Why Katniss is a Feminist Character (And It’s Not Because She Wields a Bow and Beats Boys Up)

WARNING: If you haven’t read the books yet (and really, what have you been doing with your life if you haven’t?) this post contains spoilers.

When The Hunger Games hit shelves in 2008, its feisty main character quickly earned the “strong female character” seal of approval from fans of young adult lit. Hot-tempered, bow-wielding Katniss is fiercely independent, scornful of feminine frills, and barred off to any emotion that could render her vulnerable. Essentially, as one Tor.com blogger pointed out recently, she’s the anti-Bella Swan, a golden girl for all those YA readers who like their female protagonists to do something more worthwhile than choose between two men.

But amidst the flurry of excitement over Katniss’s complete and utter BAMFness (to use the technical term), it’s easy to forget what keeps her alive is not superior strength, speed, or intelligence, but rather a characteristic that no one else in the arena embraces. Ultimately, it’s not the weapons Katniss wields but the relationships she nurtures that save her life.

And I’m convinced that she’s a feminist character not because she wields a bow like Bella never could, but because while in the arena she learns to recognize, value, and eventually embrace feminine strengths. It’s her ability to find strength in other women — and to support them in return — that makes the girl on fire a feminist.

[Read the rest of this article on Tor.com]

What Authors and Publishers Can Learn from the Hunger Games Marketing Campaign, Part 2

Who's going to the midnight showing of The Hunger Games tonight? By show of hands? Pretty much everyone, from the looks of it, and with the brilliance of the movie's marketing plan (on top of the obvious brilliance of the books), it's no surprise.

Last week we started talking about how savvy authors and publishing pros might learn from the movie's fantastic marketing plan—first by building a bridge for existing fans and then by creating extra content to entice new ones. (If you missed Part 1, click here to read it now.) Now, let's talk about how to bend the odds in your favor by putting that extra content to use!

3.) Have a plan for all of your extra content. Lionsgate created an enormous amount of the content fans could go crazy for while pulling The Hunger Games together, but what made the campaign so successful was the careful order in which the studio released materials, and its impeccable timing. The studio started small, feeding conversations among fans, announcing the casting of minor roles, dropping the names of the major stars, and releasing the first character posters. And they built up to larger releases like the first photos from the set, short video teasers and new platforms for fans to talk, the first tracks from the movie soundtrack, and eventually full trailers released at just the right time to go viral in an explosive way. The bigger the content, the bigger the venue that released it; articles started in smaller publications and back-page arts sections, but by the time of the first promotional images from the set, major media outlets were hosting content exclusively and exposing it to whole new sets of potential fans. Fans couldn't have forgotten the movie was coming if they tried, and new people were introduced to it every day.

Why it matters for books: Lionsgate created lots of content right away, but they held their cards close to their chest and doled out one at a time, building tension much the way an author structures a good plot. By giving fans small bites of content but hinting at more to come, and by gradually building up to their biggest content, the studio created a near-constant feeling of excitement. Publishers and writers can build similar anticipation into their own marketing plans by strategically working up to the release of their own biggest content, like covers, trailers, and sample chapters. And strong fan interest in early releases can help convince sites with even bigger audiences, or audiences that haven’t yet been introduced to the series, to host the release of major materials and spark an explosive response.

4.) Work with what existing fans love to gain new ones. Throughout the planning and creation of the Hunger Games movie, Lionsgate has brought new fans on board by targeting what existing fans liked. The best example is the film’s soundtrack; though a Hans Zimmer or Howard Shore type might have been the obvious choice, the studio turned instead to fans’ favorite artists to build an unexpected tracklist. The soundtrack targeted the favorite singers of the series’ teen fans (from Taylor Swift to Arcade Fire), giving them one more hook to buzz about. Then the studio announced tracks from bands popular with a slightly older and decidedly different crowd (see mainly: The Decemberists), and existing fans squealed while a new and huge musical fan base got their first doorway into film fandom. Very smart indeed.

Why it matters for books: Marketers and savvy authors must know their audience. That means knowing not just who they are but also what they like beyond a specific book. Can a tour be arranged with the audience’s other favorite authors? Could you create a playlist for the book including some of their favorite bands? Can their favorite song be in the trailer? Can an artist fans love do sketches of the main characters? Can a Pinterest board or Tumblr of images in the theme of the book draw fans’ interest? The brilliance of all these plans is that they’ll appeal to an existing fan base, but people won’t need to be a fan in order to get something out of them. You’ll know you’re doing it right when an existing fan finds that extra content and it reminds them of a friend who may never have heard of the author or book—and bingo, you may just have earned a new fan.

