Big News! Agent!

This week I signed with Victoria Marini of Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents! Victoria will be representing my second novel, Bulfinch, and future works of fiction to editors at publishing houses. I'm absolutely thrilled; Victoria already has a list of pretty classy editors to start submitting to, and I'm looking forward to hearing soon about how the first round goes! GSLA is a respected agency, and they're represented some big works, like Girl with a Pearl Earring.

So, for those who don't know, a literary agent represents an author's work to acquiring editors at publishing houses. This is a vital service to the author since most major publishers don't accept "unsolicited" manuscripts - in other words, manuscripts submitted directly by authors. Agents basically select out promising writers from the immense pool of hopeful authors, which is why editors prefer to look at submissions from them - the sheer volume of unsolicited manuscripts makes the agent's role in selection just as important to editors as it is to the authors they represent.

Getting an agent is a huge first step for any hopeful author after she's learned to actually finish a manuscript. Writers find agents by querying them: sending letters (or, more typically, emails) with a synopsis of the work, a brief bio of the writer, and some basics on the manuscript: length, stage of completion, genre. And boy do we query in droves: my mom and several of her writer friends asked one another about it once, and determined they'd each queried about 100 agents before signing with their first ones. I think I got off pretty easy with about 40 queries before Victoria came along.

The process doesn't end with the query, either; if an agent likes the query, she might ask for a partial, or excerpt, of the manuscript, of anywhere from five to fifty pages; if the first partial is short, the agent may even ask for a second, longer partial before finally requesting the full manuscript. And even then, some agents - like mine - may ask for revisions before considering representation: they want to know you're willing to work with them, and there might be issues in the manuscript that make it unmarketable in its current state, but they want to be certain that revision will address those problems satisfactorily before agreeing to represent.

After an agent agrees to represent your work, she'll begin submitting it to editors. A lot of agencies also handle subsidiary rights if the author retains a portion of them after an initial sale: electronic rights, film rights, foreign rights, reprint rights. Agents work on commission and typically subtract 15% from the sale of most rights as their fee.

And that's how publishing goes 'round. Please ascribe any glaring errors in grammar, spelling or punctuation to a dangerous concoction of cold medication, sinus congestion and David Foster Wallace.

Check it out - as I've mentioned here before, my mom is a writer too, and the best writing teacher I've ever had. She was invited to write a post for the MamaWriters blog, and instead of writing about being a mom and a writer, she wrote about being the mom of a writer. It's really sweet, and you can read it here. Don't forget to visit her website too, www.libbysternberg.com. Love you, mom!

This week I received revisions for Queens of All the Earth from Harrison Demchick, my editor at Bancroft Press. Getting accepted is only half the battle - there's still a lot of work to do, but I'm hoping that with some focus I can get through the edits in a month and a half, working on evenings and weekends. Whew! Even with all this work ahead of me, it's still exciting to think that this will end up as a book on a shelf.

wants to be lawyer, filmmaker, novelist

It's done! The second major revision of my second novel, Bulfinch, is done, and I think this is its final state, barring minor adjustments. It was hard to put it down - after two years, the characters have begun to feel very real to me, and almost like a family, and it's a little strange and alienating to realize that from an outsider's perspective, it might seem sad to be so attached to creatures who only live in my imagination. I just hope that when other people read it, they can feel the same connection, and the magic of seeing these characters come alive. I don't look back at the two years I spent writing and revising Bulfinch as a process of creating something; by the end, it felt like a weird combination of playing God and experiencing something, as if I were there with my characters, just recording what they did and said, and though I dictated to them what would occur, they sometimes shot back with unexpected quirks. If it ever gets published, I'll have to return to it again to satisfy editors' suggestions, but I have a feeling that this is the end, for this project, of that supernaturally intense phase of absorption. I'll miss it.

But I already have plenty of other things to look forward to - such as the Washington, DC 48 Hour Film Project, in which I'll be joining a team to create a short film in 48 hours using a prompt that will only be revealed to us at the start of the contest. I'll be the primary writer and rough cut editor for my team, and I'm thrilled - it will be quite an adventure, creatively and logistically. Franny, my little DVX, will be sitting this one out, sadly - she's been one-upped by another team-member's P2 camera. Franny will come out soon, though, once I finally convince her that not all filmmakers are section men.

Chatterton Screening at JHU Film Fest

Hello hello! Sorry I've been neglecting the blog...when I only have time to do one thing, either write here or work on the projects I'd write about, I have to work on the projects! And the day job has been especially demanding.

