Brenna Yovanoff

First, the nitty-gritty stuff: my name is Brenna Yovanoff and I write speculative fiction. My work has appeared in Chizine and Strange Horizons, and my contemporary YA fantasy FE is coming out from Razorbill in 2010.

I don't update this blog nearly as often as I should, but you can find me at merry_fates on a regular basis, along with fellow authors Tessa Gratton and Maggie Stiefvater (everflame and m_stiefvater). There, we follow a strict schedule (I love schedules, but completely fail at making my own), and post short fiction every Monday. It's a closed community, but we love to hear from watchers, and everyone is welcome to contribute in the comments. So come check it out, because what could be better than dark, lyrical fiction?

That's right. Nothing.

Except puppies.

(I can't help it. I like puppies.)

(And parentheses.)

I'm writing a funeral . . .

However, due to certain biological constraints that prevent him from actually setting foot on hallowed ground, my main character/first-person narrator is unable to attend.

I'm writing an implied funeral . . .

Revision is awesome.

. . . is so much fun. So much fun! There will be a more cohesive account later, for sure. But right now, just so much fun.

And thank you *everyone* for all the responses to my big news! I've been running around like crazy the last couple days, and when I finally got a chance to get some internet and log on, it made me appallingly maudlin and sappy when I saw all the comments!

Two things, actually. Two.

The first thing is that by this time tomorrow, I'll be in Savannah and it will be awesome. Not only will I have the pleasure of meeting fellow authors dawn_metcalf, everflame, carrie_ryan, m_stiefvater, fabulousfrock, ljsingleton, watchmebe, and seaheidi, but I hear there will be food there. And Spanish moss, and possibly ghosts. Also, I understand there's a beach. (For those who may not be truly familiar with the great paradox that is me, I hate water, but I love the ocean.)

The second thing is . . . I have a book deal!!!!!!

(!!!!!!!!!!!)

It's with Razorbill, an imprint I have coveted for a long time to an obscenely covetous degree, and while I'm completely unable to express myself clearly, I can still communicate by pasting the PW announcement here:

Lexa Hillyer at Razorbill acquired the debut novel FE by Brenna Yovanoff at auction during BEA. The book tells the story of Malcolm Doyle, who seems like everyone else in his perfect little town, but he has a secret: he is a Replacement, left in the crib of a human baby 16 years ago. Now the dark side wants him back and he must decide where he really belongs. Pub date is fall 2010. Sarah Davies of the Greenhouse Literary Agency was the agent.

That's about me!

Also, my fabulous and . . . what's another word for fabulous? My super-fabulous agent, Sarah Davies, gives an account on her blog.

So, uh. You should check it out. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so . . . it gives me great personal satisfaction to announce that at long (long, long, long) last, I'm on submission! Like, real. Official. Submission. To publishing houses!

Which means all kinds of fun possibilities, like adequate sleep and a return to rational thought, but especially that I get to have a life again, and read books and go out with friends, and other far less glamorous things, like raking the flowers beds.

Overall, I feel that I'm taking this on-submission thing rather well. I am composed. In fact, m_stiefvater and everflame have both expressed alarm at my general tranquility (read: glacial). I started thinking about that. If I'm honest, I do tend to meet most large-scale developments with far more composure than, say, getting a flat tire or finding out that Vitaminwater has discontinued their line of energy drinks. Actually, it's pretty unreasonable.

So, in honor of my contextually inappropriate self-possession, today I'm offering up definitive proof that I can be just as histrionic as anyone else. What follows is for posterity, and most especially for Tess and Maggie.

Now, I am going to tell you the Centipede Story. ( . . . )

Let me explain. No, it's too complicated. Let me sum up.

There's a contest regarding this beautiful, soulful, and as-yet unreleased book by Maggie Stiefvater, which is currently available for pre-order .





I am not actually an entrant in the contest, so don't think you have to show up and say my name—you just have to get your friends to show up and say yours.

Go here and let Maggie explain.

Wait—that's not right . . .

