In an essay at Powell’s, our friend Martha O’Connor talks about her journey from wide-eyed innocent to stark raving mad author, with a slightly pink side trip thrown in for good measure. Her journey, like so many, truly began when she realized her first mistake:
Now I’m quick to admit that my first book, which I wrote at age fifteen, was horrible. It was the most pathetic fantasy novel ever written, and could have been used as the textbook for a How Not to Write a Novel class. It was filled with pages of unnecessary description and exposition, clunky dialogue, and was boring, boring, boring. It was so bad, in fact, that my grandmother is hanging onto it to blackmail me!
Hmm, now we’re wondering if we missed the real lesson. Our takeaway was never show your work to your grandmothers. Hers was something about plot and whatnot.
Martha persisted, despite her grandmother’s eagerness to acquire more blackmail material, and kept working until her voice emerged. And when it did, out came the delightfully dark The Bitch Posse. It’s the kind of story that makes you look at the author and wonder what else is going on in that mind.
