#sara zarr

[sicknessinmotion]

marie rutkoski — 9-1-1 (show) — sanober khan — sara zarr.

[the-dose-makes-the-poison]

@thespacebetweenseconds via Instagram

[books-to-add-to-your-tbr]

Title: Goodbye from Nowhere

Author: Sara Zarr

Series or standalone: standalone

Publication year: 2020

Genres: fiction, contemporary, romance, family, coming of age

Blurb: Kyle Baker thought his family was happy...happy enough, anyway. That's why, when Kyle learns that his mother has been having an affair and his father has been living with the secret, his reality is altered. He quits baseball, ghosts his girlfriend, and generally checks out of life as he's known it. With his older sisters out of the house and friends who don't get it, the only person he can talk to is his cousin Emily, who is always there on the other end of his texts, but still has her own life hours away. Kyle's parents want him to keep the secret of his mother's affair from the rest of the family until after what might be their last big summer reunion. As Kyle watches the effects of his parents' choices ripple out over friends, family, and strangers, feeling the walls of his relationships closing in, he has to decide what his obligations are to everyone he cares for...including himself.

[sunderstruck]

I used to compete in forensics competitions, basically competitive theatre. My favorite monologue was about a girl auditioning for a play, and she starts shouting at the theatre teacher because he always picks someone else.

My coach told me to pretend that the person judging my monologue was the theatre teacher, making brutal eye contact while I yelled and begged for them to acknowledge my existence. Usually the judge was the only person in the room, and they were used to judging monologues, so the effect wasn't as noticeable.

At some point I performed this for a small group of parents I had never met, and it was the first time I had to decide which of them to yell at. I settled for the guy seated mostly in the middle.

The way this dude stared back at me was uncanny. I could tell he wanted to look away, but it would have been awkward because he was supposed to be paying attention, and I felt so bad for yelling at a stranger.

At the end of the event, I went to apologize for scaring him. He shrugged it off and told me he was wishing the whole time that he could have given me a part in the play.

love shakespeare. did a hamlet run tonight, looked someone dead in the eye to say “am i a coward?” during a speech and the fucker shrugged and nodded

[zemagltd]

Everyday Poetry - ". . .There are certain people who come into your life, and leave a mark. . . Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless." Sara Zarr

[literaticat]

I have a question about career building.

I see a lot of places that it is very rare for an author to earn out their advance. So for debut authors, if they get - say 50k for book one, but they don't get that in sales, what happens? Are they able to sell a book two? If so, is it just a series of diminishing returns until they manage to get a following?

A lot of the things I see online about sophomore novels is that they are far harder to write, but I'm curious also about how the rest of that takes shape. Like, does there come a point where no publisher will ever pick them up again because their last book didn't sell well?

How does an author manage that?

Let's see if I can unpack this a little and reassure you!

First, while it's true that lots of books don't earn out their advances -- I don't know if I'd say MOST. Many DO earn out eventually, or at least come relatively close. More importantly, though: the publisher makes their investment back before the advance earns out, so a book doesn't actually need to earn out the advance to be profitable to the publisher.

Publishers know this, of course, and they also know that it often takes a bit of time for an author to find and grow their audience. So if a publisher wants to keep working with an author, they think the author has great ideas and talent, etc -- they will often offer for more books even if the first book hasn't necessarily gone gangbusters, or indeed, even if the first book isn't out yet. (This is also why they might make a two-book-deal from the jump -- because they KNOW that the first book is just the beginning, and it takes time, and they hope to be along for the ride as the author's fan base grows, etc).

So, usually the publisher is OK with taking a chance on you, assuming that sales will get better, yada yada. And if the unfortunate happens and the book performs REALLY poorly, so much so that the math just isn't mathing and they decide they do NOT want to pursue more books with you, well, there are other publishers, and those publishers don't know the details about the finances of your first deal -- if they love the book, they will be basing their numbers on how they think THEY will do selling this new book, not on the first publisher's numbers.

(This is especially true if you can pivot a bit -- ie, the book you are trying to sell to the new publisher is somewhat different than the first book(s) -- so like, let's say your first deal was for YA contemporary, it kinda tanked, you don't really want to work with Publisher A anymore or they have declined to do more with you -- but now you've written a high concept YA thriller -- Publisher B may say, yes, we see that you have this other book that just did meh, BUT, we think THIS book in this different genre will be a BREAKOUT for you!)

As far as "sophomore novels being harder to write" -- well, I think that people experience that for a couple of reasons. When they wrote their first book (or at least, the first book that got published -- maybe they wrote a bunch of books BEFORE that that never got published!) -- but anyway, the first time around, they were writing with no expectations. They didn't have an editor to "impress" yet, they didn't have a contract hanging over their head, they didn't know what the editorial process would be like, they didn't have a deadline, they didn't know what it was like to get their book publicly reviewed, they didn't have people asking them about their book/characters on social media, they didn't have any pressure about sales or marketing or whatever eating up their minds, their free time wasn't taken up with self-promotion, etc etc.

Then they got all those things. That's a lot of pressure they are feeling all of a sudden that they never had before! Little wonder it would seem more difficult. (Is it ACTUALLY "more difficult" in a literal way? Maybe not, but if it FEELS more difficult... then it kinda is, right?)

