Introducing Karis, the newest OA blogger!

Hello, hello, all you fabulous Operation Awesome readers! My name is Karis, and I’m the latest addition to the OA blogging fam! I am so happy to be here, and so, so excited to get to know a brand-new community of writers and readers on the Internet!

If you’re wondering, here’s a little about me: I’m a 20-something American/Canadian writer who was born in South Carolina, raised in Italy, schooled in Germany, Kentucky and New York City, and is currently back in the sunny (and unbearably hot) American South.

I feel like there was a lot in that sentence! Ha. Let’s break it down: first and foremost, I’m a writer. I’ve been writing since I had my first disappointment in a book’s ending and decided I, a seven-year-old, could do better. I feel like I’ve known pretty much from then that my goal and desire was to be a published, career writer.

These days, I work as a blogger (my personal blog is at www.karisrogerson.com) and freelance writer for various websites around the web — I’ve written for Seventeen.com, Bustle, Ravishly, and then bookish sites like LitReactor.com and YA Interrobang. My main topics of concern are mental health (I was diagnosed with depression years back and have since been very open about its ups and downs); young adult novels; and relationships...okay, fine, it’s mostly just recountings of the failed dates I’ve been on, but still! It’s very funny ;)

I’m also a novelist. I write young adult contemporary fiction, and I’m working on a massive revision and then will fling myself into the query trenches, wholeheartedly. YA novels are my deepest passion, and I aspire to be writing them for many years to come. I just...teenagers are the future, they’re bright and vibrant and hilarious, and also YA is just so much less cynical than adult fiction.

When I was four years old, my parents moved the family to Perugia, Italy, so they could work with evangelical churches there. We bounced around a bit and finally settled in Trieste, this little port town on the Adriatic that has got some of the best views, architecture, and weird culture around. This city has my heart. It’s also mildly famous for being the city where James Joyce began writing Ulysses…#NoBigDeal.

Because the Italian school system is so different from the American one, I attended an American boarding school in Germany for the last three years of high school. That was...man. So many stories! I lived in a dorm with 12 other teenage girls, and when I say there were shenanigans galore, I mean...come on, you stick 13 girls between the ages of 13-18 in one creaky house in the wilds of the Black Forest, what do you expect? We had fabulous times.

After four years of college in Kentucky, I moved to New York City to pursue a graduate program at NYU. I never finished that program, for financial and medical reasons. That’s a huge bummer, but one I’m working through my throwing myself fully into my novels and personal essays.

As for my role here, I’m going to be blogging about the writing journey, especially as it pertains to the query trenches; I’ve also set a goal of 100 rejections for 2018, so will do a regular update on that: what’s been rejected, what’s been accepted, and how many pints of ice cream I’ve devoured in the meantime ;)

If you’d like to connect with me on the Internet, your best bet is Twitter, where I’m @KarisRogerson, or Instagram, where I'm @karisselizabeth. Come say hi and let’s be buds!

A few quick fun facts about me include: I am obsessed with New York City and will claw my way back to that city eventually, and settle down so firmly they’ll bury me there. I broke my nose five days before my high school graduation, so I did graduate with a cast on my face, and I do still have a scar from that (on my knee). I speak 2.5 languages. Trampolines scare me so much I haven’t been on one in years. My middle name is Gertrude. I worked at the Sochi Olympics and met Al Roker. I have been to 23 countries (almost one country per year of life!). I’m deathly afraid of flying. Relatedly, I’ve been on something like 100 flights in my life.

Alright, so here’s the thing: all of those facts are true, except for one. It’s like a really extended version of “Two Truths and a Lie.” So leave a comment guessing at which factoid is false, and then tell me the weirdest thing about yourself!

Greetings from the Newest Operation Awesome Blogger, Jaime Olin!

Hi there! I'm Jaime Olin, and I'm pleased to introduce myself as the newest blogger for Operation Awesome.

I'd like to to answer a few questions you might have about me and tell you what I'll be doing for Operation Awesome - I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you!

What do you write? Mostly YA Contemporary. I also dabble in mysteries, and would love to someday write a sci-fi book set on the moon.

Who is your agent? Mallory Brown at the TriadaUS Literary Agency.

How did you find your agent? I entered my YA Contemporary manuscript, Forgotten, in the 2016 PitchSlam contest (this is a GREAT contest for those who don't know about it - www.pitchslamcontest.com). I made it to the agent round, and Mallory was one of the agents who requested the manuscript. She made an offer of representation, and after notifying the other agents who had the manuscript (some of whom also ended up offering), I ended up choosing Mallory because she felt a real connection with the manuscript. I'm excited to see where things go from here!

How long have you been writing? Casually, since I could hold a pen. Seriously, about seven years ago, once I began participating in some local creative writing workshops. Forgotten is my fourth completed manuscript.

Where do you live? Dallas, Texas now, but I've lived all over the country.

What's your day job? I'm a lawyer for a non-profit.