What do you think of the Hunger Games marketing campaign? Any more tips or ideas based on everything that’s been done?

What Authors and Publishers Can Learn from the Hunger Games Marketing Campaign, Part 1

Two weeks before its release on March 23rd, The Hunger Games movie is already expected to do as well in the box office as—if not even better than—the final Twilight movies. It’s expected to gross $100 million in its opening weekend alone, and $275 million over the length of its run in theaters. In Fandango’s twelve-year history, it’s never even come close to selling as many advance tickets as it has for The Hunger Games. Fueled by the pre-movie buzz, the paperback of the first book—by no means a new splash in the market, having been out for two years already—is outselling the year’s biggest book hits. And the excitement is only growing.

Both book and film can chalk their incredible recent success up to a versatile and inexhaustible marketing push by Lionsgate studios. And though we might have little hope of matching the blockbuster studio’s budget, much of what’s made the studio’s push so successful can easily be applied to publishers’ and writers’ own promotional campaigns. Here are just a few elements you can adapt:

1.) Create a bridge for existing fans. When Lionsgate inked a deal to bring The Hunger Games to the big screen, the series was already a hit with teens, reporting more than 150,000 sales and boasting a fan frenzy that came close to the Twilight and Harry Potter series. But with three years between the movie deal and its big-screen release, Lionsgate needed a way to keep the film on fans’ radars. By creating a “bridge” of content the existing fans were hungry for already to lead them to the new content in theaters, Lionsgate turned what could have been a setback into a chance for existing fans to spread their fervor through word of mouth.

Why it matters for books: When an author has an existing fan base—whether from social media popularity, recent recognition in the media, or another successful novel or series—one of the biggest challenges to bringing a new book out is carrying the author’s popularity over to a new title. Though most marketing campaigns focus on attracting new fan bases, they still take care not to lose the hard-won fans that already exist—and getting a reader to pick up an author’s second book can be harder than you think. Writers and publishers must approach the gap between initial buzz and the new book’s publication strategically by bridging content. The most successful bridges give existing fans more of what they already love and want (whether it’s the books’ smoldering love interests, the author’s snarkily hilarious style, or the writer’s off-the-page personality) while at the same time introducing concepts and characters that will appear in the new book and tying back to the upcoming new release.

2.) Create extra content… Lionsgate made every landmark on the route to a finished film a spectacle for fans, building buzz around everything from the choice of a director to fan input on casting calls and auditions and finally their strategic release of casting decisions, one name at a time. But it was the extra materials the studio generated—everything from posters featuring each individual character to viral social media content from social networks to name generators —that really held hungry fans’ attention. Part of the brilliance of the Hunger Games marketing campaign is that much of the content released to build excitement would have needed to be created for the films anyway—like music for the soundtrack and clips of Katniss in the arena. Put it all together, and fans had plenty to munch on while they waited for the movie to release.

Why it matters for books: Not every publisher or author has the resources to build whole social networks or schedule a photo shoot for every character, but there’s a world of possibility available nonetheless. Consider hinting that one character from a previous series will show up in the new book, and allowing fans to guess which one. Introduce your main character with a short story in their voice, or give fans a story about an existing character that made them clamor for more. With a little creativity you can put together “dream casts,” interactive games and contests, early reveals of content and images, and more. The key is to delve into what makes a book—or an author’s previous books—appealing, and find an efficient way to create more of that content than will be needed in the finished book. By re-purposing material for an early buzz-building release online, publishers and authors can make a new release visible and appealing without an unmanageable investment.

But plop all that extra content up online at once and you're likely to find it's wasted; truly good content needs an innovative and strategic plan to succeed. Next week, we'll talk about what that plan might look like! Check out Part 2 in this series to find out more about how to bend the odds in your favor.

A Little Bit More on Twilight—And How About All That OTHER YA Romance?

Thanks to everyone who read my last post and joined in on the discussion. It’s been great to see the discussion shared around the web, and your comments have been so incredibly insightful and enlightening. You guys are awesome, and you give me all kinds of hope for this crazy world of books and readers.

