LARA ZIELIN, CYBERMUSE

Let me tell you a little story: almost a year ago, I was working on my young adult novel Godtalk and outlining its revision and submission progress on this humble little blog I call Slave2themuse, an unassuming little document that I was positive that only three people--myself, the teacher who teaches next door to me, and well, me--okay, two people, were reading.

As it turns out, I was somewhat wrong.

The funny thing about posting things online is that you forget that it isn't called the WORLD WIDE web for nothing. In late fall I received a comment from someone in Ann Arbor, Michigan, who'd found my blog and was intrigued by the fact that our submission history was actually quite similar and invited me to check our her blog called "Road to Random House" that explored her writing progress and subsequent attempts to be published. After reading a little of her blog, I was impressed not only with what a strong writer she was, but also how laugh out loud funny she was, and so I commented back on her blog and gave her my e-mail address and invited her to share some publishing war stories.

That was when a brand new muse entered my life, cyber pen pal named Lara Zielin, who had penned (keyboarded?) a little tome entitled Donut Days that covered some similarly spiritual territory as my young adult book. Interestingly, at that particular time we were in roughly the same place: several drafts of our book completed, we were querying agents, attending conferences, and doing all we could to search for the one "yes" that would be the lucky portal into the publishing world. Lara, who fortunately for me believes strongly in networking, e-mailed me and we began an on-line correspondence, sharing and critiquing each other's query letters and first chapters. In an unparalleled act of kindness, Lara asked me to e-mail her the entire manuscript of my book and she said she would critique it. By then I knew she was legit (and not some mole from Dateline, just kidding, Lara)and that I could trust her, so I sent her the book thinking, well, this will be interesting, I'm going to find out what a complete stranger thousands of miles away thinks of my book all because of my silly little blog. As Yakov Smirnoff used to say, "What a Country."

Very quickly, a package arrived in my mailbox. It was the manuscript of my book that Lara had printed out and marked up--COVER TO COVER. As I later wrote in an e-mail to her, not only did she improve the book, her comments made me understand the kind of book Godtalk was SUPPOSED TO BE. Such an amazing gift she gave me. I've spent the past few months on revision based on her comments. And even though we have never officially met, she continues to be a source of serious support, encouragement, and wisdom.

I am indebted to her.

And because good things happen to good people, it wasn't long after Lara read and marked up my book that I received a very exciting (and excited!) e-mail from Lara: a highly reputable agent had agreed to represent her novel and after submitting it to a list of high powered editors, sold it in a matter of days to Putnam. Donut Days is due out in early 2009!!

In my small attempts to send some good karma out into the world, I want to invite whatever person who may be reading this that I am completely unaware of to click on the link to the right that will send you to Lara's website and check out her thoughts on the publishing world and to get so fired up about Donut Days that you buy a copy when it comes out.

I owe her a lot. Sending you her way is the least I can do.