My friend, the brilliant writer Sara Zarr, told me a great piece of advice long long LONG ago (so long ago she probably doesn't remember this, but I have never forgotten!) -- she said something to the effect of, while you are on submission, and in the eons of "down time" between when your first book sells and when the editing and production process really ramps up, you should do your best to write at least the draft of the next book. Work on it absolutely whenever you can. WHY? Because when and after your debut comes out, your brain will be broken and you will have WAY less time than you anticipate. At least if you have a solid draft of the next thing, you have something to work with, rather than starting from square one with no time, lots of pressure and a broken brain!

My point is, authors obviously DO make it work all the time, and I have faith that you can as well. When the time comes, just remember, work on your next book whenever you have downtime, be flexible and able to pivot if necessary, and strategize with your agent, they have seen it all before and they are there to help!

[hero-of-the-horn]

sweethearts by sara zarr

[ID:

I'm talking about the ones who, for whatever reason, are as much a part of you as your own soul. Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business.

Just hearing their name pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways. And when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless. If you had a lifetime to talk, there would still be things left unsaid.

In the end, I decide that the mark we've left on each other is the color and shape of love. That's the unfinished business between us. Because love, love is never finished. It circles and circles, the memories out of order, and not always complete

end ID]

[willa111]

“When I was a kid, I always thought of funny stuff in my head but I never said it.”

“Why not?”

“Because no one was listening.”

Sweethearts by Sara Zarr

[alrederedmixedmedia]

Alredered Remembers Sara Zarr, American writer whose first novel, Story of a Girl, was a 2007 National Book Award finalist, on her birthday.

"When the remembering was done, the forgetting could begin.:

[cuteenglishquotes]

We write in ways that, we generally hope, reflect real life, or at least look familiar to humans. And in life, recurring themes are a recurring theme. We never quite conquer a pet vice or a relationship pattern or a communication habit. We're haunted by our particular demons. Sara Zarr

[theobviousparadox]

Review: Kyra Just for Today by Sara Zarr

Kyra Just for TodaySara ZarrBalzer + BrayPublished March 5, 2024 Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads About Kyra Just for Today From award-winning author Sara Zarr comes a gorgeously crafted and deeply personal story about a young girl, her alcoholic mother, and the hope that ties them together. Krya has always felt like she’s a bit too much. Too tall. Too loud. Too earnest. But she’s okay with that,…

[sadlittlecomet]

"And he left. I watched him walk out - he didn't say good-bye, he didn't even look back. It scared me, how easy it was for him to do that."

Sweethearts (Sara Zarr)

[illustration-alcove]

Alice Wang’s book cover for Sara Zarr’s Goodbye from Nowhere.

[womanoncesaid]

the past only had whatever power you gave it; life was what you made it and if you wanted something different from what you had, it was up to you to make it happen.

Sara Zarr, Sweethearts

[readingaway]

Danielle Babbles About Books - Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr

Rating: 4/5 stars

Adult Content: references to sex, cursing, pain, past statutory rape

Review: This hurt. I knew that it was going to hurt before I started but man, that was hard. It’s not often that a first person POV is perfect or perfectly effective, and this is one of those stories where nothing else would have worked, and it makes the story so much more engaging. I really liked the messiness of the characters and their lives, nothing about this story is easy and the characters, their relationships, and the events are so incredibly real. It’s also such a short book for having such a large impact. With all the extra content added to the end it looked to me like the story would be longer so I was thrown by the ending. It made sense after a few minutes, the ending fit the narrative structure and tone. I just hadn’t realized I was on the last chapter when I reached it.

Favorite Quote: “It came down to the smallest things, really, that a person could do to say I’m sorry, to say it’s okay, to say I forgive you. The tiniest of declarations that built, one on top of the other, until there was something solid beneath your feet. And then… and then. Who knew?”

[literaticat]

I just started listening to literaticast, and I love it!

Do you have any favorite episodes?

Are there any other writing/publishing/bookish podcasts that you recommend?

I mean obvs I love ALL my guests and episodes, and what YOU think are the "best" might depend on what you need - like if you find a particular subject interesting or important to YOU (Marketing, say, or Graphic Novel Adaptations, or whatever), then there might be an episode for that.

And there will be a new episode up hopefully this weekend, so THAT episode, obviously. :-)

But if you are just looking for a good place to start, I think the conversations with Rebecca Stead (ep 42: Creativity in Crisis) and Sara Zarr (ep 55: Into the Creative Labyrinth) might be particularly inspirational for many authors, especially if you are feeling in a rut. And I also found the conversation with translator Lawrence Schimel (ep 49: World KidLit Month) to be quite interesting and we talked about things I think most people do not hear about often.

As for other bookish podcasts, I'll be honest, I rarely have time to listen to them because I can't listen while I work, so I only listen while I drive -- and I don't drive that much! So the only one I really make a point of listening to is Book Friends Forever with Grace Lin and Alvina Ling. (And the two of them were guests on the Literaticast, too! Episode 48: Two Times the Charm - and I was a guest on THEIR pod as well!)