MSFV Blog Hop – Interview With Monica Goulet
Welcome to what will hopefully be the first of the Annual Authoress’ Success Story blog tours!
Authoress Anonymous has built a strong and supportive community of writers, agents, editors, and readers on her blog Miss Snark’s First Victim. There, writers can participate in contests designed to help them practice giving and receiving critiques, polish their hooks and query letters, and improve their writing. Some of these contests help participants place their work before literary agents and editors.
Some of us who credit Authoress and the MSFV blog with helping us (directly and indirectly) on our road to publication have decided to come together to celebrate Authoress, MSFV, and each other’s work, with a blog hop. Today is my leg of the hop (and a full schedule of the hop with links to the other legs is at the end of the post).
Yesterday, Monica Bustamante Wagner posted an interview with me on her blog. (If you missed it, check it out because there's a swag giveaway as part of the interview and a link to a Goodreads giveaway where you could win a copy of Personal Effects!)
And now, I have the great pleasure of introducing you to Monica Goulet!
Monica lives and writes in the suburbs, just north of Toronto. She writes emotionally-driven contemporary YA and loves to give her characters impossible choices. Her work is represented by Meredith Kaffel of DeFiore and Company. Monica can be found online at http://monicagoulet.blogspot.com/ and on Twitter.
I'm thrilled to be interviewing her, and helping to celebrate Authoress & the MSFV Blog!
How did participating with MSFV blog help you on your publishing/writing journey?
Where do I begin? I found the MSFV blog early on in my writing journey when I’d just started the agent searching process for the first book I’d written. I spent hours on that blog, mostly on the Secret Agent contest archives reading every entry and all the comments, hungry for information on what worked and what didn’t. I waited until my second manuscript was complete to enter for the first time in February 2010. I put in every little thing I had learned into my first page and sent it off. I held my breath when there was only one winner, and when I found out it was me, I seriously freaked out. It may seem like a small victory, especially considering I didn’t end up with an offer from the agent, but it was honestly one of the highlights in my writing career so far, just because I’d come so far from that naïve first time writer pouring over those entries, to actually winning the contest.
What was your process like in signing with an agent?
I started writing seriously in January 2008. It was my New Year’s resolution to finish a book that year and get an agent. I was planning to defy all odds and be the person who sells the first book they ever wrote. I was obviously a little naïve because it took another 2 manuscripts and 3 years to actually reach my goal. There’s so much to learn about the writing process and the publishing industry than I ever thought possible. And you know what? I’m so glad I didn’t know that back then, or I might never have started!
I find writers tend to fall into four camps – writers who enjoy the whole process (liars), writers who love to first draft & hate to revise, writers who hate to first draft & love to revise, and writers who hate the entire process while in it but love the final product, and so are willing to suffer through. Which are you?
I definitely prefer revising over first drafts. It’s just so overwhelming staring at blank pages day after day and trying to fill them. I like having the story already written and just trying to make it better. Although, I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say I love revising. Some days I do, some days I don’t. But I definitely don’t hate the entire process. I don’t think I could get through it if I did.
Can you tell us a little bit about your experience with submissions?
Let me just say this about being on submission – it’s tough. I think even if your book sells in a week, that week is probably tortuous. Being on submission longer than that is even harder, but it becomes something different. In the first couple weeks my whole world was submissions. I had everything riding on it. Then something changed – it had to or I wouldn’t have survived! I started thinking about the worst thing that could happen, which was that my book wouldn’t sell. It would suck, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I would write another book. And another. Eventually, one would sell. And when one does, it won’t matter how long it took. It will feel just as good. Maybe even better.
Could you tell us a bit about what you are currently working on?
I’m super excited about the manuscript I’m working on now. It’s currently titled FOLLOW ME HOME, and like most of my book ideas, it came from a single idea, and grew from there. This one started with a concept I had of a girl moving into a new house only to find that someone was already living there. I had no idea when I first started outlining why someone was already in her house, or what would happen between them, but that was the fun of this story. The characters and the story all developed from simply answering the questions that popped into my head from that one concept.
I’m currently revising, and somewhere after draft 4 I lost count of what draft I’m on. I’m crossing my fingers it will go out on submission later this year.
Thanks for the interview, Monica! And I’m crossing my fingers for you, hoping I can cheer news of your YA debut soon.
On tomorrow’s leg of the blog hop, Monica will be interviewing Peter Salomon. See you there! And if you landed here without experiencing the earlier interviews, you can catch up by following the links below:
| Name | Website | Posting Date | ||
| David Kazzie | http://wahoocorner.blogspot.com/ | @davidkazzie | 1-Aug | |
| Leigh Talbert Moore | leightmoore.com | @leightmoore | 2-Aug | |
| J.Anderson Coats | http://www.jandersoncoats.com | @jandersoncoats | 3-Aug | |
| J.M. Frey | www.jmfrey.net | @scifrey | 4-Aug | |
| Elissa Cruz | elissacruz.blogspot.com | @elissacruz | 5-Aug | |
| Amanda Sun | amandasunbooks.blogspot.com | @Amanda_Sun | 6-Aug | |
| Kristi Helvig | www.kristihelvig.blogspot.com | @KristiHelvig | 7-Aug | |
| Leah Petersen | http://www.leahpetersen.com | @Leahpetersen | 8-Aug | |
| Monica Bustamante Wagner | www.monibw.blogspot.com | @Monica_BW | 9-Aug | |
| E. M. Kokie | https://emkokie.com/ | @emkokie | 10-Aug | |
| Monica Goulet | http://monicagoulet.blogspot.com/ | @MonicaGoulet | 11-Aug | |
| PeterSalomon | www.peteradamsalomon.com | @petersalomon | 12-Aug | |
| Sarah Brand | http://www.sarahbrand.com/ | @sarahbbrand | 13-Aug | |
| Angela Ackerman | http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/ | @angelaackerman 14-Aug | ||
| Tara Dairman | http://taradairman.com/ | @TaraDairman | 15-Aug | |
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