Beta reading

It's Summer and I'm going to try and post more. The other day we were discussing beta reading over at Absolute Write on the OPWFT thread. I compared it to being an aunt. Why? Because these manuscripts feel like part of my family and I get so excited when they find agent and publishing house homes.

My crit partner, the lovely Veronica Roth, became my partner when we were both at the same point in our dystopian manuscripts. It was almost like fate put us together. Where I am weak, she is strong. Where she is weak, I am strong. When she got her agent I was so happy, jumping up and down happy. When she got her deal, I was over the moon and actually scared my kids.

The same thing has happened over at GotYA with my group blogging buddies. I have been privileged to watch many of them get agents and for some I have been there since the beginning of their babies. When I read a later version of these mss and see something in there that I suggested I think, oh look, it's got my eyes.

Maybe I'm nutty. Well, actually I know I am kinda nutty, not stalker nutty of course :) but I do get invested in what I read. And quite frankly, some of the things I have betaed have been just as good, if not better than pubbed books I've read. I love watching an idea grow into a full-fledged book. It makes my heart full, probably because the process still amazes me. I find it amazing that someone can take an idea or a dream and write an entire book about it. Yes, I have written two and am working on two more, but that to me still seems surreal. I still consider it an honor when someone lets me read their work, a high honor because they are trusting me with something important.

Do you get attached to your beta reads?

Flashback Friday

It's Friday and I'm participating in the very first, Flashback Friday with the brand-spankin'-new GotYA blog. Well, we're semi-new, you know the kinda new a fifty-year-old has after a face-lift, tummy tuck, liposuction, dye job and breast implants - looks like a whole new woman but underneath the shiny newness she's still the same. Welp, that's us...still the same. *cue Still The One by Orleans*

So for this week we are exploring the books that were memorable to us.

I must start at the beginning. My library had this teeny-tiny-itsy-bitsy-yellow-polka-dot, no, scratch that, wrong era and a song, oops, I got carried away. My library had a small space for YA books. I devoured the Fear Street Series by R.L Stine. There were also Christopher Pike books and other scary stories. In fact, the very first book I wrote was a cross between those books. It sucked, but hey, I was only eleven and didn't have the net or places like AW to teach me how to write well. I have a great excuse :)

Another series I absolutely loved was Sweet Valley High. Honestly, I can't remember much about these books but that I loved them lots. Unfortunately, my friend was going to give me Babysitter's Club books for Christmas but her house was broken into and the presents stolen, so I got gourmet biscuits instead, and never tried the books.

By the time I was in High School I was reading books from the adult fiction section and didn't pick up YA books until last year, when I started writing YA. All I can think now is how the books have drastically changed and gotten better in the past seventeen years. I look forward to seeing the changes the next seventeen years will bring.