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August 29, 2013

What Amanda Maciel Learned While Writing a Novel

The next installment of the publishing-professional-turned-novelist interview series is here!

The talented Amanda Maciel shares her experiences as an editor at Scholastic and author of two forthcoming (fabulous, compelling, super well-written) young adult novels.

Maciel Author Photo

Thanks for being here, today, Amanda.
 
To start, what kinds of books do you work on as a children’s book editor at Scholastic? Have your interests and what you’ve worked on changed over your time as an editor?
I got my start in publishing in nonfiction, but after about a year I switched to children’s books and never looked back. And for the last 12 years my list has actually been pretty consistent — commercial fiction for kids aged 8 years and up — though for many years I focused on teen fiction for girls. Since starting at Scholastic in the fall of 2007, I’ve worked more on middle-grade (8-12), and more of my books are boy-friendly now, like the action-packed historical fiction I SURVIVED series and the dragon-fantasy WINGS OF FIRE books. I’ve worked mostly on series or “lines” (the Candy Apple books from Scholastic were technically standalone novels, but they all had a similar look and tone; similarly, the teen “beach read” line I spearheaded at HarperChildrens had a few mini-arcs but were mostly standalone teen chick lit, if you will). And mostly my interests have stayed the same — strong narrative voice combined with a strong commercial hook, preferably with potential to serialize!
Your debut novel, TEASE, is due out from Balzer & Bray next summer. Congratulations! I’ve had the privilege of reading parts of it, and I’m so looking forward to reading it in full. Can you briefly tell us what it’s about?
Thank you! TEASE is the story Sara and her classmate, Emma, who has committed suicide. In the aftermath, Sara and several of her friends are accused of bullying Emma and brought up on criminal charges, holding them partially liable for Emma’s death. It’s a story inspired (unfortunately) by current events — and by my own need to try to sympathize with kids who are seen as bad or guilty in these cases.
I understand you wrote and shopped another manuscript before TEASE—less bullying, more zombies. Can you talk about what you took from writing that novel into working on TEASE?
Yes, the first novel I actually finished was called MADISON MEADOWS, HALL MONITOR, and it’s basically a long homage to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, except with zombies. I loved writing it and it was much more fun than TEASE (even with zombie peril, it was an essential comedic, lighthearted story), and it accomplished many goals: it showed me I could, in fact, write a whole novel; it convinced my agent, Holly Root, to take me on as a client; and it even captured the attention of Donna Bray, who couldn’t publish it but did take me to coffee and was wonderfully encouraging. Most of all, that manuscript taught me what every writer will tell you — you just have to sit down and do it. Letting it percolate in your head is great, but you also need to get yourself in front of the computer, early and often. I finished MADISON before my son was born, so the sit-down-and-write part was much easier (or at least, more easily scheduled into the day), but once I started TEASE I knew what needed to be done — and I knew I could do it, if I didn’t let myself get scared. Having already finished a novel made it (slightly) less scary to start another one.
 
You are signed up for a two-book deal, both standalones. How are you managing your time between writing one and editing the other? Or are you used to working on two of your own projects at once?
I have been working on both at once, actually — but the new one is getting very, very neglected right now! Luckily TEASE has been moving at some kind of physics-defying speed, and I’m already done with the copyedited pages. I still need to review the typeset pages (which I plan to read very carefully, as that will be my last review of the book before publication), but soon I won’t have any more excuses to ignore the next manuscript. Well, other than my toddler and my day job. And the rest of my life. 🙂
 
