![\"draft](\"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2015\/07\/draft-to-finish-line-panel.jpg\")
<\/p>\nrecap by Hadley, teen\u00a0blogger<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom Draft to Finish Line\u201d featured four authors from HarperCollins Publishers. The panel moderator was Kody Keplinger,<\/em><\/strong> well renowned author of The Duff<\/em> as well as featured title Lying Out Loud.<\/em> The other three authors were Victoria Aveyard,<\/em> <\/strong>author of Red Queen,<\/em> Alexis Bass<\/em><\/strong>, <\/em>author of Love and Other Theories,<\/em> and Virginia Boecker,<\/em><\/strong> author of The Witch Hunter.<\/em><\/p>\n Before Keplinger even got around to asking the prewritten questions for the panel, she started off by asking everyone what their Harry Potter house was. Both she and Boecker are proud Slytherins, while Bass is the sole Ravenclaw of the four. Aveyard stated that the Pottermore quiz sorted her into Gryffindor, but that she is forever in denial and is a Slytherin at heart.<\/p>\n The first question: <\/strong>\u201cWhat was the process like to get your book published?<\/strong>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Aveyard<\/em><\/strong> graduated from college before deciding to head home to her parents to focus on writing the first draft of her book. She spent six months working on it before using her connections with publishing and sending it off, where it eventually made its way to HarperCollins, where it was accepted for publishing.<\/p>\n Bass <\/em><\/strong>said, \u201cI had a very funny idea of getting published. I was like, \u2018I\u2019m going to do all these other things and I\u2019ll just get published in my free time.\u2019\u201d After she graduated with a major in marketing, she researched what it entailed to actually get a book published and took some online classes to get feedback and learn the writing process. She spent her free time writing and revising, since she spent most of the time at her full-time job, and ended up with one finished book that never got published. After that, she wrote Love and Other Theories.<\/em><\/p>\n Boecker<\/em><\/strong> started off by saying, \u201cI never thought I could be a writer. I never thought I had anything to say.\u201d Eventually, she decided to just go for it, not having in mind the idea to get published but instead to just simply write a book, as it was always a high-ranker on her bucket list. \u201cI sat down and thought, \u2018What kind of book would I want to read?\u2019\u201d She combined all of her favorite aspects of novels into one, saying she wrote it and it was terrible. She powered through and kept on writing, taking in advice from her husband and editing her work and realizing in the process that she really loved to write. Others pushed her to send her draft to an agent, who get her signed, and two years ago, it ended up in an auction, where various publishers fought to be the ones to publish the book. She ended up with The Witch Hunter<\/em> being published by HarperCollins.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up and when did you decide you wanted to be a writer?<\/strong>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Keplinger<\/em><\/strong> stated that while she had always wanted to be a writer, it was among many others on the list of possible career choices she made in her youth. Also on the list were actress, first female president, and car salesman.<\/p>\n Boecker<\/em><\/strong> wanted to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader as a child. Her first job was as a publishing assistant, before she moved into marketing and worked selling books for a while. \u201cI always thought, \u2018I would love to write a book one day,\u2019 and one day I did. It\u2019s still a shock to me to see my name on the cover of a book.\u201d<\/p>\n Bass<\/em><\/strong>\u2019<\/em><\/strong> career sparked writing Jurassic Park fan fiction in middle school. She wrote \u201cJurrasic Park 3,\u201d calling it \u201cThe Final Encounter.\u201d Possibly even greater than her love for writing is her love for dinosaurs. \u201cI was like, \u2018Since I don\u2019t want to take these courses in college, I\u2019ll date someone who will tell me about all that is going on in the dinosaur world.\u201d She made a joke, saying that all her friends were looking to date lawyers while she was scouting out paleontologists in science libraries. Keplinger<\/em> added, \u201cI can just imagine Alexis in the library talking in the library to people, like, \u2018What\u2019s your major?\u2019 \u2018Biology.\u2019 She\u2019s like, \u2018Never mind.\u2019\u201d Bass<\/em> finished by saying her fianc\u00e9 is not a paleontologist. \u201cAnd that is the tragic ending to the story,\u201d Keplinger<\/em> concluded.<\/p>\n Aveyard<\/em><\/strong> has loved stories ever since she could read as a child, and she still today is a big movie buff. Fanfiction was also her release in middle school, as there were no creative writing outlets in her school community. She said, \u201cEven though my mom was an English teacher, she was never ever going to read my Legolas stories. And none of you<\/em> will find them either,\u201d she reminded the laughing audience. She applied for screenwriting at college, thinking, \u201cI memorize movies, I might as well get a grade for it.\u201d After four years of intensive writing for a translator, she ended up writing her published book.<\/p>\n \u201cHas anyone ever given you a piece an advice that you came back to whenever you were preparing for your debuts to come out?<\/strong>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Keplinger:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cAlways remember that writing is an art and publishing is a business.