Fierce Reads by Ann Aguirre

Author:Ann Aguirre
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250075093
Publisher: Square Fish

BROKEN HEARTS, FENCES, AND OTHER THINGS TO MEND

DELETED SCENES

Katie Finn

BY KATIE FINN

~ The Broken Hearts & Revenge Series ~

Broken Hearts, Fences, and Other Things to Mend

Revenge, Ice Cream, and Other Things Best Served Cold

Hearts, Fingers, and Other Things to Cross

Meet Katie Finn

Volunteering for Things You’re Unqualified For! Or, How I Became a Writer

Back in the long-ago days of 2007 (like a lifetime ago, right? We had electricity, but that was about it. Tumblr didn’t exist. Nobody used emojis or said “yolo.” It was the dark ages, truly), I was working in YA publishing as an assistant. It was my first real job, like, one with a salary and a desk and nobody asking me to put their dressing on the side. Since this was 2007, MySpace was still a thing (see how long ago this was?) and my boss wanted to know what the “MySpace book” would look like. I had been working on some mostly terrible book ideas—like one about the lives and loves of teenage ambulance drivers called Sirens (egad)—but none had gone anywhere. (In retrospect, this was not at all surprising.) So when my boss mentioned this book idea, I immediately volunteered to write it, despite having no idea what a MySpace book would look like, and having never actually finished writing a book before. My last effort had been a terrible five-hundred-page attempt with no plot.

But as I sat down to work, I found that I was greatly helped by a deadline. My publishing house had given me an advance, half of what I would get paid, and I had used it for my astronomical Brooklyn rent. If I didn’t finish the book, they would take it back—and I’d already spent it! It also helped that while I had a germ of an idea, the rest of it was mine to play with. I had no guidelines beyond “something about the Internet,” which might explain how I turned the book into an Agatha Christie–style whodunit about a hacked account that was later called Top 8. It became a series, I went on to write two sequels, and I had a blast doing it.

I think if there’s any advice from this I could pass on, it’s that you should always volunteer for something, even if you don’t know you can do it. You can figure it out once you’re doing it.

Oh, and never write a book about teenage ambulance drivers.

Revenge Inspiration. Revengespiration? Inspirevenge!

I had a great time writing my Internet trilogy, but after I finished I was ready for a change—and a challenge. Those books were a lot of fun, but even though I put my heroine through the ringer, I never really doubted that everything would work out for her in the end. I was really interested in the idea of a book where a happy ending wasn’t nearly so assured.

But the absolute worst way to try and think of an idea is to tell yourself, “Hey! It’s idea-thinking time now. Go.” But I didn’t know that then, so I was trying really, really hard—always a mistake—to come up with new ideas.

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