9ème Forum des Enseignants innovants: presentation of my OIB projects to the French Minsiter of Education

As some of you know, I have had to undergo emergency surgery. I am missing my dear students more than I can tell! And I still must lie down as much as possible.

That is why it has taken so long to write this post!

To My dear 10th grade students,

Your literature projects were selected by François Jarraud (Café Padagogique) to be presented to the French Minister of Education.

Your work and some of the content you created was really appreciated!

I am SO proud of you!

"9ème Forun des Enseignants Innovants": poster

Poster from Marie-Hélène Fasquel

"9ème Forun des Enseignants Innovants": the American OIB project has been selected!

Congratulations to the American OIB students!

Their literature project has been selected as one of the most innovative projects in France! You can read it here (in French).

I will represent them on Friday 26 and Saturday 27, November 2016.

This article explains what this forum is about.

Deek Rhew: guest writer and future guest speaker!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you so much for inviting me onto your blog, Marie!

Today, we are talking about the wild and crazy ride of getting from "It was a dark and stormy night..." to "Yaaaay! You're officially published." There was an article I read by Dave Barry who talked about a flight he took to California. Everyone boarded and while they were waiting to take off, he randomly started asking people how much they paid for their ticket. The answer was not surprising: No one on that flight paid the same fare. So is it with authors: No one's journey is the same.

122 Rules is my second book, published by Pandamoon Publishing. My first one, Birth of an American Gigolo, I chose to self-publish last January. It's been a crazy crazy whirlwind adventure. Surprising, as incredibly different as these two books are, they actually started out as the same story. I'm a bit of a rabbit trail follower. In the middle of writing 122, a side story of a woman and her cheating husband emerged. Even at the time, I knew I'd have to pull it because it didn't fit, but Lindsey is a bit assertive and would not rest until her tale had been told. After I wrote it, I put it on a shelf, where it collected dust for the better part of four years.


In the interim, I finished 122 and joined a critique partner group. I was paired with a wickedly smart (and incredibly beautiful) woman, Erin Rhew, to help with my grammar (my books are basically long-winded emails) and to critique the story. She did Birth first, then worked on 122. We started talking in the comments sections of those manuscripts. Those conversations lead to emails, which lead to phone calls, which lead to FaceTime. Erin and I have been married for almost two years now. So no matter what happens I'll always be a smashing success because my love of writing led me to the love of my life.

See how I told you no two authors' paths are the same?

Okay, so the books...Well, I wrote query letter after query letter and have a wall of rejection letters to show for my efforts. I never got a single request for more. Not a full request, not a "send more chapters." Zilch. I got my break during #PitMad on Twitter. Since Erin and I were really busy preparing to sell a house, I was going to skip the event, but she told me to take a few minutes and write some tweets. Maybe it's because I didn't have time to overthink that it worked? I received several requests for my manuscript, one of whom, Pandamoon, offered me a contract.

Fast-forward through the long, arduous editing process, creating a cover, sending out ARCs, so on and so on, and here we are. My book has been out for almost six months, and I couldn't be happier with it.

You need to be prepared for your editors to teach you some lessons. Erin is so super smart in grammar, and I can't even begin to tell you how much she taught me about passive voice, leaving "this" dangling without pointing to things, the evils of adverbs, and so forth. My content editor, Anya, is so good at the macro level of a story. We moved, removed, and added things like crazy for the better part of five months. Some of it hurt SO bad. Erin's friend, Heather, taught Erin and I both about "talking heads"--long strings of dialog without any character action--and how to fix that.

It's indescribable how much better this story is because of all the people who've helped me learn the writing craft. I've still got a ton to learn, but I'm beyond grateful to have such wonderful peeps willing and able to help.

I think the biggest takeaways from all of this are:
A) Be patient - This is a SLOW process. You are learning a new craft, and the writing/publishing process NEVER moves as fast as you want it to.
B) Be humble - You will think your story is pretty good. It will resonate with you, and you'll nod and pat yourself on the back. Then an editor comes and throws cold water on your warm fuzzies. This isn't personal. The road to getting better is anything but easy.
C) Listen - These people are trying to help you become a better writer and to make your book better. Listen to them.
D) Learn - Everyone wants you to succeed, but you have many many lessons to get there. Learn the lessons and incorporate them. Do NOT listen, nod, then go back to what you were doing.

