You made me cry in ATU with that part with Amy and Luther. (You know what part) Also is it bad that I loved Eldest..?
Anonymous
So I pretty much always say that I have no emotions (other than psychotic glee) when I write. I seriously have zero problems killing off characters or whatever.
But the only time I ever got emotionally tied to my own work was the Amy/Luthor scene. After I finished, I had to shut down my laptop and physically leave my house. To me, that was the scariest thing I’ve ever written.
And it’s not bad to like Eldest! I wanted him to be someone you could sympathize with. It’s who Elder might have been, had it not been for Amy and the other people around him.
The series constantly kept me on my toes, which was a refreshing change. I took a lot away from those books. Overall, the series was one of my all time favorites, right up there with the ones that still twist my heart a little when I think about them. So I guess what I wanted to say was thank you for teaching me so much through your books and, most of all, thank you for the journey through the stars.
When I was little, I hated writing and reading. I was kind of bad at it, too. I practically hissed at and coiled away from librarians. Then I read the PJO series (have you read it? It's fantastic), and ever since then I've loved literature. And it's books like yours that remind me why I want to be a writer and of the amazing things that can come out of it. I loved Elder and Amy and Harley (especially Harley. Thanks a lot for that heartbreak) and all the other characters....
But librarians are your friends!
I don’t think I’ve read the PJO series! And best of luck on your writing <3
I just wanted to let you know that I cried at the end of SoE. In a moment of fangirl-torment I wanted to go to your house and kidnap you and force you to write another book with Elder and Amy. You know, I still kind of want to do that. I loved your books, and over the four days it took me read them all I was so immersed in the world of Godspeed that I nearly failed two quizzes and skipped my piano lessons. I think it's wonderful when a book can do that to you....
Awww. Any time anyone say I made them cry, my reaction is totally this:
Hi, Mrs. Revis. (Can I call you Beth? "Mrs. Revis" sounds awfully formal. And, you know, it takes longer to type. And I'm lazy.) I'm not exactly sure why I'm writing this; I guess I just wanted to be able to talk to one of my favorite authors. I think it's super awesome, how you respond to, like, every ask you get. That's amazing. So, thank you for interacting with your fans. I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say we are extremely grateful...
Please do call me Beth! Mrs. Revis sounds weird.
And thanks! But, to be honest, I don’t answer every ask. I delete the ones about getting free iPhones and being paid to lose weight. I’m selfish; I don’t wanna anyone else getting in on the cash cow.
I originally picked up AtU in one of my many post Firefly re-watch slumps, so I was surprised to find out you were a Browncoat too! :D Do you have a favourite episode or moment in the series? One of my favourites is probably Trash.
Ahhh! Having you mention Firefly in the same sentence as AtU makes my heart go pitter-patter.
My fave episode is Out of Gas—I love everything about it.
Have you ever had someone give you criticism that makes you not want to be a writer? I had someone review something of mine recently that made me feel horrible about my writing and writing in general and I was wondering if you ever went through that.
Anonymous
YES.
Rejection comes with this job, but it still sucks.
I had a looooooong career path. By which I mean, I wrote ten books for ten years and none of them got published, but they did rack up about a thousand rejections (no exaggeration).
But the worst ones are these:
- In the Fall of 2009, I attended a writing conference, and paid a lot of money for a critique from an agent. The agent read what was my tenth manuscript. She told me it was utterly unpublishable, and that if this was my tenth manuscript, maybe I should reconsider writing as a career. Four months later, I started writing Across the Universe.
- After I finished Across the Universe, I signed up for another writing workshop, this one taught by a published author, and I paid extra money for her to do a private critique session with me on the opening chapter ofAtU. She suggested I cut the entire chapter. This is currently the first chapter of AtU, the one my publisher sent out in Publisher’s Weekly as “one of the best first chapters you’ll ever read.”
- The same week that AtU hit the NY Times Bestselling list, I got a (very out-of-date and late) rejection from an agent informing me that science fiction set in space would never sell to a YA audience.
In all honesty, thought, the worst thing that ever happened to me happened about five years into my attempts. I joined Absolute Write, a very popular writing board, and after awhile there, I swapped manuscripts with someone. The reader there read something that I still consider good—it’s the one manuscript that I might salvage from my unpublished years. But he hated it. It was like it had personally insulted him. He told me it was the worst thing he’d ever read in any form (published or not) and that had it been given to him as a book, he would have burned it.
I am not ashamed to say I cried over that one.
But it helped when I remembered that this one guy was just an asshole, and that there are assholes in the world.
As for the other people I mentioned early: they’re not jerks. But writing is HIGHLY subjective. Which means that some people won’t get it. Some people will hate something everyone else loves. Their opinions weren’t necessarily wrong (although that agent was a bit of a jerk about it), but they were wrong for me and my writing. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of people having differing opinions.
But also, sometimes people are just assholes. Don’t let them get you down.
I understand completely why you wouldn't publish my very spoiler-y question but you made my day by answering it thank you so much! :D Also I noticed there isn't a lot of Fan-Art for ATU yet, so liking art i have decided to try my best, and i would be thrilled if you were to see it when i am done ^_^ I'm new to tumblr but i know you can't but link in an Ask so do you know of anyway in which i can show you when i am done? :) Thanks again!
Ahhh! I would LOVE to see your art! For links, you can just add parenthesis, like this:
bethrevis(.)tumblr(.)com
And it’ll work :)