What I meant to say is, my near-future apocalyptic zombie short story is up at Strange Horizons right now, this very minute.

So, if you're partial to militias, marines, or pus (preferably all three?): click away!

This is the far more disorganized and fan-girly addendum to my merry_fates post, in which I like to think I maintained some air of professionalism or at least dignity.

For those of you who don't know, I attended the Conestoga convention in Tulsa this weekend.

Be forewarned, my opinion of the convention is highly colored by the glee of getting to meet Tessa (everflame) in person and finding that she is just as entertaining and articulate face-to-face as she is in print, as well as by the fact that she put up with me talking incessantly (seriously, I could not shut up). And I had the added bonus of meeting cedarsong, who accompanied Tessa to Oklahoma and is a whole lot of fun in her own right.

Highlights:

The author community fangs_fur_fey hosted their own con-within-a-con and had their own dedicated programming track. As the community has grown rapidly (108 members!), it's become my go-to site when it comes to finding speculative fiction written by highly talented authors.

mdhenry read from his upcoming sequel to Happy Hour of the Damned, which, if you like social savagery and the undead (as I do), is a must-have for all zombie aficionados. Or really just anyone who has a sick, snarky sense of humor and doesn't mind a little (a lot) of gore and bodily fluids. Mark Henry's next book Road Trip of the Living Dead is due out in March, and based on the fact that during his reading, I was laughing so hard I was almost crying, it's going to be dynamite.

I also got to hear children's author Dean Lorey read from the first book in his Nightmare Academy series. With voices! It reminded me of how much fun it is to be read to as a kid, and this series is a great one for reading aloud, not only because the characters are vivid and voice-y, but because adults will enjoy these books too, which seems like an important consideration.

I had the opportunity to talk with the lovely Jeri Smith-Ready (jer_bear711) about all kinds of things, not least of which is her vampire-DJ series from Pocket. The first book, Wicked Game was released a couple months ago and it's fun and sexy and smart. Plus, it comes with a playlist at the front—how cool is that?

To recap, it was a great experience, I got to meet a lot of interesting, friendly, funny people who had previously only existed to me online, anyone looking to build their spec/fic reading list should definitely check out fangs_fur_fey, and I can't wait to do this all again.

Here are pictures,* although without much commentary.

I present: Oklahoma and Kansas.

And I will start with a water tower. Because I love water towers. Especially when they have high school mascots painted on them.



( And now, a cut, for obscene-but-childish graffiti and way too many pictures )



*All photos courtesy of Little Sister Yovanoff

m_stiefvater tagged me for this meme. I've never been tagged to do a meme before, and as Maggie so rightly pointed out, I do not generate content for this blog on even a semi-frequent basis, so the meme is useful in both respects.

( What were you doing ten years ago? )

Just a quick reminder that today is Monday, and I have fiction up over at merry_fates. Read at will.

I'm pleased to announce that the group blog merry_fates is officially live. I'll be posting there on a regular basis, together with my two of my bright and talented crit partners, Tessa Gratton and Maggie Stiefvater (everflame and m_stiefvater), and I'd like to invite everyone to come check it out.

The purpose of the blog is to discuss craft, research, and books we like, to take turns posting (very) short fiction and above all, to enjoy ourselves. I'll be posting flash fiction, snippets of scene, and whatever else on Mondays (for instance, today—hint, hint), Tessa will post on Wednesdays, and Maggie on Fridays.

While the blog is a closed community, we heartily encourage watchers to participate in the comments section, and on days when we have a special topic or a common writing prompt, everyone will be invited to play along in their own blogs if the mood strikes them. We hope you'll stop by and take a look, and don't be shy about jumping into the discussion. Tomorrow, for instance, we'll be talking about craft and why we write, so if that sounds exciting (you know it does), come tell us what you think.