This week I wanted to share and respond to a comment from a new reader, Reinhardt:

My concern over a larger swath of YA is the emphasis on relationships that can serve to reinforce co-dependence (abusive and otherwise). How many books can you think of that have the main female character pining, needing to be with a guy to feel fulfilled? I think this is a more insidious issue, in that this co-dependence (especially of teenage girls, but not exclusively so) is already normalized, and has been for a very long time. Hey, I'm a dude, and as one of the few who like reading "girl books”… I find the predilection of characters who can only find true personhood inside a romantic relationship as disturbing as Twilight-esque relationships. Really, they are the same, only with different degrees of creepiness.

In short: WHAT HE SAID, GUYS.

This is something I discuss a lot with my friends and colleagues, but not something I’ve posted about on here before. Reinhardt pretty well hit the nail on the head.

Experiencing love and heartbreak for the first time is an incredibly meaningful part of growing up and finding oneself, and thus it’s no surprise that it finds its way into so many of our books, whether for teens or adults. And I’m not against love stories—my very favorite book, The Great Gatsby, is a love story (though it is also much more than that), and it almost always moves me to tears with its revelations about the human heart. I’m certainly not against stories that have love in them, although when the romance in a story becomes the subject of all conversations about the book, nine times out of ten I’m going to duck out or show my Team Katniss colors. And, like with the Twilight series, I’d be a fool to write off all the teen romances out there, both because so many intelligent, talented, forward-thinking authors stand behind them, and because it provides a booming marketplace that helps keep the industry and the books I love alive and well.

But, by golly, I wish there were as many YA novels out there that featured female protagonists who don’t wind up in a relationship as ones that feature girls who do.

The Young Adult genre is essentially concerned with coming of age. By their very nature, YA novels take a character from childhood to adulthood, from trying different selves on for size to “finding oneself.” And because of that, these novels are usually structured so that the most exciting and important point in the plot, the climax, is also the moment at which the protagonist completes (or makes the novel’s most major step on) her journey from childhood to adulthood, from indecision to agency.

And because of that, I often feel that the climaxes of Young Adult romances, which always seem to be the moment at which the protagonist finally gets with her or his love interest, inadvertently convey the message that we are not whole—that we cannot find ourselves—until we are with another person.

What is more true is that we cannot be with another person (at least, not in a healthy way) until we have found ourselves. That’s why I always find that I enjoy stories about girls having adventures or living their lives more than I enjoy stories about girls getting the guy. Sure, a lot of the former do include romance; think of Malinda Lo’s Huntress, or Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, or, for goodness sake, the Harry Potter series. But in these, like in reality, the developing romance is only one element of the much larger adventure that each character is living is her or his own life. And it is only one element of the story’s climax, or even a part of the falling action—the happy outcome that results from, rather than causes, the protagonist’s growth.

I firmly believe that the culture in which we live—and which we experience, understand, and perpetuate through the media we ingest—has a greater effect than any other factor on how we understand ourselves and the rules of the world around us. So I believe that, as long as such a huge percentage of the books targeted at girls in the YA sections of our bookstores or libraries revolve around the girl-gets-guy scenario, boys and girls alike will continue to internalize the belief that a woman needs a man to become whole and complete.

That’s why the books I want to acquire someday are the ones in which the girl fights the dragon rather than sleeping in the tower. I want to bring as many books as possible into the world that empower women to live independent lives with adventures in which they star. When I find romance woven into those tales, I want it truly to be one thread in a whole tapestry of real, human experience, which is just as meaningful and exciting and full of opportunity for women as it is for men. I want the girls who read the books I edit to be empowered to live whole, fulfilled lives, regardless of their relationship statuses. I want to normalize the diversity of human experience and shed light on the infinite ways in which teen girls—just like teen boys—can find themselves in this world. I want to balance out all the teen romance with all the teen everything-else that makes growth to adulthood so meaningful, so challenging, and so incredibly important.

What about you?

Oh yeah, and I can't resist sharing: Jen Hickman found these totally sweet images that are basically this blog post, but shorter, and illustrated (with R.Patt giving great face):









All praise Tumblr!

WHY WRITE?: Young Adult Fiction

Thanks to everyone who voted on genres for the Why Write?^TM series last week! Voting is still open, so if you haven’t chimed in yet, head on over now to put in your two cents.

As for how the voting played out last week: literary fiction took the lead, followed by a tie between Young Adult fiction, sci-fi and fantasy (or speculative fiction), and historical fiction (who knew I had such history buffs among my readers?!). Romance followed that with just a few votes, and westerns and mysteries received a single vote each. I’m excited to dive in on those top four, and if you guys really like the Why Write?^TM series, let me know and I’ll tackle the extra challenge of dissecting romances as well.

