Author Success Story: Tristina Wright shares her path to publication for 27 HOURS + a giveaway!

I'm excited to welcome Tristina Wright to share her inspiring path to pub success story for her debut novel 27 Hours, out now from Entangled Teen.  Make sure to scroll to the bottom of the post for a chance to win a 27 Hours prize back!

In 2005, a character started nagging at me. He was stubborn and wouldn’t take no for an answer no matter how much I tried to ignore him. After a few years of pushing him to one side in favor of day jobs and making ends meet, I started jotting down scenes and forming the first of what would be many, many drafts with this character named Rumor.

Between 2009 and 2011, I wrote probably four or five different books with Rumor and various characters, trying to find the right story for him. I thought I had it a few times, circling closer and closer each time until I hit on a dystopian concept that relied heavily on the gargoyle mythology toward the early of 2011. I polished it and began querying middle of 2011, I think?

Querying took forever. It feels like forever. The best advice I would give for querying writers is to find the writing community and dive in. Find other writers who are at the same stage as you are so you have commiserating buddies. No one else truly gets it like someone else who’s there. You can swap querying tips. Y’all can talk agents together. Y’all can swap queries and pages for feedback. I met some of my earliest critique partners when I was querying—people I still talk to and write with today.

Also, while you’re querying, work on something else. I wrote a steampunk star-crossed romance based on Eros and Psyche. Took me about a year. When it was polished and ready to query, I let the final queries on Rumor’s book run out (meaning I didn’t send out any new ones when I got rejections).

In 2012, I received an offer of rep from an agent on my steampunk romance. While that romance went on submission with editors, I pulled Rumor back out and worked on him with my agent and my critique partners. I still felt a pull toward this story and a need to tell it.

Needless to say, the romance didn’t make it very far, and we went back out with Rumor & Co. for the first round of submission in early 2014. It got close. Really close. After a very long talk, I decided to revise it, which is when I decided to put it in space. It took me not quite a year to revise it to that effect and we went back out on submission with it in late 2015.

While I was working on it, however, I would keep myself sane by tweeting lines and such on Twitter. And to make it easier to search later, I kept track of them by using the same hashtag. That’s where #queerteensinspace came from. My now-editor Kate Brauning saw the hashtag and contacted my agent and basically said, “When she’s done with that, I want to read it.”

So, she did. And then she offered. And the rest is, as they say, history.

The biggest piece of advice I’d give to writers is: Don’t call yourself aspiring. If you write, you’re a writer. There are those who will try to tell you that you don’t qualify unless… They’ll try to apply qualifications or checklists. You have to meet all these requirements. And that’s silly. Do you write? Yes? Then you’re a writer. End of discussion. You’re not aspiring. You’re a writer.

About 24 Hours:

27 Hours by Tristina Wright

Publication Date:  October 3, 2017

Publisher:  Entangled Teen

Rumor Mora fears two things: hellhounds too strong for him to kill, and failure. Jude Welton has two dreams: for humans to stop killing monsters, and for his strange abilities to vanish.

But in no reality should a boy raised to love monsters fall for a boy raised to kill them.

Nyx Llorca keeps two secrets: the moon speaks to her, and she’s in love with Dahlia, her best friend. Braeden Tennant wants two things: to get out from his mother's shadow, and to unlearn Epsilon's darkest secret.

They’ll both have to commit treason to find the truth.

During one twenty-seven-hour night, if they can’t stop the war between the colonies and the monsters from becoming a war of extinction, the things they wish for will never come true, and the things they fear will be all that’s left.

27 Hours is a sweeping, thrilling story featuring a stellar cast of queer teenagers battling to save their homes and possibly every human on Sahara as the clock ticks down to zero.

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About Tristina Wright
Tristina Wright is a blue-haired bisexual with anxiety and opinions. She’s also possibly a mermaid,

but no one can get confirmation. She fell in love with science fiction and fantasy at a young age and frequently got caught writing in class instead of paying attention. She enjoys worlds with monsters and kissing and monsters kissing. She married a nerd who can build computers and make the sun shine with his smile. Most days, she can be found drinking coffee from her favorite chipped mug and making up more stories for her wombfruit, who keep life exciting and unpredictable.

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Giveaway Details:

A 27 Hours Prize Pack, including:

* A 27 Hours Candle

* A set of 27 Hours Character Cards

* AND a copy of an October release *

*Open internationally wherever The Book Depository ships

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Author Jessica Kapp Shares Her Inspiring Path to Publication + a Giveaway!

