Tag Archives | Kris Asselin

My flashback weekend at #NESCBWI

By on April 23, 2012 in Writing

Laughing with friends. Camaraderie. Encouragement.

Watching friends (Kris Asselin) speak on a panel of agents and authors. Very cool.

Meeting new authors/writers/illustrators/agents.

Sitting in on a two-hour workshop on ebook coding, which was cool because I knew what he was talking about but it also was extremely helpful.

Listening to Kate Messner share about her TED talk, which was incredible. The take away? Don’t be scared of new things. If you’re scared – it might be good.

Talking about the latest Twilight fan fiction controversy. Maybe it’s because we were all so tired but I haven’t laughed that hard in a while.

Swapping books with friends and leaving with new books! Yay! Definitely going to do that again! Except my TBR pile didn’t shrink.

Realizing how incredible the top organizers of these conferences truly are. Make sure you say thank you and give yours a hug.

You might be wondering if anyone talked about self publishing or what kind of reaction I received. I’ll let you know on Thursday.

It’s time to write after an inspiring weekend. How was your weekend?

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Yay! My crit partner signed with an agent – what we can learn from it.

By on March 7, 2011 in Query letters

I’m pretty sure you all know at this point who that is – Kris Asselin. She signed with Vickie Motter. Yay! Vickie has a great blog so go check it out and follow her.

And we can all learn from Kris’s experience. But I wanted to share her signing from a crit partner’s pov.

  • Kris has what it takes to make it in this industry. And she has been much too humble in her post on how she got an agent. The girl has skill and talent.
  • Kris is an incredibly fast learner. She picked up and applied elements of craft to her writing in a year what takes most people several to learn. Did she mention The Sweet Spot was her first novel? Yeah. Probably not. It was her first novel. Pretty cool.
  • From the very start Kris had amazing confidence. Not ego, confidence. She didn’t let rejections from high profile agents get her down. After receiving an incredible rejection letter with suggestions – she kept querying. Many would have stopped to rewrite. Many would have given up after the first 20, 30, 40 rejections. Kris kept chugging along. And she found Vickie on her 67th query.
  • She also used wisdom. She didn’t stop to rewrite or look at her query again because she was receiving plenty of requests for partials and fulls. Her query letter was solid. She has mad query letter skills so if you ever get a chance to win a crit from her– go for it!

I remember chatting about a year ago and mentioning that I could totally picture the cover for The Sweet Spot. And hopefully within the next couple years I will. She hit the “sweet spot” in the industry with her sweet story of a girl named Kate – with bunches of romance and mystery thrown in.

What can we learn?

  • Don’t query until you are completely confident in your manuscript.
  • Conversely, don’t keep fiddling with your manuscript until it’s perfect because it never will be.
  • Make sure your query letter is in tiptop shape. Visit forums, ask friends – but get it critiqued.
  • Keep up with industry blogs and interviews with agents.
  • Query widely. Don’t stop. Keep going. No matter how hard the journey.

For me, having my crit partner sign with an agent makes it real. It’s no longer some avatar on Twitter announcing she/he got an agent. It’s someone I know. I read her story and saw it in the infancy stages.

And I’m telling every aspiring writer out there. You can do it. Dreams are possible. Work hard and write. Be inspired.

My 200 followers celebration ends today at noon. The winner to be announced on Wednesday.

And check out Kris’s blog for an AMAZING celebration contest!  You won’t want to miss it.

Congrats and best of luck, Kris!

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