It's true that I never thought I'd write a love story. The mechanics of romance just never interested me in quite the same way that dissection or cage-fighting did. It's not that I'm a huge pragmatist, or even very morbid. It's just that as a teenager, I viewed relationships as a recreational indulgence. And, admittedly, I prided myself on being far more cynical than I actually was. But now, I'm writing this YA romance (bizarre, right?) and I can't stop thinking about it, because the implications are just so fascinating.

I'm coming to believe that while the adult heart is complicated in its functions, it's essentially an orderly structure. Like a textbook diagram, it illustrates basic principles, and though its complexity may be daunting, I suspect that some people do become experts, surgical masks at the ready, scalpels in hand.

The adolescent heart is different. It seems to more closely resemble a piece of religious iconography. Structurally, the design is simple. No chambers, no valves or aortas, just a chunk of muscle the size of your fist. Often on fire, it mystifies the scientific mind. Bristling with arrows and unidentified protrusions, it bleeds on a regular basis. Sometimes, it's wreathed in thorns.

I don't pretend to understand the actual physics of the flaming heart. At 15, I figured out that sharing infatuations was a way of socializing—that the answers you gave didn't matter. It was simply about the act of conspiring. When other girls asked for confessions, I deflected. I had a smile that pleaded sincerity. It said, I am a forthright, honest girl who is telling you everything. Once, for roughly eight months, I let everyone around me believe that I was very taken with the star of the debate team, because that somehow seemed preferable to revealing the boy I was actually interested in. I realize this is strange behavior, but I was not the kind of girl who named names, and I'm beginning to think that's not unusual.

There's the other kind of teenager, of course; the 17-year-old who declares passionate and undying love, gazing raptly on bent knee, and then declares it again two months later to someone else. One of my best friends was the declaration-type, desperate over the captain of the soccer team one week, and preferring the drummer in jazz-band the next. We strategized together, planning conversations and chance meetings, and it was entertaining and satisfying. She liked the conquest. I liked the logistics, the tactical reconnaissance, but mostly I liked how safe it was to borrow someone else's infatuation. I was the lieutenant with the clipboard and the diagrams—high involvement and low risk.

So, now I'm starting to admit that this is interesting to me—high school romance—the pursuit, but more importantly, the delicate cultivation of subterfuge and denial. When I was 17, one of my favorite words was obfuscation. I've always been interested in the keeping of secrets.

The story itself is messier and meaner than it first appeared, and becoming more complicated by the second. But maybe that's just what happens when your starting question is a simple one:

What would you do if you could do anything you wanted and there was no risk involved? And then, what if it turned out that there was?

Over at the League of Reluctant Adults, mdhenry held a trivia contest awhile back. It was ostensibly to celebrate the release of his first novel, Happy Hour of the Damned and—I suspect—also because he likes zombies. The prize was a rubber duck of the zombie-devil persuasion and I thought to myself I like bathing, and more importantly, when it comes to zombie trivia, I have a depth and breadth that is unrivaled by any girl I've met.

So, because there's nothing like feeling special over knowing pop-culture minutia that no one in their right mind would bother to retain, I was compelled to show off my Skillz. As a result, I recently received this unassailably cool duck in the mail.



Its brain is showing. Tell me that's not cool. Plus, it glows in the dark.

Needless to say, I was extremely pleased with the duck, and have been leaving it around for house-guests to stumble upon, but the real windfall was this:



It's a known fact that I'm a sucker for the undead. But, and here I reveal the true depths of my nerdiness, I'm an even bigger sucker for footnotes. The. Book. Has footnotes.

If you're bothered by copious amounts of bodily fluids, I can't in good conscience recommend it. If, like me, you are not bothered by copious amounts of bodily fluids and you like your protagonists with great shoes and a taste for human flesh, maybe just don't read it at the gym, because then the woman on the adjacent stationary bike will ask you what's so funny and you will be forced to:

A) tell her
B) make up something completely unconvincing, but wholesome
C) tell her in a euphemistic, round-about way that actually, when you think about it, sort of makes a ménage-à-quatre-turned-bloodbath in a cheap motel sound even worse

Because I'm a remarkably bad liar and also find it expedient to avoid using the phrase gang-bang in conversation with strangers, I picked C. Saying that it could have gone better is being generous. The situation is, of course, compounded by the fact that Happy Hour has a pretty innocuous cover. It would not look out of place on the sassy beach-read shelf, but don't be fooled. It's not chick-lit, but if it was . . . well, basically, I'd read a lot more chick-lit.

