doesn't have both ups and downs? The secretiveness felt even more isolating… Until I finally reached out to some writers in my social media circle—more experienced writers, whom I really respect—and I gained a new understanding of "normal." It was very therapeutic, and helped me better assess where I stood—because even though some crappy things had happened, there were still a lot of good things going on. So, the lesson here is that "ups and downs" are inevitable, but sometimes an isolated writer can't sort it out by herself. If such secrecy about the "downs" weren't the norm, I might have been more "c'est la vie" about the rollercoaster all along. Secrecy is not a solution that benefits the writer (though yes, I'm all for diplomacy), and this was another step in learning how to survive this business.

Balance, grasshopper. Good and bad. Private and public. Highs and lows. Solitude and community. Balance, balance, balance.

4) I am 100% Jewish—and always have been. How is this new knowledge? And why is it relevant? Well, because I had a revelation.

I have been torn about certain aspects of my identity forever. Was I half Jewish, because of my mother's family? Was "being Jewish" an acknowledgement of a religion, an ethnicity, a heritage…? I felt a strong pull toward "Jewishness" even as a young child, though I wouldn't have been able to explain what that meant, but I always felt like something of an outsider in the Jewish community around me. There was never any question that I was not Christian, but did I know enough—about anything?—to be Jewish? I always felt that one side of the family considered me too Jewish, and the other side not Jewish enough. And then there was the confusion of my own beliefs, my disdain for organized religion, and my fundamental need to be a questioning person.

So I have long felt a lack of belonging anywhere, while wanting to know where I fit in.

Recently I started reading Judaism for Dummies—and are we surprised that a book gave me my answer? There it was, clear as could be: my mother's ancestry gives me an irrevocable claim to my Jewishness (which I knew, but didn't feel), but it was the section about "defining" G-d and Jewish beliefs that made me feel welcome in a way I never had. The Jewish idea of G-d is more expansive than I'd ever understood. It's emphatically not "human," or gendered, and there is no name or word to encompass it. There is room in the Jewish faith for the possibility of G-d being a forest, or the universe, or everyone. There is room for it to be one thing for you on one day, and something else on another. There is room for you to change your mind, or have doubts. G-d is a journey, an endless conversation—if that's what makes you comfortable.

The more important tenet in Judaism is not the specificity of what you believe, but what do you do as a human on this earth? Orthodox Jews want to fulfill the 613 mitzvot during the course of their daily lives, but there are many ways to be a conscious person, intent on "doing good" in the world.

I had not known before that my wandering and uncertain beliefs—in combination with an ethical imperative that I have always felt—made me Jewish even when I didn't have a name for myself.

So here we go, 2019, I'm a 50-year-old Jewish woman trying to make a stable career as a writer! Learning stuff along the way… Always learning.

Bloody Disgusting and Barnes & Noble "Best Horror" Lists

I am, perhaps, more excited about this list than is reasonable, but... If you're gonna do horror, you want BLOODY DISGUSTING'S seal of approval. So I am thrilled that Baby Teeth was selected for their 10 Best Books of 2018 for the Horror Fan!

And I'm also thrilled to see Baby Teeth on Barnes & Noble's Best Horror Books of 2018 - alongside so many incredible authors! It has truly been an amazing debut year!

Looking Back on 2018

This has been an incredibly interesting year, to say the least. I think I've documented the many "highs" of my debut year as a novelist fairly well. Even my Post-Publication Blues was not, ultimately, a "low"; it became the climax of my year of feeling weird, where almost every day was a semi-out-of-body experience as I encountered so many new things and "firsts" on my way to becoming a published author. And after the blues went away and the proverbial dust settled, I finally felt fully present in my life again, and acclimated to the new reality of being a professional author—and it felt great. Where a year earlier I was horrified by the very thought of "author appearances," by November I was enjoying them. Where, during the summer, I felt slightly panicked about being a more "public" person, by autumn I was comfortable and in my groove.