I’m going to jump in at the middle here because today’s post flows pretty naturally from my recent post on why character transformation works so well in YA fiction. So—why write YA?

Because you want a welcoming audience. Teenagers who read do so voraciously. They read in school and out of it. They flock to blogs and message boards, they review the books they read on Amazon and in their own blogs, and they spend hours discussing their favorite books with their friends. From the droves of teens who dress up as characters from The Hunger Games or the Harry Potter series for Halloween, to those who flock to communities of writers and readers like John and Hank Green’s massive posse of Nerdfighters, to those who, hungry for more of their favorite characters, take to reading and writing fan fiction, I don’t know of any audience that more actively interacts with their books. Writers of YA, by and large, love to interact with their audiences—and how could they not, in the face of such devoted readers?

Because your readers need you. Middle school and high school can be nasty, and teens both yearn for connection and desperately fear putting themselves out there. I think that’s a big part of why so many teens become ardent readers. Like everyone, they want to open a book and see someone they recognize come to life on the pages. But even more than the adults who read, they need that character who’s just like them—to know they’re not alone, to know they’re not as strange as they feel, to know that if it’s bad, it can still get better. Affirmation and hope can be hard to find in the bitter wilderness of childhood, but a great YA author can give that to a teen.

Because you want to write something deep… Teens are smart and hungry to critique the world around them, including the books they read. Teens often get a bum rap for being addicted to video games, TV and Facebook, but the majority of teens I know are more tuned into the world than a lot of adults. Unlike so many tired nine-to-fivers, they can spend all day thinking at school and still not be ready to shut their brains off and veg when they get home. They’re not daunted by complex plot structures or layers of meaning, and they’re intelligent enough to understand and expand upon complex themes. If you have something serious to say, you might actually be more likely to be heard by a teenager than by an adult.

…But you also want to have fun with it. At the same time, teens are brutally honest and quick to call bullshit. They love to be blown away by a book’s deeper meaning, but they’re not as likely to put up with unnecessary frills. Books for teens are often more fun to read than adult books, without sacrificing the complex themes you find in literary fiction. Compare The Hunger Games or Feed to A Brave New World or 1984 and you’ve got similar themes being expressed in a more fast-paced, fun format. No one ever said that, just because you have something to say, you can’t have fun saying it.

Because you want to change the world. Teens are passionate, political and idealistic. Just as they’re eager to think critically about the world around them, they’re hungry for a cause to believe in—and, as Robyn pointed out a few weeks ago, they're quick to act on their ideals. If you’ve got a message, you might be better off imparting it on the young than on the old. Adults can be jaded or may have already decided exactly where they stand on an issue, but teenagers are still learning all they can, deciding what they think, and committing themselves to ideals. What’s more, teens are just a few years away from inheriting power. Given the right ideals, the next generation might be able to live better than we ever have.

Because you want to change a person. The books we read as teens are often the ones we remember best and love most fiercely, and for good reason. They determine the people we become, the ideals we adhere to, and the way we view the world. There’s a reason that the fight for people of color on book covers and for diversity of gender, sexuality and race in literature has been fought so much more loudly in the kid-lit community than in the world of adult fiction—we recognize that readers of YA are still forming their worldviews, and that books play a powerful role in that growth. The worlds teens experience when they read will help them, whether they are conscious of it or not, to decide what’s right or wrong and what’s normal or abnormal in the world around them. In some ways, picking up a pen to write for teens is (as one of the programmers in my office would say) your Spiderman moment: with great power comes great responsibility. When you write a book that hits home for a teenager, you help to form the belief system he or she will take into adulthood. You can literally have a hand in making that teen the person he or she is becoming.

Do you agree? Disagree? Maybe there are other genres that do some of these things better. Maybe I missed a few good reasons. Let me know in comments!

On a Lighter Note... Let's Talk About Character Transformations

I think that one of the reasons humans have always been driven to tell stories, and to tell them in the particular way that we do, is because they illustrate how something came to be—how something changed irreversibly, and the new state of being came to be the only one that worked. A story is a series of actions and decisions, but what a story’s about is change. There are some exceptions to this rule, but as a human race I think we’re mostly interested in internal, character-based changes. That means that characters change and are changed by their circumstances.

But how do you create that transformation, and how do you make it believable? And how do you fit that transformation into a framework of external circumstances which are, most likely, also changing?