\u201d<\/p>\n Boecker:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cWhen I write, I don\u2019t plot too heavily. I kind of have a general outline of what I want to do, but I find that the best ideas come from when I sort of pants it, which is where I go, \u2018Okay, I\u2019m going to go from Point A to Point B,\u2019 but I\u2019m not really sure how to get from Point A to Point M. I think sometimes not knowing that [outline] produces some of the best work. My editor points that out to me, saying, \u201cYou don\u2019t have to know everything that\u2019s going to happen.\u201d I try to be really openminded, when I\u2019m drafting but especially when I\u2019m revising.\u201d<\/p>\n Bass:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cThere\u2019s no right or wrong way to do it. Let yourself be inspired. I think also good advice is to immerse yourself in the story and not worry about the future of it. I know that when I was first starting to get published, I thought you need to have a life and death element in your story. So I was trying to write these life and death [stories] and I write contemporary. I don\u2019t know why I let that feedback really effect me. So it\u2019s almost like \u2018stay on your side of the curve\u2019 kind of advice.\u201d<\/p>\n Aveyard:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cI have some advice that I always repeat from professors that I had, and one of them is, \u2018Good luck is when you get an opportunity and you\u2019re prepared for it. Bad luck is when you get an opportunity and you\u2019re not prepared for it.\u2019 Another one is, \u2018The spider doesn\u2019t know what part of the web will catch the fly.\u2019 I take that to mean, \u2018Write everything you can because you have no idea which thing is going to hit which person.\u2019 Don\u2019t write to a friend, or write what you think an agent wants to see, or what you think an audience wants to see, because usually you\u2019d be pretty surprised. I went to school to write movies and a TV pilot got me a meeting and a book got me on this stage. On the technical side of stories, my PC professor said, \u2018You can get an audience to believe one unbelievable thing and everything else must be realistic based on that.\u2019 For me, everybody\u2019s past is so different, especially in publishing. Everyone has a different way in and you\u2019re going to see these websites that will tell you this is a step-by-step process. It doesn\u2019t happen like this. Don\u2019t freak out too much when you find yourself on a windy path while everyone else is walking a seemingly straight road.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you guys write, tell me what your set-up is.<\/strong>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Aveyard:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cIdeally, I have a desktop and I have a laptop. The thing I need most is time. I need to know that I\u2019m not going to be bothered all day, I\u2019m not going to need to leave the house for anything, because I\u2019m shut off essentially while I\u2019m writing. I have Twitter open and my Word document open and I just go. I guess setup wise, yeah, desk, water bottles, toast, coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n Bass:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cI actually write anywhere and everywhere. I wrote a lot of Love and Other Theories<\/em> on my phone waiting in line to get coffee. I kind of learned just to switch my brain real fast just because of time crunch. I try to do the thing where if something occurs to you and you don\u2019t have time to write it down, you tell it to your phone and listen to it later and that always sounds like a really bad SML skit, every time. So yeah, anywhere and everywhere, but I guess ideally I\u2019d love to be at a desk with coffee and maybe avocado toast. That sounds great. But really, when I think about where I\u2019ve written the majority of words, I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh, I was at the car dealership waiting for them to fix a flat tire.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Boecker:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cAt home, I have this really beautiful desk set up. It\u2019s got this big monitor and things I love on it and I never ever sit at it. I actually like to write outdoors, believe it or not. We belong to this athletic club, and I\u2019ll just take everything outside. It\u2019s pretty nice. That\u2019s actually where I do most of my writing. When I\u2019m revising and I\u2019m super content, they\u2019ve got conference rooms, which are really dreary and white and ugly and there\u2019s sensory deprivation, which is great for me revising. At night, I just get in bed and work there, with my laptop and my pajamas.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI know you all are working on new projects now. If you could sum up your current project in one word, what would it be?<\/strong>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Boecker:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cTrouble.\u201d<\/p>\n Bass:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cRedemption.\u201d<\/p>\n Aveyard:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cSacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n Keplinger:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cIt\u2019s getting very dark up in here. I like it, I like it. And, I guess if I had to do mine\u2014I have a book coming out next year\u2014mine would be friendship. Which is funny because it\u2019s an unhappy book.