But for everyone in the Baltimore/DC area, this weekend you should visit the JHU Film Fest! It's organized by a great bunch of undergrads and professors, featuring international submissions mixed in with local works and classic film. Tonight they're screening La Dolce Vita, and on Sunday they're hosting the festival premiere of Chatterton! Go to their website (link above) for more information, and if you're in the area, make sure to stop by. I've done it a couple of times and helped organize it last year, and it's a really fun event.

If you're not in the Baltimore/DC area, remember you can still watch Chatterton online!

Death Is the Cool Night

My mom's latest mystery novel has just been released on Amazon's Kindle! Death Is the Cool Night is a winding murder mystery set in the drama and intrigue of Peabody Conservatory's opera program during the tumultuous 1940s, as war looms over the country. It's an atmospheric tale that will haunt you like the lied that provided its title. Check it out here.

Also, you can visit my mom's website here! Check out her acclaimed comedic women's fiction and young adult mystery series, and stand by for info about her upcoming historical drama!

I now own a lovely little Panasonic DVX100A, sold to me, with all sorts of excellent accessories and a case, by Richard Chisolm, friend of my old professor John Mann.

I'm naming it Franny.

Poor little blog, so lonely without me. What's new? Traipsing up to Baltimore this weekend to buy a camera. It's a beautiful day. Chatterton is making its merry way to two festivals this week; two more going out next week. I have a fresh story to work on and fresh places to take the old ones. And outside, it smells like spring.

Article on Chatterton!

Check it out: my old college newspaper interviewed me about Chatterton and Bedford Square! Read the article here.

not dead yet

It's been a while since a post here, mostly because my Life as a Day Job has been pretty hectic, and partially because a lot of my projects are either done or in the boring preparing-to-start or wrapping-up phases. Not boring for me, but boring for anyone who has to sit and listen to it. So what's going on?

+researching festivals for Chatterton
+revising my second novel, Bulfinch, for a potentially interested agent
+waiting for edits to come in on The Queens of All the Earth
+figuring out once and for all the correct way to capitalize The Queens of All the Earth
+collecting my thoughts on my next film projects: writing illegible notes to myself in the middle of the night, daydreaming while the progress bars of innumerable video transcodes inch along on my work computer, enjoying sudden weird visions of a scene while listening to the perfect song, walking into walls with increasing frequency because my head really isn't here

Stay posted. Things will get interesting soon.

Chatterton premiere!

My friend and former professor Meredith has offered to "premiere" Chatterton at the JHU student screenings this Friday, February 12. I'm excited to see it on a big screen, in Baltimore, with all the friends who worked on it and supported me while I traveled into the realm of Crazy-Exhausted Artist to get it done. Partytime! In a totally school-appropriate way.

Chatterton

It's done. Enjoy!

Chatterton from Hannah Sternberg on Vimeo.

(Keep your eyes peeled for crew member cameos in the final scene: Aljosa, Carlos, Steph, Emma, Charles and me.)

It's been over a week since I wrote here, so I present to you now, dear readers, a list of Causes That May Prevent One from Finishing One's Short Film During the Week in which One Intended To*:

a) getting a bad cold
B) getting a good job
6) saying good-bye to old job
xxi) saying hello to liquor
e) only with the best of friends
&) needing very seriously to spend one night simply lying in the dark, listening to the rain tink against the windows
...) needing very seriously to see the people who make me smile
5) seeing them, and smiling
!) taking a rest, drinking the air, tasting the rain, so I can
91) finish the film next week, and do it well.





*I will not be held responsible for any capitalization errors in the list title above, due to the items contained in the list, technically making it a list of Causes That May Prevent One from Finishing One's Short Film During the Week in which One Intended To, and May Also Incite Random Capitalization Errors which One Has Neither the Energy nor the Desire to Correct Despite One's Usually Freakish Fascination with Grammar.

New Year, New Book, New Film!

I'm very happy to announce that I've sold my first book to Bancroft Press of Baltimore, Maryland.

The Queens of All the Earth is a young adult novel about two neurotic sisters who escape their iceberg mother one Thanksgiving by traveling to Barcelona to find a little peace. But they stumble into the opposite, as the eccentric travelers they meet in their hostel show them what they're really running from. The Queens of All the Earth is a gentle coming-of-age inspired by E. M. Forster's A Room with a View, a story of young love and awakening.

Bancroft Press has also purchased the cover I'd designed for the novel. You can see it below; I hope to post more tidbits about the book, and give away some free copies, as its release approaches. Right now, it's scheduled to come out this fall.


In other exciting news, I'll finish post-production on the Bedford Square short film Chatterton within two weeks. Once that's wrapped up, I'll be focusing on festival submissions and internet promotion - meaning I'll finally have time to compress and post bits of it here, and soon I'll even make the whole film available online.