I still—and will always—call BABY TEETH my "miracle" and nothing can change that. I had a wonderful book launch, and thrilling months of building buzz before that. When I envisioned becoming a published author (which was a murky vision at best) I never dreamt that my first published book would receive such recognition, from the trades or fans, or that it would spread like it has in the public sphere, reaching readers in distant lands.

Me and my BFF Lisa at the book launch of BABY TEETH

So, without a doubt, BABY TEETH has been the highest of highs. When it first sold, and again when the buzz started building, I recognized that this was something special; what happened with BABY TEETH is not an everyday occurrence. Its trajectory has been so beyond my imagination that I told myself in those early days, "If you never publish another book, or accomplish any other goals, you'll always have BABY TEETH." I continue to be grateful and incredibly appreciative of the people who have found my book, and especially the readers who have reached out or interact with me on social media. It kind of makes a recluse feel a little less alone.

Those who know me well know that I'm a big believer in the yin-yang of life—as it manifests in all things. There is always a balance of the good and bad, the light and dark. There has been a difficult parallel reality going on since January 2018, but due to its unresolved nature it isn't something I can share publicly (though of course my friends and those close to me know). It has helped to have BABY TEETH as a solid source of "light," and I accept that life is never effortless or without its challenges. Perhaps sometime in the future I can elaborate on this more. In the meanwhile…

One of the more challenging, but ultimately helpful, lessons I learned this year has to do with the intersection of dreams and commerce. I think for many of us who are writers—or artists of any kind—we spend many, many years creating alone. There is a freedom in that, endless exploration and experimentation, yet we dream in those lonely hours of sharing our work with the world. When our fortunes change and that opportunity arises, the truth is most of us (me, certainly) have given little thought as to the logistics of having a dream become reality, of what happens when our private creativity meets Big Business.

There are aspects of this intersection that can be difficult, and may vary a bit from writer to writer: working on a deadline; working to meet expectations (of agent, publisher, readers); building a "brand." As those who have published before me know, when the dream becomes business, it isn't simply you in your pajamas anymore. And it can be tricky when you are the one creating the product, but other people seem to have more control over its destiny than you do.

While this is a big change for me, I'm not regretting it. Some of the new sources of conflict in my life have arisen because my work has the potential to make money for other people, and that changes the rules. But I'm glad some of my work has the potential to make money, because lord knows I've written a ton of things over the years, bad and good, that never quite captured anyone's interest. That any of my "weird shit" ever found an audience is something of a miracle, especially as I've always known I was a bit of an oddball. Some people may have wished over the years that I could be more commercial, or at least more practical, in my overall sensibilities. But I can only be who I am, and I know that the way you get a square peg to fit in a round hole is to whittle it down so it's smaller than the hole… Who wants that?

I've been a creative person for a long time and I have an identity of myself—my creativity, my standards, my integrity. I don't know how to be any other way (or any other shape), but I accept as reality that when my "peg fits" it's a confluence of two unlikely things: my weird self, intersecting with a world driven by commerce.

I'm not sure what 2019 holds, but I'm curious to find out. I remember so clearly after BABY TEETH sold and I wondered if I could ever sell anything again: it was Hanna who sold that book. Even if I do write a sequel someday, the seven-year-old psychopath's story is finished. I am emphatically not finished as a writer… but will what I write ever again enjoy the intersection of commerce? Dunno. I have a lot of projects under way, but I know that lightning doesn't always strike twice. There's the elusive Second Book (also horror), plus I've written the first draft of an adventure thriller, and a fairy tale novella, and we're hoping to find a publisher for the children's story within BABY TEETH, My UnderSlumberBumble-Beast.

My dream of becoming a published author was accomplished, so I'm setting my sights on a new dream. Publishing a second book. A third book. The longevity of a career. I have learned never to assume, and the yin-yang of life means that oppositional forces will coexist—but hopefully with a harmonious balance. I certainly desire to share more of my work with the world, now that I've had a little taste of that experience.

2018 Goodreads Choice Awards

I will happily take my 2nd place finish in the 2018 Goodreads Choice Awards!! Who would've ever thought that I'd be "sitting" next to the Master, Stephen King??!! Thank you so much to everyone who voted for BABY TEETH!!