Today I'm excited to welcome BODY PARTS author Jessica Kapp to Thinking to Inking, where she shares her inspiring path to publication (spoiler alert: never give up!)  Don't forget to scroll to the bottom of the post for a chance to win an Amazon Giftcard and an autographed bookmark!

It took me two long years to finish my first novel, and I didn’t do anything with it. It was a hot mess—still is—but I learned I could complete a novel, and that prompted me to start book number two. My second attempt went much faster, and within a few months I was ready to polish.

Sadly, I finished revising it right when agents and publishers were saturated with similar books in my genre. Query after query I got the same reply: I can’t sell this in today’s crowded market. Determined to find a home for my manuscript, I went to the Pacific Northwest Writers Association conference and pitched it to agents.

I caught the excitement of an agent who said she loved my energy and, thank goodness, the pitch. She requested my full manuscript and I practically floated home thinking, ‘This is it. I’m on my way.’

That agent emailed me throughout her read, but there were a handful of areas that needed to be fixed. So, instead of offering me representation, she asked me to revise and resubmit. A week or so later, she sent me her notes. I jumped in headfirst and spent night after night perfecting my novel, incorporating all the elements she suggested. It was stronger and better than ever.

I sent it off and waited for her quick reply.

Weeks went by. Then months.

I wrote another novel.

I finished that novel

I polished that novel.

And when I was ready to send that new manuscript into the world, I nudged the agent to let her know I’d completed BODY PARTS.

That prompted her to finish reading the revised manuscript as well as my new one. Around that the same time, I entered Pitch Madness, and while I didn’t get in, I received an encouraging message from one of the slush readers who mentioned I came really close to getting in. She insisted I send queries into the Agent World, so I drafted a few and, with a shaky hand, hit send.

The responses came back slow at first, then two full requests came within hours of each other. A week later, an agent requested my manuscript 12 MINUTES after I queried her (cue the freakout session).

Despite the good news, rejections trickled in. The agent sitting on my old manuscript sent me a rejection. BODY PARTS still needed a home.

One of my CPs convinced me to participate in #RTSlap, a Twitter pitch event I hadn’t planned on entering. I was full of coffee and optimism, so I sent one pitch out into the Twitterverse and called it good. Later that night, I checked my account and saw an agent had favorited my tweet. Eureka! That agent was Whitley Abell, and she offered me representation shortly after I sent her the full manuscript.

We polished the manuscript and went out on submission on my birthday. It was a nice way to celebrate, but the publishing world moves at the speed of molasses sliding uphill. So we waited and waited.

Finally, on my way to pick up my kids from school, I saw that beautiful envelope icon pop up on my phone. I pulled over as soon as I could and clicked on it. The subject of the email read: OFFER RECEIVED.

My book was going to be published.

I remember crying as I dialed my husband. I remember blubbering something incoherent.

And I remember getting the first good night’s sleep in months.

About Body Parts:

Body Parts by Jessica Kapp

Publication Date: August 15, 2017

Publisher: Diversion Publishing

People would kill for her body.

Raised in an elite foster center off the California coast, sixteen-year-old Tabitha’s been sculpted into a world-class athlete. Her trainers have told her she’ll need to be in top physical condition to be matched with a loving family, even though personal health has taken a backseat outside the training facility. While Tabitha swims laps and shaves seconds off her mile time, hoping to find a permanent home, the rest of the community takes pills produced by pharmaceutical giant PharmPerfect to erase their wrinkles, grow hair, and develop superhuman strength.

When Tabitha’s finally paired, instead of being taken to meet her new parents, she wakes up immobile on a hospital bed. Moments before she’s sliced open, a group of renegade teenagers rescues her, and she learns the real reason for her perfect health: PharmPerfect is using her foster program as a replacement factory for their pill-addicted clients’ failing organs. And her friends from the center, the only family she’s ever known, are next in line to be harvested.

Determined to save them, Tabitha joins forces with her rescuers, led by moody and mysterious Gavin Stiles. As they race to infiltrate the hospital and uncover the rest of PharmPerfect’s secrets, though, Tabitha finds herself with more questions than answers. Will trusting the enigmatic group of rebels lead her back to the slaughterhouse?

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About The Author:

Jessica Kapp enjoys writing Young Adult Contemporary and Speculative Fiction. Story ideas often strike at inopportune times, and she’s been known to text herself reminders from under the covers.

She lives on a small farm in Washington with far too many goats and an occasional cow.

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