Most stories begin with the status quo, but few hold the reader there for very long. The impetus for the actual story is usually some small change—a new cropping up, or a new rule being established. This new circumstance presents an obstacle which will grow throughout the story, and which will force the character to change.

Again, there are some exceptions to this rule, but typically plots are most interesting if a flaw of the character’s—the exact trait you will transform through the story, ideally—contributes to or even creates the obstacle. Though the reader may be aware of this flaw and how it contributes to the problem, the character will be blind to that fault at first. Nonetheless, the flaw will keep the character tied down, while the obstacle creates something against which the character is pushing.

I think of character transformations—and thus plotlines—as working like a slingshot. Even after the need for change is established, the character will try to move forward by acting in the same way she always has. However, whatever it is that she needs to change is keeping her from making headway, and any attempt to go forward will only result in her struggling against that force. This struggle will build tension as the character goes as far as she possibly can—and as with a slingshot, the struggle to keep moving in that same direction becomes more difficult the further she gets. Finally, the character will have reached as far as she can possibly reach by struggling in that one direction, and the slingshot’s elastic will either snap or release itself in a powerful reversal of the story’s direction. In either case, the character will have no choice but to change, and that change propels her right into the climax. The more powerful the tension and then the snap back, the faster and more intense the climax.

As is true in real life, your character’s transformation will come gradually, and your plot arc will be comprised of a series of forward-backward strides. Similarly, in the very best stories at least some of the secondary characters also undergo transformations. You can apply the slingshot metaphor to the story’s subplots just as well as you can to the overarching plot. Vary the amount of tension and the amount of time spent building it based on how important a particular change is to the overall plot. Through each subplot, however, you want to always be pulling the slingshot that is the overarching plot tighter. Never allow the resolution of one subplot or struggle to release more tension than it builds.

The scope of different stories can vary widely, from an epic struggle or quest (think The Hunger Games or The Lord of the Rings), in which the entire world has the potential to be transformed, to more contained stories in which the world likely to change is that of one individual or family, as in Marcelo in the Real World. But in each case, the most essential change in the story is a character transformation. The Hunger Games is less about what happens in a violent arena than about a teenage girl learning to fight for the freedom of those she loved. The Lord of the Rings is, at heart, a story about several characters' transformations into heroes. And Marcelo is, perhaps more evidently than the other two, a tale about a boy finding the strength to stand up for what’s right and face adult decisions. Whatever the situation, these stories feel compelling to us because we can relate to and learn from the characters. And what we’re specifically relating to in these characters is the way in which they change in order to deal with their circumstances.

So properly building the tension around your character’s transformation will help you beef up your story’s emotional core. I strongly suggest taking the time to map out these changes so that you can devote the right amount of your story to each change.

And that’s where your input comes in! I’m curious: do you have any tried and true methods for mapping your characters’ transformations? How do you approach tension-building as you write?

What Can a Job Interview Teach You About Writing?

My apologies, gentle readers, for the long silence! The many, many hours I have spent toiling over cover letters and sending job applications finally paid off in what amounted to an epic (read: long, very busy and absolutely exhilerating) week of interviews. That was enough to drag me (not quite kicking and screaming) away from the computer and my brand new baby of a blog.

I had another post planned, but I've got interviews on the brain. So with no further ado I submit, for your approval, what a job interview can teach you about writing:

1. Practice, practice, practice.
   I spent a lot of time talking to my mirror this week. Really. Yes, I am the resident expert in the subject of my life and times, but that doesn't mean I don't need to practice telling my story in the way that best serves my purpose.
   
   You should do the same with writing. Write the same story, write different stories, write from different points of view, write your characters' back-stories, write scenes you know you'll never use, write dialogue, write descriptions, write love letters to your characters, write hate mail to your manuscripts, write bad love scenes, write good combat, write until your fingers ache. And then, for Locke's sake, go back and delete or re-write most of it. Concert pianists rehearse every day. Major-league baseball players practice every day. Are you going to let people say those guys are working harder than you?
   
   
   
2. Hiring decisions are made in the first five minutes of the interview.
   Put your best foot forward right from the get-go. In an interview, this is crucial; it's all about appearance, presentation and engagement. I'm sure that, for an interview, you'd dress professionally, smile and shake hands firmly with your interviewer upon entering her office. And you'd highlight your best traits, using your strongest examples, in response to the first few questions asked.
   
