WHERE’S RANDY?

Greetings, friends. I know I haven't been blogging much lately, so I wanted to give you a quick update on what I've been up to in order to reassure you I haven't fallen off the face of the earth... I finished revisions and edits on After the Shot Drops! This took a couple rounds and …

AFTER THE SHOT DROPS

As a debut novelist, I lived with the constant fear that my first book would be so horrible or sell so poorly that I'd never publish anything ever again. Well, in your face, crippling self-doubt! I've sold my next YA novel to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt! Here's the announcement from Publisher's Weekly: And you can add …

“A Special Day”

I made a thing today. A comic, of sorts. And here's a less soul-crushing version.

A WRITER’S SEARCH HISTORY: OR, I’M PROBABLY FLAGGED BY THE FBI

  The first book I ever wrote was a YA zombie apocalypse novel. In my defense, this was before THE WALKING DEAD became a TV show, before WORLD WAR Z was made into a movie, and before the plethora of YA zombie novels that now exist. It's not very good. Correction: it's not good. Mostly, …

HOW I GOT MY AGENT

I've had a few people ask me how I got a literary agent, and now you can the full story over here at Writers Digest.

WELCOME HOME

I'm excited to announce that I'll have a short story in a collection of YA adoption-themed short stories edited by Eric Smith, to be published by Jolly Fish Press in fall 2017. Check out his far more meaningful/detailed post about it over here at his site. Or, if you're too lazy, here are some snippets: "Welcome …

NYC Teen Author Festival 2016

I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining a billion awesome YA authors as part of the NYC Teen Author Festival in March. I'll be on a panel at the NY Public Library about writing realistic fiction on Fri, 3/18 and I'll be signing at Books of Wonder on Sun, 3/20. If you're around that …

CHARACTERS & CONFLICT IN HAMILTON

HAMILTON is amazing. For those of you who've been living under a bridge for the last year, HAMILTON's a hip-hop musical about the life of founding father Alexander Hamilton written by Lin-Manuel  Miranda (who also  wrote IN THE HEIGHTS). As a writer, when I love something as much as I love HAMILTON--it's pretty much the …

COMING UP FOR AIR

Whew. Last night I finished a draft of my latest work-in-progress, THE GOBLIN & THE WHALE. It's technically a second draft, but I've spent the last six months rewriting it word-for-word from the first draft, so it feels like a brand new story. So in other words, I feel like this: At the same time, …

MIYAZAKI’S CHARACTERIZATION

I came across this video essay about how Miyazaki creates great characters and wanted to share it with all of you. It's an excellent study that any storyteller can learn from.