Remember: You can always be better.

I’ll leave you with this little story. Before I started writing I played bass as a music major. One of the things you have to learn in jazz is how to solo. You can prepare for one, plan it out and know exactly what you are going to play, but generally solos are usually made up on the fly. My private bass tutor Tom Wakeling gave me the best advice I’d ever heard and it applies to most anything you are learning.

He said that you have ten thousand turkeys—a.k.a. “bad”—solos in you. The sooner you get them out, the sooner you can start giving good solos.

In writing, you have ten thousand turkeys—a.k.a. writing mistakes—in you. The sooner you get them out, the sooner you will be writing well.

Until next time, my friends. Adventure on!

Kai Strand: some thoughts about the first Skype interview (by some of my students)

Today, some students wrote a post in honor of Kai Strand who did the first Skype interview with them.
Thanbk you so much to them and to Kai!

Last Thursday, the 10th grade OIB class got to know the American writer Kai Strand whom they met during a Skype interview. It was a neat opportunity because most of us had never done a Skype interview before with a writer. Kai Strand was very nice to us and answered all our questions in great detail. We had prepared the interview during a lesson the week before by preparing all of the questions we wanted to ask, and analysing an excerpt from one of her works. On the day itself, we all picked a question to ask Kai and one by one we went to the teacher's desk to ask Kai our question. Here are some of our questions:

Where do you get your inspiration?

Do you intend to convey a message in your books?

Are you influenced by other writers?

I think what surprised us the most was when she told us that writing was just a part-time job for her. She explained to us that there was a moment in her life when she was a full-time writer, though she stopped doing it because she said it was easy to lose yourself when you are a writer. It was really great to see how much she is passionate about her work. Thus, it was a real pleasure for us to ask her our questions. It’s a shame we could not ask her more! I think we were all grateful after the interview for the time she spent with us. Thanks again Kai for the interview!
Article by Kostia.


Other students’ messages:

It was really cool to meet you, Kai, it was a pleasure!!! I learnt so much about you and your writing and authors in general! Thank you very much, Incredible experience!!

Bassma: The answers to our questions were clear and detailed, Kai sometimes gave us extra anecdotes that we hadn’t even thought of!

Dara: I really enjoyed this experience, I felt it was a great opportunity for our class to meet a real life writer. She answered our questions very clearly and used accessible language. She was very nice. Thank you Kai :)

Allan: Really interesting interview, learnt a lot from what Kai said, unforgettable experience, cannot wait for the next interview! Thank you Kai!

Lila: It was awesome to be able to meet an actual author and to be able to ask her questions I was always curious about. Kai was lovely and enthusiastically answered our questions!

Mathilde: It was such a pleasure meeting you. Your answers were very clear and developed and you really seemed passionate about your work! Thank you for taking the time to speak to us!

Zoé & San: Everyone should be able to have a similar experience once in their life! Thanks for your enthusiastic and wise answers, thanks for letting us enter your fantastic world!

New guest writer! Eric Price will be my students' next guest speaker!

It is a great honor to share this post with you! Thank you Eric for being such a wonderful person!