The draft is done. Three days later than I wanted, but it's done. Now to figure out my hook and my mini-synopsis and my character development and my consistency and all the finer points of my plot.

Not necessarily in that order.

I've decided that 2008 will officially be my Year of Hard Work, so I made some goals. Then I immediately realized I'd made too many, and narrowed them down to these:

-I will finish the first draft of the current YA by January 30th

-Counting the current project, I will finish and polish two YA manuscripts to shop-able condition by the end of the year

-I will make an actual effort to produce and submit short fiction and will make at least one sale, preferably to one of these places:
Cemetery Dance
Chizine
Strange Horizons
Weird Tales

-I will make an actual effort to be more social, writing-wise, by attending events, readings, signings, conferences, etc. I will possibly even talk to strangers.

These are things that seem within reason. Also, they're written down. In public. Which means that I am now committed to them.

First draft of the nonfiction? Done.

What a weird feeling.

And no, let's not talk about revisions. It's going to be a while.

I'm smiling because I got my contract today (you can't see it, but my smile is actually very big).

Query madness starts tomorrow, for better or for worse.

Over the past weekend, I received my contest critique and I've got to say, it's opened the current revision up like a chest-spreader. Not shocking or earth-shattering exactly, but confirming everything Syl pointed out, shoring up all my own convictions. Suddenly, motivation is high. I know what happens next. I'm on it. I knocked 7k off the opening in less than an hour.

At the risk of sounding fractured, it's funny how a given situation can dictate your persona, your requisite set of traits. All my life, the girl who shows up to work each day has varied depending on her function. Now, looking at urban-fantasy-agent's (specific—beautifully specific) comments, Revision Girl is back with a vengeance, and I just keep thinking, it's about damn time.

“It must be hard, though,” my dad said, “to cut things.”
“Not really,” I told him. “I mean, if it's not doing anything for the story, it doesn't matter if it's the most lyrical little scrap of prose ever. It's still not doing anything.”
But that's Revision Girl talking. She has no nostalgia, no sentimentality. She doesn't have time for second-guessing or screwing around. She doesn't feel things out. Give her a red pen and everything bleeds.

( Revision Girl ) wears too much eyeliner, too much lipstick, likes a shot of espresso in her drip coffee. She once worked thirty hours a week while taking a credit overload and interning, only slept four hours a night, loves Rob Zombie. She scales nine-foot fences while wearing a miniskirt, only cares about the bottom line, lacks sufficient judgment to be afraid of things. Her sleep schedule is bizarre. She would mainline caffeine, eat nothing but Rocket Pops and beef jerky. She shines under duress. She always gets it done. I haven't seen her much since graduation, which is fine, because frankly, she sort of scares me.

( First Draft Girl ) is a completely different creature, soft like a bunny, wears too much pink and wouldn't be caught dead smoking a cigar. She works in the garden and cooks elaborate meals. People think she's from another country. Sometimes, when strangers compliment her fluent English, she thanks them automatically, without realizing that she ought to correct them. She always appears slightly confused, at odds with her surroundings. People ask her what's wrong, because it's in her nature to look worried. When she gets a flat tire, men pull over to change it for her, despite her ability to navigate the lug wrench and the jack. She loves flowers and animals and babies, journal entries and old photographs. She's been around constantly for over a year, making little notes, having Grand Ideas, getting in the way of every serious overhaul, every attempt at cutthroat progress. She's compliant, observant, polite. She makes up stories, but Revision Girl is the one who finishes them.

So now, I'm about to go to work on this and the work is going to be valuable and real, actual forward motion. I can't quite express how relieved I am. Things are finally about to get done.