What kinds of posts do you plan to do for Operation Awesome? My first order of business is to start a weekly (or so) synopsis critique. There are several great options for query critiques on the internet, but I haven't seen any specifically dedicated to synopses. Writers seem to universally dread writing synopses, but it can be done (and done well!), and there are some tips and tricks to it. Since many agents, editors, and contest judges are requiring writers to provide synopses of their manuscripts, and since synopses are also excellent tools to maintain 'the forest for the trees' while writing first drafts, I want to help writers draft and edit them. Details to come next Thursday...

I'm also hoping to create a 'What's the Big Idea?' critique, which will focus on concept. I'll encourage readers to submit a short summary of a work in progress (or work not-yet-in-progress), and allow commenters to ask the author questions about the concept. The questions should help the author hone in on the necessary plot and character points to determine if the idea is viable.

What Hogwarts house would you get sorted into? I'm a Hufflepuff through and through, with hints of Gryffindor occasionally poking through.

What books are you currently reading? Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad and Bruce Springsteen's memoir Born to Run. I most recently finished Nicola Yoon's The Sun is Also a Star. I'm trying to alternate reading adult and YA fiction this year, and I like to always have a non-fiction book going at the same time.

Don't you have a couple of really cute dogs? Funny you should ask! Here they are...

What do you mean, we're not supposed to be on the bed?

Come find me on Twitter (@jkolin27) and visit my website (www.jaimeolin.com, which is very much a work in progress)!

Please Welcome Melinda!

Greetings writer folks!

I’m Melinda Friesen, one of the new kids here, and I’m super excited to get to know you all.

About Writer Me:

Most of my novels are young adult sci-fi, but I’ve also ventured into young adult contemporary, middle grade fantasy and new adult paranormal romance. In addition, I write literary and genre short stories. I’ve been querying novels and sending out short stories for four years and have well over a hundred rejections on file. Do I get a trophy for that? I think I should get a trophy.

In November of 2014, I finally got to hold, caress, snuggle my first published novel, Enslavement (YA sci-fi/dystopian). It was surreal. I didn’t cry. I did, however, feel like throwing up.

About Day Job Me:

Like most writers, I have a day job. I’m Marketing Director and Acquisitions Editor at Rebelight Publishing Inc., a small Canadian publisher. I love fishing jewels out of the slush pile, getting to know authors and sharing great books with the world.

About Regular Me:

I have a husband and four kids. Three of the kids are teenagers, an age group I absolutely love. I’d take teens over toddlers any day. Writing is my favourite thing to do, but I also jog to keep my butt from looking too writerly. I belong to two writers’ groups, both of which are awesome. I can recite all 50 states in alphabetical order in under a minute. I’m originally from Oregon, but have lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada for 21 years now.

Question of the day: Should having oodles of rejection letters to your name be a badge of honour or a dunce cap of shame? You know how I feel about it, but I'd like to hear what you think. Please leave a comment. 

I love to interact on social media. Twitter: @melindafriesen  Facebook: MelindaFriesen1 Find me and we can swap rejection stories.

This is my official author picture. I was informed by some fourth graders I was speaking to that it doesn’t look like me. 

This is my book. Forgive her, she stares.

Intro: Aimee Hyndman

I was still half asleep the morning I got the email from Operation Awesome saying that they wanted me to be their newest contributor. Soon after reading this email, I was no longer asleep. It’s a huge honor to have been chosen, especially considering my experience level.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been writing for a long time, like we all have. I caught the writing bug before I could even write actual words and started filling random sheets of paper with scribbles. I claimed I was writing books in my own secret language. When people asked me to read them the story, I spun tales of dragons and dinosaurs and adorable talking animals. As soon as I could write in a real language, I did, horrible spelling and all. For me, writing truly has been a lifelong passion and something I’ve been working toward since my little toddler fist put pencil to paper.

I’m a wee little college student now, but still working at it. I just landed an agent in February (squee) and hope to go out on submission with my steampunk fantasy novel HOUR OF MISCHIEF. Fantasy is my wheel house and lifelong passion, especially in the young adult catagory (since I am technically still a young adult). I also work on the other side of the table as an intern for a literary agency where I sort through the slush. It has been a very rewarding experience.

My other interests include movies, theater, music (of many sorts), anime, good food and, of course, READING. Things I become rabidly protective over if provoked include Harry Potter (I AM the HP generation), Inkheart, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Les Miserables, everything Disney, and a long list of Animes I can’t even begin to list.

I have a personal blog here, I tweet on occasion, and I am active on pintrest and youtube. I’m so excited to start contributing on this site!

Pleased to Meet You :) and A Contest!

Since today is my very first post (yay!) I thought I’d throw a little party to celebrate :D Check out the end of the post for details. But first things first….