My interest in writing books developed around the same time I developed an interest in reading them. As a child, few things interested me less than reading. But around the time I started 7th grade, a few unrelated events happened to change my mind and to begin shaping me into the person I am today.
First, one of my friends started reading Stephen King books. He’d have me read passages, such as King’s abbreviated version of “Hansel and Gretel” from the Forward to The Stand: Complete and Uncut. I found these excerpts entertaining, and eventually I discovered a tattered second-hand copy of The Shinning at the library. As far as I can remember, this is the first book I read for the pleasure of reading, not a homework assignment. I have continued to read three or four Stephen King books every year since then. He’s still one of the authors I admire most; and while I don’t think every story he writes is a gem, he still puts out about a book a year without participating in the “formula writing” that so many big name authors seem to do these days.
My 7th grade Literature teacher also played a major role in my development. She had a passion for books I had never seen, and she introduced me to Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe. While much darker than anything I read in primary school, Irving and Poe blended with King to form a perfect matrix for my blossoming love for the macabre. As a side note, I spent these same years listening to Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper and combing the video store shelves for all the horror films I could find—from the Universal classics to the low budget B-movies that may have been filmed in someone’s basement.
So you may wonder if I’m a horror writer. The best answer I can give is sort of. I certainly do write horror, I have a book about the Salem Witch Trials I’ve been working on for several years, but it’s slow going because I want the historical elements to be perfect, especially the dialogue. My published novels, while fantasy, have elements of horror in them. In fact, I think horror, fantasy, and science fiction are genre cousins—possibly genre siblings. And my very first published story was a children’s tale about a haunted bed and breakfast.
This tale, “Ghost Bed and Ghoul Breakfast,” also marked my first serious effort at becoming a published author. As I stated before, I started writing stories around the same time I started reading them, but at first, I mostly wrote plot ideas and vague synopses. As I developed a love for comic books, I tried my hand at writing comics (I even drew the pictures, even though I have zero artistic ability). This helped me with character development, but I eventually migrated away from illustrations and back into narrative. By the time I finished college I developed a proficiency at beginning stories, but I never finished them before I started something new.
One day I came across a flyer for The Institute of Children’s Literature. I had never considered writing children’s stories, but I enjoyed reading YA so I applied and was accepted into the first of two courses I took with The Institute of Children’s Literature. These courses provided the discipline I needed to complete stories. “Ghost Bed and Ghoul Breakfast” began as an assignment for my first course; my first novel, Unveiling the Wizards’ Shroud, started as my project for the second course.
I’m a natural introvert, and I don’t mind bragging about how good I am at the lifestyle. As such, I find social media a challenge. Especially the part where I say, “Hey, I wrote these books. If you like fantasy you should check them out.” Or whatever more creative, or less creative, way people have devised to say, “Buy my book.” At first, I followed a lot of authors on Twitter to see what they were doing to promote their book, but it seemed to me most of it broke down to “Buy my book.” One day I got the idea, since I wasn’t learning much from other authors, I’d start following literature teachers, especially at the high school level, to see what they were talking about. I hoped to keep my finger on the pulse of publishing trends by doing this. I never expected to develop a working relationship from it, but that’s exactly what happened.
I’ve had the honor of working with Mrs. Fasquel’s classes for the past two years. As an introvert, my first instinct was to turn her down, but I forced myself to say yes as I’d have the opportunity to work with students very near the age of my target audience. And even though this is face to face interaction, I find it easier than posting to social media. I know it doesn’t make sense, I suppose it’s because I’m dealing with a small group of people, not the thousands that could see my posts on social media.
The experience has benefited me more than I could have ever hoped. I’ve learned what the students like and do not like to read, I’ve honed my writing abilities, I’ve expanded my reading list based on some of their suggestions, and most importantly, I’ve had the privilege to share the joys as a few of the students have achieved their own writing successes.
I must assume Mrs. Fasquel’s students have also found the experience beneficial, or she wouldn’t have asked me back for a third year. This year has me excited and nervous because the students will study a very short excerpt from Unveiling the Wizards’ Shroud. My approach to writing comes largely from Stephen King’s advice. And while I consider the whole of his book On Writing invaluable, the sentence that resonates most for me is: “Good fiction always begins with story and progresses to theme; it almost never begins with theme and progresses to story.” He says basically the same thing, though less directly, about symbolism and other elements of fiction. When I set out to write my books, I wanted to write an entertaining story. I polished them to the best of my ability and with the assistance of my wonderful editors, but I daresay the students may grow to understand the incipit of my book better than I do.

And here are the presentation slides I will use to analyze the incipit of Unveiling the Wizard's Shroud with my students:

Eric Price from Marie-Hélène Fasquel

New Guest Writer! Erin Rhew, author of The Fulfillment series

Before being interviewed by my students on Skype, Erin Rhew has just shared her huest writer's post!
Thank you so much Erin!
Here is her website.