Have you always written young adult (YA) fiction? What draws you to that genre?
 Yes, so far it’s all been YA. And you know, there are a lot of reasons. One is that the teen years are so emotionally heightened — with everything happening for the first time, everything feeling so important and yet so hopeless, I think we all get stuck in high school to a certain extent. And I’ve always wanted to see or read stories about teen girls. When I was in elementary school the line between middle-grade and YA wasn’t as starkly defined, so I was reading Judy Blume and Christopher Pike alongside Beverly Cleary and C.S. Lewis. And it was so thrilling to have Clueless and Buffy come to theaters when I was in middle school! Of course as a teenager myself I wasn’t nearly as well-dressed or fabulous as those girls — even now I wish I could be as glam as the girls on Pretty Little Liars — but fortunately I didn’t have any terribly traumatizing experiences, either. But emotionally (and professionally) I am very drawn to childhood and early adulthood because it can be incredibly fraught — and yet, at the end of the day, you still have your whole life ahead of you. So there’s still always hope.
You joined a writers’ group while you were finishing TEASE. How did that play into the way you worked on the manuscript? (Disclaimer: I am a member of said writers’ group.)
Joining a writing group was something I knew I should be doing for a long, long time. When I got the chance to start meeting with you and the other women of PSCWW, I was nervous (no one had really critiqued my writing since college!), but it really made me feel like a legitimate novelist. And it’s been excellent practice in meeting a writer where they are — so much of an editor’s job is to position a book, which is very different from working on the quality of its writing. Of course I try to do that, too, but working on different genres and really digging into what will make a short piece better has strengthened those muscles I might’ve been underusing. Oh, and it was very reassuring to know that the weaknesses I saw in my own writing weren’t wrong — that might sound strange to say, but I was glad to hear that the parts of TEASE I thought needed work were the right parts! There were also surprises — passages that the group liked more than I did — so I was grateful to know to leave those alone (at least mostly!).
What surprised you, being on the other end of the acquisitions process?
That I am not able to emotionally distance myself from my own work! I thought I’d be a much cooler customer. And to a certain degree, I really do know what to not take personally — though we’ll see how far that gets me when I see a cover image for TEASE. (Authors always hate their covers!) Being at this stage of the publishing process is a little like being pregnant: you’ve seen other people have babies, and you know how it’s supposed to go or how you’re hoping it’ll go. But then you have your own baby, and all bets are off! Other surprises: Agents will send you the responses from editors. (Good agents, like mine, only send the nice ones.) And when you’re revising a manuscript, margin notes from your editor that say “Nice” or “I like this” are the most amazing, most encouraging words ever.
How has your work as an editor informed your writing?
I definitely edit as I write, though I don’t find that it really slows me down. Probably because I edit as I go in life, too — I run sentences through my head before I say them aloud; I mentally draft text messages before typing them. I think in dialogue, and I’m a very slow reader because I’m basically reading aloud in my head. But with writing and editing, I work my way through by intuition. I really don’t know any of the “rules,” so I just try to develop a story, or help another writer develop her story, by how true it feels.
 
Conversely, how has writing influenced how you approach your job as an editor?
I think I’m even more sympathetic with — and I was already very sympathetic to the writing process — and often more impressed by the writers I work with. It’s so hard to see my own writing clearly, though, that honestly the editorial side of my life feels much the same.

Anything else you’d like to share?
Thank you for having me! I would just add that collaboration is a huge and wonderful part of book writing and publishing, so try to embrace it. I truly think that I help my authors as an editor, and now I’ve seen firsthand how much editors, including everyone in our writing group, have helped my own work. Every writer should find readers she trusts and solicit their honest feedback. This can be scary — terrifying, even — but if you can get that feedback, and truly accept it, I guarantee your writing will benefit. There might be points you want to hold your ground on, and that’s fine. But try to trust the notes — try to work with them. They will make everything better. And along the way, if you’ve chosen your critics wisely, there will be lovely notes in the margin that say things like, “Nice” and “I like this,” and that will make you feel awesome for at least a week.
 
Where can readers find you online? (Website, twitter, goodreads, facebook, tumblr, etc.)
 My Facebook is all baby pictures and my Tumblr is bare (so far), but Twitter is a good, work related spot to find me: @AmandaMaciel12.
 
Thank you so much!

My pleasure! Thank you!!

  1. […] pub day to Amanda Maciel, whose novel TEASE comes out […]

  2. […] Living in or near a major city—New York, in my case—means there are almost constant opportunities to get out and engage in the writing community at large. This weekend, I attended a launch party for Amanda Maciel’s debut novel, Tease, which has been mentioned on this blog before. […]

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