   Are you doing the same in your writing? If your novel is an action-packed thriller, are you opening with an action scene that demands that your reader turn the page? If your novel is all about beautiful prose, are you opening with your most lyrical writing yet? If your characters are irresistible, are you showing enough of their personalities to make readers fall in love by the end of the first few pages?
   
   Editors are busy people, and readers are prone to increasingly short attention spans. It's crucial that you start strong and hook them early. Of course, you'll have to maintain that momentum once you build it, but you win half the battle by engaging your readers immediately. For instance, I knew I would let Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games take me anywhere when, by the twentieth page, it had already moved me to proud, fearful tears on the main character's behalf (and I am heartless, gentle readers, and rarely cry).
   
   
   
3. Tell the truth. Your interviewer knows when you're lying.
   Yes, interviewers have magic powers; if you stretch the truth, you can be sure the real story will always find them. And it's oh-so-tempting to tell your interviewer exactly what you know she wants to hear, but she's much more interested in your honest response to the questions asked.
   
   So how does that relate to writing? Well, you can write that one story set in a steampunk universe which pits angels against zombies in an epic quest/battle resulting in the angst-ridden teenage vampire confessing his undying passion for the quirky/carefree bisexual heroine with pink hair just before they save the world from the dark overlord... Or, you can stop worrying about what the market is doing right now, and you can write the story you know to be true.
   
   Yes, vampires are selling right now, and folks have a number of theories about what the Next Big Thing will be. But some of the best books of the year ignored the trends entirely and instead hit readers with deep emotional truths and with powerful, original voices that brought their characters to life. They resonate with readers because they feel true. Books like Marcelo in the Real World and Stitches and more can only come from writers who have spent time examining their thoughts and emotions, their reactions to the world around them, their collected memories and their sense of what is deeply true and universal to mankind: loss, love, heartbreak, heroism, humor. So take the hint from them, writers: know thyself. And know thy world. Which leads us nicely to this next tip:
   
   
   
4. A good candidate is as much a listener as a talker.
   An interview is as much a chance for you to evaluate the company as it is for them to evaluate you, and the only way to do that is to give your interviewer ample time to tell you about the role. That means talking only half the time, and spending the rest of it paying attention to what the interviewer has to say and asking insightful questions of your own.
   
   As a writer, you need to approach life the same way: you need to spend as much time listening to the world as you do writing about it. That means both reading voraciously (which of course you already do) and being constantly attuned to the world around you. What does your friend say when she gets good news? Bad news? When she stubs her toe? When she's just woken up in the morning and hasn't had her tea yet? (Yes, tea. Your friend is secretly a Britophile, like me.) How does your mom say those things? How does that woman from next door? And while you're at it, describe how they walk--timidly, like a sparrow hopping a bit closer for a handout, or maybe with a swinging gate and proud shoulders? What might that solitary passerby be thinking when he stops, knocks on the wood of a cafe's table, and then keeps walking?
   
   Lucky you, you get to do more than just live your life; you get to question everyone and everything you see. The more you do it, the more you'll come to understand the experience of being human, and the closer you'll get to that emotional truth.
   
   
   
5. It's all about the follow-through!
   Maybe your week, like mine, has been completely insane, and you've had to dash from interviews to work and then home to study and try to get a little sleep before doing it again. Sadly, that doesn't mean you get to slack off on following up with an email and hand-written thank you note. Whether you like it or not, nobody's putting in the effort to keep you at the front of your interviewer's mind but you. Job-searching is a full-time job and, like in an office environment, if you slack off you let somebody else down--in this case, yourself.
   
   Writing is a full-time job, too, and nobody else is looking for ways to give you more time to write. Life certainly isn't going to hand you a ticket to the mountain/beach/woodland/alternate universe where you can get your creative juices flowing and write to your heart's content. And if you let yourself use the excuse that you don't have time to write, then you will most likely never find the time. So find a way to make it. Personally, I love Johanna Harness's dedication: she wakes up before 5:00 am every morning to write before the day can get in her way.
   
   However you have to do it, find yourself some time to write and consider it non-negotiable. If you'd just interviewed for the perfect job, you wouldn't risk losing it by ignoring that vital thank you note, would you? You'd make time, somehow. So offer your writing that same importance. (But if you have a job, maybe try to hang on to it, at least until you sell a book that becomes a big hit. Unless you're Justine Larbalestier.)
   

Speaking of which, it's high time I get back to that full-time job-searching I've been doing. Thanks for reading!