Thanks so much for hosting me today, Marie!!

Things I Didn’t Know About Being A Writer

I think most new writers start out a bit naïve about the process. When you look around, books just seem to sell. A big named author releases a new novel, and BOOM, it’s a bestseller. No one ever mentions all the behind-the-scenes mayhem that contributes to that bestseller or how many rejections that person received before he or she hit it big.
The first thing I didn’t know about being a writer was the process of publication. I just thought I’d write the next great American novel (as each writer aspires to do), and it would be published. Wham-bam! Just like that. But noooooo, there is a long hard road that must be hoed on the path to publication. First, a writer must send a query letter to prospective agents or publishers. And wait. Note: Waiting is the theme of a writer’s life, which is tricky for someone with ADD. Sometimes the rejections are instantaneous, and sometimes you receive them a year later. You think, “If only this person would READ my book, they’d love it.” And then, angels sing the day you get a request from someone to see more of your work. Elation fills you as you think this one may be “the one.” More waiting—sometimes as long as 6 months. And then there is the rejection—the heart wrenching, soul-crushing rejection. The person actually read your book and still said no. It’s a knife to the heart. But the day comes where someone says, “Yes,” and you jump up and down, squealing like a maniac, in the middle of a pet store. Or was that just me? ;)
I don’t think I realized how many people aspire to be authors. There are so very many of us. Thankfully, the process of publication has shifted. People have options for their books—traditional, small-press, self-published, and any combination therein. Some choose self-publication and end up with small press contracts. Some choose small press and end up with traditional contracts. While others choose self-pub or small press and are happy to stay that way. And some dabble in all—like Jennifer Armentrout. There are also new ways, besides querying, to receive contracts. #PitMad on Twitter and other similar contests are new avenues by which an author can get his/her work seen. I think it’s a special time for authors with this smörgåsbord board of opportunities and options.
Writing itself is a fairly solitary process. But after having been through it, I realized just how much support a writer needs. First, I needed a support team to help me get my writing done. I call them the Dream Team! They kept me on track and motivated while I wrote and then later as I queried. When I cried over rejections, they told me, “Stay the course! It only takes one ‘yes.’” I also needed help from my critique partners: Mary Waibel, Meradeth Houston, Michelle Pickett, T.C. Mckee, and Deek Rhew. Since they are all writers as well, they could help hone the more industry necessary portions of my piece (reduce adverbs, maintain a consistent POV, etc.). Once my book got picked up by a publisher, I received the help of professional content and line editors who shaped and molded my story into something better. And when the time finally came for marketing and promoting, I really needed other authors, bloggers, and book reviewers to help get the word out about my novel. So, what starts as a solitary endeavor grows into the work of an entire village.
Here’s a little slightly off-topic-but-still-related story: I didn’t know writing could lead you to your soulmate. Deek started out as my critique partner. I received one of his short stories to critique as I am the resident “grammar nerd” of our group. Editing his piece began a friendship that, over a period of time, grew into something more. Now, we’re married. Without writing, I would never have met him. So, being an author can change a person’s life in a myriad of ways! You never know where “the one” might be hiding! ;)
I think the biggest thing I didn’t know about being a writer is how much time I would need to devote to marketing and promotion. Even the traditional publishers are leaving most of the marketing work up to the authors. Gone are the days of authors being given high-powered publicists with their hands in cookies jars around the world. Now the authors themselves must do that work. It takes away from writing time. Whereas I used to sit and write for a solid hour, I must now promote for 30 minutes and write for 30 minutes. My process is slower. I’m not churning out the stories as I once did. Time flits away from me like a fairy I can’t seem to catch. I feel stressed, always behind. But at the same time, I’ve met amazing people. I’ve created lifelong friendships and invested myself in amazing people.
If you have written a book and are looking at any level of publication, I encourage you to pursue it. It’s worth the sacrifices. You’ll grow and change in ways you never imagined. And more importantly, you’ll never have to say you didn’t try. Always chase your dreams!