A Declaration of Truth

(for my new friends and readers)

In case you haven’t already figured this out, my name is Nichole, and I’m a writer.

I say this in the same way as I would were I confessing to an addiction, because in many ways, it feels like one. You see, writers—we don’t always behave the way people expect, or in ways that others see as normal. Sometimes, we’re social. Especially when we’re in the company of other writers or artists. And when we are, we talk and laugh and behave as though we live in real society. Or, what feels to us like real society.

Other times, we appear to be very far away. It’s entirely possible that a writer will walk or drive right by someone they know—someone who is a good friend, even—and not see them. Not acknowledge or hear or speak to them. This is not a show of anger or disrespect. More than likely, it’s because our minds are on the other voices we hear—the ones that speak only inside our heads. Go ahead and talk to us if you want. Real voices are usually loudest.

Writers are observers by nature. We are the people who attend sports games and watch, but sometimes don’t speak. Most likely, we have not only seen and catalogued the game, but also every conversation, mannerism, name, and rule—broken and followed. We somehow manage to capture and remember pain, joy, and confusion in a single expression, in a single moment.  

We are the describers of emotion, who sometimes delve so deeply into our own feelings that we come out on the other side bruised, battered, and occasionally permanently scarred. We are warriors of words, fighters of battles, healers of hurts, wielders of the sharpest weapons ever invented.

For a writer, staring at the wall for an hour sometimes counts as a productive day. 50,000 words in a month is completely doable if it happens to be November. Another month, 5,000 words feels like an unreachable number.

We sometimes run internet searches about things like poison and weapons and chemical or biological warfare, and then talk about these things in public without causing alarm. We are the people who will go shooting just so we can accurately describe how it feels to hold a gun, and who might fictionally murder someone who has wronged us in real life. We are the people who cry when our villains die, because no matter how bad they are, we are their parent, and we love them.

Sometimes our homes are spotless and organized and efficient. Dinner is made and the laundry is folded and put away. And then we wake up, and realize that we haven’t actually done housework for weeks.  

We believe in magic, and fairies, and mermaids, vampires, and werewolves. We have seen the end of the world, and who survives and how they live. We have started revolutions and fought wars.  We know what it is to truly, deeply love, and the power found in that. We know about destruction caused by hate.

Some writers wake before dawn and write in the wee hours of morning, others (like me) do our best work after midnight. (Side note: I am almost never coherent before 10:00 a.m.)

The endless list continues, but alas, this post cannot. This is merely a glimpse.

My name is Nichole, and I have experienced all of the above.

I am a writer. 

Oh, Powerful Words

“Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Such a true statement. Words used for good can move people to action, can change lives, or at the very least, the way we think. Positive words can gift people with confidence and happiness, and most importantly, the right words have the ability to give people hope.

And hope is one of life’s most powerful emotions.

Conversely, words used for evil can cut out hearts, start wars, fights, divorce, create anger, or destroy a person’s self confidence.  

And for some, anger is more powerful than hope.

One of the most important functions of writers is to learn how to pull emotions—like hope and anger, love and hate, happiness and misery—out of our readers. But this skill also tends to be helpful in our everyday lives. For everyone, not just writers.

How have someone else’s words affected you lately? How have your words affected someone else? 

Why I Write For Young Adults

My son is graduating from high school next week. Yes, this freaks me out/makes me feel old. I have no idea where time has gone. (Kids, every adult you know will say this to you at some point, and today it’s my turn—time goes so, so, way too fast.) This graduation is a turning point for my whole family.


After this, I will have one-fewer child in pre-college schools. It’s entirely possible I’ll have one-fewer person living in my house, going on family trips, doing, well, other family things.


I remember being at this point myself not long ago. (Seriously, it was only like last year!) There was such a sense of excitement/trepidation/terror/happiness/fear/anxiety/expectation involved with growing up and being a real-life adult. I could make my own decisions and do my own thing and go my own way.


For me, turning eighteen was the biggest turning point in life. And now, years and years later, it remains that place where I catapulted into an entirely new existence.


The other day, I realized that the majority of characters in my books are right on this same cusp. They are seventeen/eighteen, standing on the ledge, ready to dive into that place from where they can never, ever come back.


It is the place where one big important thing ends, and something new and exciting and HUGE begins. It’s the day when everything changes, and the day life will never be the same.


This is where our real stories begin. And I think that’s why I write for young adults.

What time of life stands out most in your mind? Do you tend to write about those experiences too?

When it’s Okay to Quit

Yes, I said it. That horribly offensive, terribly bad word I’ve spent so many years warning you to avoid. And I’m going to say it again in this post. But don’t worry, it’s not what you think.

After seven years of writing, submitting, querying, rejections…last week, I decided to quit.

Granted, I’m not crazy enough to even pretend to believe that I could stop for good. But I gave myself permission to take a much needed break. No matter that I didn’t realize (at the time) that was what I needed most. After an epic meltdown, I realized I was being way too hard on myself, and that I was requiring more than I could give, physically or emotionally.

So I quit. And I haven’t written anything (aside from email, and now this blog) since.

I’ve caught up on some sleep, seen The Hunger Games movie twice, finished a book on my to-be-read pile and started another one, washed all the clothes in my laundry room (a major feat, FYI), mopped my kitchen floor, and had lunch with some really incredible friends. Also, I threw my daughter a huge birthday party.

All that in a few days. And guess what? I’m feeling better. Maybe not quite ready to dedicate myself to writing the way I have been, but better. I’ll get back to it. I will. You all know I’m really not a quitter. But even the most determined of us need to take mental, emotional, and physical breaks every so often.

And you know what? That’s okay. It’s okay to be human. Because, really, being robots doesn’t sound like much fun.