So what else is coming up in this new year? Well, after a little break, I'm doing another revision of Bulfinch; I'm hoping to start working on an album-length lost-and-found film borrowing some music from the band Menomena; writing a few film columns for Historical Novels Review; and working on some new fiction. Oh, also, holding a job and trying to be a normal person.

Chatterton is almost complete!

In the last week Jay has sent me first cuts of the sound mix and animation sequence for Chatterton, officially earning him Batman status for working on my film, surviving finals and the holidays, and applying to grad school all at the same time. I'm hoping to visit Baltimore next weekend to wrap everything up. Some of the film festivals I'm sending it to have ambiguous warnings against submissions with "internet distribution," but I say, screw it, they can't stop me. I'm posting the film online because so many people have helped and supported me throughout the entire process that I want every one of them to be able to enjoy it and share it with their friends.

Last May, a few weeks after graduation, I felt a little lost, wondering what to do with all the passion I felt for art, when I had to get a job, pay my bills, and be a responsible person. So I started writing a story about four kids caught in that decision - four artists who aren't quite put together. As soon as I finished, I knew I absolutely had to create this film, so for the next two months I did everything I could to gather all the pieces I needed - I wheedled friends into acting and crewing for me; I borrowed equipment from my old school, from a professor and from former classmates; I bought a month of weekends in my friends' apartment with a few six-packs and a smile. I thought of everyone I knew who could do something special, and asked them to help - help make costumes, take pictures, decorate sets, manage production, light scenes, run lines, animate, record sound, become the world's only Human Steadicam, drink beer and stand around charmingly in a party scene, keep my head from exploding.

Then, in September, to my overwhelming wonder, I succeeded in shooting an entirely independent short film - on time, on budget, and directly within my vision for it. Up until the last hour before I left for Baltimore on the evening before the first shoot, I was still unconvinced that it would actually happen. But each day we worked, I grew more confident. Each day convinced me that this - filmmaking - was the thing that I am strangely built for.

It was hard - we started shooting only a few weeks after I began my new full-time job. For three weekends, I ran myself down until I was sick with exhaustion, then came to the office on Monday. And then for three months after that, I juggled my new life in DC with visits to Baltimore to edit the film - weekends that were always too short to do all the work and see all the friends I wanted to see. I invariably caught a train several hours later than I had planned on returning home on Sunday, and nourished a tidy little caffeine addiction.

But my friends worked just as hard, giving up days and weekends during a busy semester, generating their own creative work to contribute, and giving me a more objective eye on my own work. Every effort they contributed was a vote of confidence in me and my vision, and it inspired me to work even harder. It's been half a year now - ending in a new year - and I can barely believe it's almost over, something like the feeling of unreality when we finally started shooting. I'm incredibly proud of us. And I can't wait to start the next one.

The complete list of Holiday Leftovers Reading - books given to me for Christmas or bought with Christmas money.

Once in high school a friend's dad asked me what I got for Christmas, and I said, "Oh, a lot of books, and a pair of socks." He felt so sorry for me he actually offered to buy me something "fun." I never really saw what the big tragedy was.


And the reading list is...

Ayn Rand, Anthem

The Portable Dorothy Parker

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged: given to me by brother Joe, who is not a huge fan of Rand, prompting him to give me in the same package:
George Orwell, All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

Herman Melville, Billy Budd and Other Stories
(I've read Billy Budd, but that's my only Melville so far. I liked it a lot though, and it's also the inspiration for one of my favorite movies, so I thought I'd try his others.)

David McCullough, 1776
From the parents, encouraging my realization that just because high school failed to teach me early American history, I shouldn't sit around and mope about it - I could actually bother to learn it myself.

...and two books on learning the guitar from brother David, who sweetly listened to me talk about how I wanted to pick it up. Unfortunately, I didn't think as far as how I would get Dad's old guitar back to DC with me, so until my parents visit, that gift will have to take a temporary vacation on the Shelf of Useless Reference, between my German-English dictionary and a book of London streetmaps.

Post-Christmas Reading

Beginning with The Portable Dorothy Parker.* Incidentally, the copy I picked up includes the original Portable plus several hundred pages of extra material, all in a sturdy trade paperback edition, making it slightly less than...erhm...portable.

This means I can choose to haul this tome in my purse for commute reading - jettisoning, along the way, high heels and possibly lunch - or I can read a smaller book on my commute and save Dorothy for nighttime reading. The problem with this compromise is I always get more involved in one or the other of the books, so I'll gulp down the traveling book while I'm all comfortable in bed, and then I'll drag the huge book on the Metro with me because I miss it too much when I leave it at home. This is what happened when I tried to alternate America's Constitution with a pocket copy of The Fountainhead. Eventually I ended up carrying Amar's huge book around until I felt like a highschooler between classes. At least I never felt afraid walking home at night. You could kill a man with that hardcover edition. I am not kidding.



