Maybe I just haven't come across the right books, but recently I noticed an obvious lack of animal friends in teen literature. Now, I’m not talking about centaurs, dragons, pegasi or hippogriffs. There are plenty of mythological beasts, fantasy creatures, and animals that possess human attributes. I’m talking about Fido and Felix—good old fashioned pets.

Pets of all shapes and sizes are prominent in children’s lit and middle grade (with an emphasis on horses and dogs, it seems), and they often pop up again in popular adult fiction (THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN, THE HORSE WHISPERER and MARLEY AND ME).

But offhand, I can only think of a few true teen books that include animals in a significant way: THE HUNGER GAMES (Prim’s cat Buttercup), S.E. Hinton’s TAMING THE STAR RUNNER, and a title I spied recently at the bookstore called THE OUTSIDE OF A HORSE by Ginny Rorby, which looks wonderful.

We know real-life teenagers love their pets every bit as much as kids and adults, yet pets seem to be conspicuously absent in YA books. It makes us wonder… why the gap? If you have a theory on this or know of some other teen titles that do include pets, let us know! We'd love to read them.

Firstly, P.E. you won a copy of DEAD BEAUTIFUL by Yvonne Woon!  Make sure you email us so we can get your postal address.  weheartya(at)gmail(dot)com.

The book we're giving away this week in our Summer of Giveaways is an ARC of THUMPED by Megan McCafferty (sequel to BUMPED).  All you have to do is leave us a message in the comments section.

So what's been going on Twitter this week...Sixth Form Poet is consistently funny:


#ClockworkPrincess was trending last week, only because 30,000 people tweeted they wanted to see the cover of Cassandra Clare's third in her prequel series to The Mortal Instruments.  We have to admit we still haven't read either of these series, but maybe we'll get there when the hype settles down.  :)


A little thing called COMIC CON also happened:






#yalitchat gets best hashtag for their lively discussion of sex and violence in YA fiction.  Chihuahua gets best tweet for contributing a (much needed) teen perspective (and Dawn Metcalf is just awesome):



Writing and Publishing and Editing funnies:








The good stuff:






The rest:




Till next week, Twitter.  xx

If you were ever wondering what it's like being a "writer seeking agent," I'm going to share some things that I've learned over the past year.

I've entered lots of contests--some I've had success and others not--and think they are a fantastic way to get your work out there in front of agents.  I recently entered a contest that had 356 entries!  Just the thought makes my stomach sink.  I didn't make it to the 30 open slots, but that's okay.  I've definitely developed that "thick skin" everyone's always talking about.  But I still feel it.  Like a mosquito bite...slightly annoying, kind of itchy, but it goes away eventually.


From querying the past year, I've had 8 full manuscript requests from agents (many more partials, but I haven't counted them).  Each of them has said in some way that, while "well-written and entertaining," my book doesn't stand out from the saturated market.  It's WAY competitive in YA.  That contest with 356 entries?  201 were YA.  I could easily tell myself, "Self, you've been at it for a year, around 66 agents have had a looksy.  Put the book down.  Try again."  And in a way that's what I'm doing.  

Lesson One:  Always Be Writing.  Not just thinking, but practicing your craft.  You can eliminate the "weak writing" problem straight away.  So agents never see your training wheels.

But then I read all kinds of success stories and Querying Journeys through the Trenches and it reminds me of:

Lesson Two:  Never Give Up.  Sounds cliche, but it's so stinking true.  You know it is.  You can smell the truth from here.

But perhaps the most important lesson I've learned this past year is:

Lesson Three:  It's all about your Idea.


I've had agents say that my concept is "cute," "good," "compelling," but that my story doesn't "blow me away" and needs "an element of mystery or a thriller aspect."  An agent recently asked, "What's the hook?"  I was confused because I thought it was apparent.  I have to work on that.

So many people who've entered contests with me this past year are signing with agents and selling books.  The common denominator is this:  Their stories had great hooks.  Their stories started with a great Idea.  I wish it hadn't taken me a year to realize this.  But that's what querying is about.  You don't know until you try.

Quiet stories are always going to be a tougher sell.  Just look at how much people have criticized Pixar's Brave.  It's not as popular as other films like Monsters, Inc. but it has it's place.  Also, it wasn't Pixar's first film.

Debut authors have to STAND OUT big time to get noticed and compete in the market.  Good writing should be a given, but Ideas are Gold.  I hope this helps some of you writing your cute little butts off.  And thanks for listening.

Now tell me:  What books out there do you wish you had thought of or written?

First of all, the Giveaway Winners:  Jessica Love, thanks for commenting last week.  You won DREAMLESS by Josephine Angelini and Sara (PageSage) you won ONE MOMENT from Kristina McBride.  *much clapping*

Don't forget, all you have to do is comment on this post for a chance to win a book from our Giveaway Pile, which we'll be doing for the next six weeks. This week's prize: DEAD BEAUTIFUL by Yvonne Woon.

To the Tweets!  Both #xmasinjuly (writing contest) and #writerhell were top of the trends this week.  Jessa Russo combined them both:

LOL (that one's still our favorite)