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" recap by Hadley, teen\u00a0blogger \u201cFrom Draft to Finish Line\u201d featured four authors from HarperCollins Publishers. The panel moderator was Kody Keplinger, well renowned author of The Duff as well as featured title Lying Out Loud. The other three authors were Victoria Aveyard, author of Red Queen, Alexis Bass, author of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,28],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-1982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-programs-and-events","category-writing","tag-book-festival"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ZwbD-vY","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1838,"url":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/2015\/pasadena-loves-ya-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":1982,"position":0},"title":"Pasadena Loves YA: THANK YOU","author":"Jane Gov","date":"June 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Uniting fans and authors... On Saturday, May 23,\u00a0twenty Young Adult authors and nearly 450 guests gathered at the second annual teen book festival, Pasadena Loves YA at Pasadena Central Library. The keynote speaker was Mary McCoy, author of\u00a0Dead to Me\u00a0(and a teen librarian at Los Angeles Public Library). \u00a0All authors\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Special Events"","block_context":{"text":"Special Events","link":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/category\/programs-and-events\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2015\/06\/plyatote.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2015\/06\/plyatote.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2015\/06\/plyatote.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":221,"url":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/2015\/reviewers\/","url_meta":{"origin":1982,"position":1},"title":"Teen Book Reviewers","author":"Jane Gov","date":"January 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"...a short how to guide for teens. updated: 1\/2015 \u00a0 We're looking for teen book reviewers! \u00a0You may review a book of your choice, or ask to be added on our \"advanced readers\" reviewers (to review new or not-yet-published books). \u00a0If selected, your reviews will be published on our Zine,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Agendas & News"","block_context":{"text":"Agendas & News","link":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/category\/agendas-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1573,"url":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/2015\/red-queen-teen-reviews\/","url_meta":{"origin":1982,"position":2},"title":"Red Queen — teen reviews","author":"Teen Blogger","date":"March 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Reviews by Kara and Hadley, teen reviewers Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard was fascinating. In it, Mare Barrow, a Red, endures. Reds make up the majority of this dystopian society, but are dominated by Silvers, whose blood gives them great powers. After an incident\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Teen Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Teen Reviews","link":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/category\/teen-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.aspx?type=xw12&isbn=0062310631\/LC.GIF&client=pasap&upc=&oclc=","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4776,"url":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/2018\/pasadena-loves-ya-2018-an-experience\/","url_meta":{"origin":1982,"position":3},"title":"Pasadena Loves YA 2018: An Experience","author":"Teen Blogger","date":"October 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"by Alaina Joby, age 16 The much awaited Pasadena Loves Young Adult Festival attracted a crowd of people this year; with fifteen up and coming authors visiting and people flocking in to hear their panels, it was undoubtedly a successful event. The day was divided into panels, each dedicated to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Features"","block_context":{"text":"Features","link":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/category\/opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2018\/10\/2018_plya_updated_square.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2018\/10\/2018_plya_updated_square.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2018\/10\/2018_plya_updated_square.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2018\/10\/2018_plya_updated_square.png?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2018\/10\/2018_plya_updated_square.png?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1979,"url":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/2015\/pasadena-loves-ya-second-chances\/","url_meta":{"origin":1982,"position":4},"title":"Pasadena Loves YA: Second Chances","author":"Teen Blogger","date":"June 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Hadley, teen\u00a0blogger \u201cSecond Chances\u201d featured\u00a0Brandy Colbert, author of Pointe, Morgan Matson, author of Since You\u2019ve Been Gone, Sarah Tomp, author of My Best Everything, and the panel moderator, Lauren Miller, author of Free to Fall among other well-known novels. The questions varied from asking about life before writing to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Special Events"","block_context":{"text":"Special Events","link":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/category\/programs-and-events\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"second chances panel","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2015\/06\/second-chances-panel.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2015\/06\/second-chances-panel.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2015\/06\/second-chances-panel.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2193,"url":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/2015\/belle-epoque-teen-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":1982,"position":5},"title":"Belle Epoque — teen review","author":"Teen Blogger","date":"August 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Review by Kara Eng, grade 11,\u00a0teen reviewer Belle Epoque by Elizabeth Ross Ever\u00a0heard of the phrase \u201cDesignated Ugly Fat Friend (DUFF)\u201d ? 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<\/a><\/a>