Hi *waves* My name is Michelle. Nice to meet ya :D

I wanted to be a lot of different things “when I grew up” but looking back on it, being a writer was pretty inevitable. Books are my life and always have been. I’m perfectly happy spending long periods of time as a loner. I have a beyond overactive imagination. I love to get sucked into other worlds. I like to learn. I'm creative. I'm passionate. All of these things have been a part of what makes me ME since the day I was born. I think I've been a writer since the moment I took my first breath and maybe even before :) It's who I am. It's how I see the world. It's how I interact with people and with my environment.

Have you seen Beauty and the Beast (the Disney version)? I am soooo Belle. Seriously, it’s scary. I watched the movie with my daughter yesterday. Every time I watch this film, I’m reminded of the first time I saw it.

My whole family (parents, siblings, cousins, a couple friends) went to the theater. We filled up an entire middle row. I sat at the very end. The lights went down, the movie began, we saw the background story on the Beast….and then Belle wandered onto the screen, basket on her arm, nose in her book.

Every single one of the fifteen or so people in our group, in unison, leaned over and stared at me, laughing their heads off. And continued laughing through Belle’s enthusiastic bookstore visit.

Okay, so yeah, maybe you need a crow bar to get the book out of my hand…and maybe occasionally a trip to the bookstore (or office supply store, come to think of it) will make me go crazier than my five year old on caffeine, but hey, I am who I am. (My husband just did a full on snort at the word “occasionally.” So rude.) ;-)

My whole life I’ve had my nose stuck in a book. My mom used to find me sitting behind the couch with a stack of encyclopedias (which, fyi, are a lot more entertaining to read than one might think). I always, ALWAYS have a book. I never leave home without one :)

That insatiable love of reading turned into diaries filled with bad poetry and half written stories, and one day, several years ago, I typed the words THE END on a fully formed novel. And I was hooked.

What about you? Have you always been a writer, no matter what other professions you may have (or still do) worked in along the way? If not, what started the journey for you?

Contest Deets!

I'd love for all my new friends to meet my old friends, and according to my husband my bookshelves are in serious danger of collapsing, and we have no room for another one, sooooo, here's what I've come up with:

For every 5 new followers we get here at the Operation Awesome Blog, I will give away 1 book. Starting right now (with 153 followers), 7am PST going till 11:59pm on Sat the 24th. If we get more than 50 new followers, (because I don't know if I can bear to give away more than 10 books LOL), I'll throw in a $20 gift certificate to the online book retailer of your choice (B&N/Borders/Amazon).*

To Enter:

1. Be or become a follower at Operation Awesome.
2. Give me a shout out in the comments on this post or my post at my personal blog HERE.

That's it! :)

Winner will be announced next Sunday. Good luck!

*International entries are welcome. If an international contestant wins, I'll add $10 to the gift certificate instead of sending books.

The Birth of a Blogger (exactly what this world needs...)

NOTICE: Operation Awesome's One-Line Pitch contest is FULL. Thanks to everyone who entered and spread the word! Keep coming back to learn the winners, the agent's identity, and more surprises. And if you missed entering, keep visiting OA for your chance to enter another contest. Thanks again for making our launch, well, awesome!

I was born on this date in 1969, the very same day that the Internet was launched by hooking up a single computer to the first packet switcher. Today those two parallel story lines converge in the incandescent, climactic moment known as my first blog post. As a fiction writer, I don’t believe in coincidence – only plot, arranged, revealed, and imbued with meaning. Thus, in pursuit of a coherent theme on the anniversary of two births, I have little choice but to write about beginnings.

I've hesitated to write for a blog, and without the support of Operation Awesome, I wouldn’t have done it. I don’t expect this introductory post to be received with the same enthusiasm as yesterday’s Mystery Agent pitch contest. It's hard to put myself out to the world as a writer, to suggest to others in the literary community that I have something worth saying. As an unpublished writer, the hardest part is to expose my dreams to family, friends, and not-so-friends before those dreams have been fulfilled.

As hard as this is, it's not nearly as hard as beginning a novel. I always meant to write one, and I began a few times, writing what I knew based on my limited experience of the world. But they weren’t the stories I wanted to read. No wonder they fizzled out.

I don't know where the idea for my first completed novel came from. I never lived in a 1960s traveling sideshow, and I never had the tiniest bit of magical powers. So while I don't know where my ideas came from, I do know how I freed them. I decided to write for children. And if I wrote for kids, I could write about anything.

I researched for a year, maybe two. I outlined. I hesitated. And when I finally I began, the story pulled me through.

Now I’ll confess that when UCLA connected its host computer to the Internet on September 2, 1969, there was no one on the other end. It took almost two months before another computer was able to receive messages. Already this blog has a slightly wider audience, but if it didn’t, that would be OK. Putting myself out there as a writer is a milestone, just like finishing that first novel was a milestone. Both are only beginnings.

My first novel is resting quietly in a drawer for now, and I'm writing another book. It wasn't any easier this time. The only thing to do was begin, try not to stop, and hope the story pulls me through. And when I do stop, begin again until I get to the middle, and eventually to the end.

Of course, the end is where revision starts -- another beginning and another blog post.