*Well, technically it began with Ayn Rand's Anthem, but I finished that on the train. I started it on the train, too.

The Dispossessed

I have a fantastic Christmas haul of books to read, so it's good that I was already so close to the end of The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. It's the third I've read by her (after The Lathe of Heaven and The Left Hand of Darkness) and like the others, it took a couple of tries before I dove in. Le Guin is most easily classified as a scifi novelist, but her books are more about cultural anthropology than technology or prediction; she uses the plot vehicle of space travel to explore microcosms of human behavior, often posing at least one prominent difference from Earth's reality. In The Left Hand of Darkness, she explored a world with absolutely no concept of gender, split between two nations: one feudalistic, the other, a totalitarian state.

The Dispossessed is a bit more complex, simply for not defining a single difference from ordinary society as striking as the absence of gender in The Left Hand of Darkness. Instead, she begins with two worlds: one resembles an idyllic Earth, with elements of eighteenth-century opulence and nineteenth-century industrial expansion. The second is its moon, which has been colonized by socialist anarchists, self-exiled. Though I'm skeptical as usual of Le Guin's politics, I'm also grateful for her own skepticism, written most plainly in the book's subtitle: An Ambiguous Utopia. Despite the protagonist's multi-world tour of clashing economic models, the book is often surprisingly tender and personal. Le Guin caught me, just as she did in the other two books, with her disarming moments of pure observation. Her own improbable skepticism and ambiguity stems from an understanding of people, the simple understanding that an individual human will always be more important, more complex, and more fascinating than any economic idea.

My now-battered paperback is riddled with dog ears to mark the quotes I liked. This is one of the passages that moved me the most. It reminded me of the feeling of making films, or of losing myself in a story I'm writing. The feeling of doing the work that fills you with passion and purpose.

The wall was down. The vision was both clear and whole. What he saw was simple, simpler than anything else. It was simplicity: and contained in it all complexity, all promise. It was revelation. It was the way clear, the way home, the light.

The spirit in him was like a child running out into the sunlight. There was no end, no end...

And yet in his utter ease and happiness he shook with fear; his hands trembled, and his eyes filled up with tears, as if he had been looking into the sun. After all, the flesh is not transparent. And it is strange, exceedingly strange, to know that one's life has been fulfilled.

Yet he kept looking, and going farther, with that same childish joy, until all at once he could not go any farther; he came back, and looking around through his tears saw that the room was dark and the high windows were full of stars.

Holiday Rand

Being surrounded by the happy insanity of my family for the holidays has reminded me of a quote from The Fountainhead: "All love is exception-making." This struck me as one of the most true, and most uncharacteristic (from my very limited experience with Rand) quotes in the book.

I started to wonder what exactly this Randian "exception-making" means. The closest I could come at first was "forgiveness," a term I imagine she recoiled from because of its frequent use in religion (again, based on my so-far very limited reading of her work). But to me, it seems that her concept of making an exception of and for the people one loves is a kind of forgiveness of their faults - and also a forgiveness of one's self for the bend in principle the first half requires. I think that this second half of forgiveness is what makes it Randian - rather than breaking or abandoning personal principle, the forgiveness, the "exception-making," is a conscious, individual judgement on that principle and its worth, compared to the worth of the person in one's heart.

Imagine I, on principle, reject all nail-biters as slaves to a compulsion. But I love you, though you are a nail-biter. My love is exception-making because I have made an exception of you, as an individual, from my cosmic rejection of nail-biters; this is the external half of my exception. I have also made an exception in my principled rejection of nail-biters; this is the internal half.

Roark's love of Gail Wynand is exception-making. Wynand is exceptional as an individual Roark respects, despite Wynand's failures. And Roark - even Roark - has made an exception to his rigid principles to preserve Wynand from his scorn.

This seemed necessary to write out and explain to myself; I'm not sure that it makes a lot of sense. But it seems that especially on the holiday, we're thrown together with a lot of people we love and make exceptions for; and sometimes, many of the proud and stubborn people I know ask themselves why they should tolerate the faults in others. My answer is simply that if love is exception-making, then you must make the exception not just as a charitable act, easily discarded when you get tired of it; true exceptions, the exceptions made by love, are also made to the part of yourself that objects to those flaws. At that point you begin to see the pettiness of the objection in the first place.

Happy holidays - I hope they're filled with art, joy and life.