So tell me. When’s the last time you decided to take a break?

Emotionally Driven

Guess what? I just finished a fifth (or sixth?) draft of a manuscript. That makes two solid edits I’ve finished this year—and it’s not even February yet!

*dances around*

Also, I’m working on an outline for another idea. I’ve decided to take a different approach with this one, since it’s going to be for a different audience than my other work. I’m reading publisher websites, requirements, requests, that sort of thing. Also, I’m paying attention to what people in that target audience are reading.

I’m not surprised by what I see.

In all my research, in all genres of YA and adult material, there is one thing that will always have an audience, no matter the story. Emotion.

Stories that are emotionally driven will always have readers because emotion is something with which everyone can identify and which we all feel. Romance, love, anger, hate, happiness, contentment, fear, triumph—these are the feelings we experience every day, and also the ones our favorite characters experience in our favorite stories.

What are your favorite emotionally driven story lines?

The Breaking Point

Apparently, I have a thing for writing a blog on Wednesday and then continuing with the same subject on Friday, because here I go again.

Back to the dentist thing. You know what I realized? 99% of the time, I detest going to the dentist. I mean, yeah, I get my teeth cleaned regularly, and if I need other work, I get it done because—well, that’s just what you do if you want to keep your teeth.

But last week, I was willing to do anything to get into a dentist’s chair, positively begging to have them stick that needle in my gums and get me good and numb. Because suddenly I needed that guy. Bad. And when you have a need like that, you find yourself looking at life from a different perspective. You do and think things you wouldn’t normally do and think.

Thus, I scratched off everything else on my schedule in order to devote my week to dental consultations and treatments, and then recovery. And you guys, I’m usually a pretty frugal person, so it pains me to admit that I didn’t care how much that specialist wanted to charge. (Later, I’d have probably been ticked if it were worse than it actually was, but not that particular day.) More like, “Do you take Visa?”

Such an aberration for me. And the difference is, of course, pain.

So. Now we know I’m a wimp (ahem, quit laughing). I’ve discovered my limit, the threshold at which I crack. Everyone has one, including and especially fictional characters. And we don’t always know where that threshold lies until we cross it.

But I did learn from the experience. I won’t share here because it would be a boring info dump, so just trust me. I learned stuff.

Where is your threshold? And once you reach that limit, what would you be willing to do to back up, cross over, or just stop the madness altogether? If you’re a writer, do you know your main character’s breaking point? And more importantly, even as you’re throwing rocks at them, what will you do to save them from demise? Will you? Can you? Should you?

Great Books = Something Special

This weekend, I had a fun convo with my friend Elana. What do writers talk about when they get together? Books. Of course, books. What else would we discuss (well, besides the other obvious topics like agents and editors and publishing houses and online platforms)?

As we were talking about books we’ve read recently, ones we loved, ones we liked, ones we didn’t finish, the subject came up that in order for us to really love a book—and I’m talking about LOVE love, can’t stop thinking about it love—it has to be special.

Special = book love.

Trouble is, special is indefinable. For all of us. What makes one book special for me, but not special to someone else? Or reverse that and what makes a book special to someone else, but then I think it’s meh?

I guess sometimes it comes down to tastes. You know? Like, for instance, I’ve decided that part of the reason I didn’t love MOCKINGJAY as much as CATCHING FIRE is because there wasn’t enough romance. Not enough good kissing scenes. And I’m pretty much a sucker for that stuff. So. Yeah. I admit it. But I loved the book anyway. Because the whole series was spectacularly special.

Sometimes it has to do with subject matter and emotion. Books that make me think, make me feel. Grip my by the heart and drag me along the journey right next to the protagonist. Dig so far into my mind and thoughts that I can’t sleep at night for wondering what’s going to happen next (assuming I even put the book down long enough to try).

To me that constitutes special. But again, it’s indefinable. This is not something that can be explained or categorized. It just is. I think the definition of special is different for everyone.

So help me out here. What’s your favorite book (or books) and what about the writing, or story, or characters, or plot makes them your favorite? Why are they special?

What is it Exactly?

My spoiler-free thoughts about MOCKINGJAY.

I’m writing this week’s blogs on the heels of having just finished MOCKINGJAY. (Don’t worry, no spoilers here.)

My brain is fried.

My emotions are all over the place.

I slept maybe three hours Saturday night, after having to actually drag myself out of bed—where I’d been lying wide awake—to read five pages past a certain critical point where I’d last closed the book (and only because I had to try and sleep). I also took an Ibuprofen for a headache while I was up.

After I finished, the first thing I wanted to do was go outside, get some air, some sunshine, and hug my children, my husband.

I was both engrossed and disturbed. I loved it and hated it at the same time, and while I was satisfied at the outcome, it was very painful to get to that point. That book—no, the whole series—made me think, made me ponder. Made me grateful for the world I live in, even with all our imperfections. Made me angry, too.

Part of me wants to say that this is good writing, amazing writing. Phenomenal. And yet. There’s that hated it side of me that wonders. This conclusion was my least favorite volume of the series, even though I am glad to know how it ended. Is it because the writing slipped? Or because the subject touched raw nerves? Or because I hated being in the thick of battle with characters I loved? Hated seeing what happened to each of them individually, as well as collectively.

I can’t really decide yet. If you’ve read it, what do you think? (No spoilers, please!) Did you love it? Hate it? Want to hug it to your chest and also throw it against a wall?

And is it truly phenomenal writing? (To this, I suspect the answer is a resounding yes, though it might take me a few days to think that way.)

Oh, and also, are you (or were you) Team Gale or Teem Peeta? And did you ever change sides?