Meagan Spooner
Absolutely brilliant. This is the sci fi I’ve been waiting for! Action, romance, twists and turns–this book has it all!

Beth Revis, New York Times best-selling author of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-06T11:42:38-05:00

Beth Revis, New York Times best-selling author of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

Absolutely brilliant. This is the sci fi I’ve been waiting for! Action, romance, twists and turns–this book has it all!
"A literally breathtaking archaeological expedition. Spooner and Kaufman prove once again that no one does high-stakes adventure shenanigans like they do."

E. K. Johnston, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Star Wars: Ahsoka

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-06T11:44:34-05:00

E. K. Johnston, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Star Wars: Ahsoka

"A literally breathtaking archaeological expedition. Spooner and Kaufman prove once again that no one does high-stakes adventure shenanigans like they do."
One of the most intense, thrilling, and achingly beautiful stories I’ve ever read. Kaufman and Spooner will break your heart with skilled aplomb, and you’ll thank them for it. Absolutely incredible! If I have to, I will come to your house and shove this book into your hands!

Marie Lu, New York Times best-selling author of the Legend trilogy

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-06T11:48:19-05:00

Marie Lu, New York Times best-selling author of the Legend trilogy

One of the most intense, thrilling, and achingly beautiful stories I’ve ever read. Kaufman and Spooner will break your heart with skilled aplomb, and you’ll thank them for it. Absolutely incredible! If I have to, I will come to your house and shove this book into your hands!
With rich, complex characters and a dynamic—and dangerous—new world, THESE BROKEN STARS completely transported me.

Jodi Meadows, author of the Incarnate series

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-06T12:09:41-05:00

Jodi Meadows, author of the Incarnate series

With rich, complex characters and a dynamic—and dangerous—new world, THESE BROKEN STARS completely transported me.
Intense and absorbing, Skylark transported me to a world of magic and danger unlike anything I’ve read before. I loved Lark, and was riveted by her journey of survival and self-discovery. Dark, original, and beautiful, this is a novel you don’t want to miss.

Veronica Rossi, author of UNDER THE NEVER SKY

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-06T12:13:28-05:00

Veronica Rossi, author of UNDER THE NEVER SKY

Intense and absorbing, Skylark transported me to a world of magic and danger unlike anything I’ve read before. I loved Lark, and was riveted by her journey of survival and self-discovery. Dark, original, and beautiful, this is a novel you don’t want to miss.
Skylark's rich narrative and plucky heroine will transport you into a mesmerizing and horrifying world.

New York Times bestselling author Carrie Jones

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T09:17:02-05:00

New York Times bestselling author Carrie Jones

Skylark's rich narrative and plucky heroine will transport you into a mesmerizing and horrifying world.
With its blend of dystopian, steampunk, and generally fantastical elements, Spooner's follow up is even stronger and more gripping as the debut and is sure to ensnare further loyal readers.

Booklist (Starred Review)

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T10:01:57-05:00

Booklist (Starred Review)

With its blend of dystopian, steampunk, and generally fantastical elements, Spooner's follow up is even stronger and more gripping as the debut and is sure to ensnare further loyal readers.
This intriguing dystopian adventure's depiction of the stand this strong female protagonist takes against the horrors of her world is fast-paced, compelling, and un-put-downable.

VOYA

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T10:05:07-05:00

VOYA

This intriguing dystopian adventure's depiction of the stand this strong female protagonist takes against the horrors of her world is fast-paced, compelling, and un-put-downable.
Once again, the worldbuilding is superb, the characters fully fleshed out and intriguing, the battles riveting, and the edge-of-the seat suspense compelling. Teens looking for a well-written dystopian adventure with steampunk elements in the magical machines created by the Architects will enjoy spending time with Lark and her companions.

VOYA Magazine, starred review

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T10:27:43-05:00

VOYA Magazine, starred review

Once again, the worldbuilding is superb, the characters fully fleshed out and intriguing, the battles riveting, and the edge-of-the seat suspense compelling. Teens looking for a well-written dystopian adventure with steampunk elements in the magical machines created by the Architects will enjoy spending time with Lark and her companions.
An extremely entertaining tale of past, present and future leaving the question: where does humanity stand when the best laid plans backfire?

Children's Literature

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T10:29:04-05:00

Children's Literature

An extremely entertaining tale of past, present and future leaving the question: where does humanity stand when the best laid plans backfire?
A haunting and romantic exploration of love and what sacrifices come with freedom.


Marie Lu

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T15:17:04-05:00

Marie Lu

A haunting and romantic exploration of love and what sacrifices come with freedom.
Amazing. That one word describes the whole book.

VOYA

Meagan Spooner
2017-11-27T15:18:24-05:00

VOYA

Amazing. That one word describes the whole book.
Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner prove they are two living goddesses of writing, creating two compelling worlds with high stakes and gripping emotions.

Sarah Rees Brennan, New York Times bestselling author of the Demon's Lexicon trilogy and the Lynburn Legacy series

Meagan Spooner
2020-08-11T09:05:59-05:00

Sarah Rees Brennan, New York Times bestselling author of the Demon's Lexicon trilogy and the Lynburn Legacy series

Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner prove they are two living goddesses of writing, creating two compelling worlds with high stakes and gripping emotions.
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Meagan Spooner

June, 2010

Team Players

The other day I posted a comment on a blog that was seriously misinterpreted. It had the unfortunate timing of showing up right after another comment, so close in fact that I didn’t see the other comment before I posted–but coincidence made it possible to read criticism into my comment, because of its placement. I was mortified when the first commenter wrote back defending herself against this perceived attack, so I tracked her down and sent her an email explaining things. She turned out to be really nice and understanding, and not at all the kind of super-aware, oversensitive type I had been expecting, which got me thinking: what is it that prompts normal, healthy people to be so on guard for perceived attacks from all quarters?

(Read more…)


And with a week to spare…

…I’ve finished the first draft of The Iron Wood!

I have to say I’m pretty excited and happy and all of those things. Yes, I cried when I finished, as I was pretty sure I would, but then I had cake and a block of chocolate and a cup of tea and I was all smiles.

I’ll have a longer post tomorrow or the day after, once I’ve figured out what to do next. During the rewriting and revision process, it doesn’t really seem appropriate to have the same 500 word/day metric, just because words per day doesn’t reflect the work I’m doing. Not everything will need complete rewriting–so how do I score revision? Anyway, I may end up doing a certain amount of time per day, I’m not really sure. For now I am taking the teensiest of breaks, and tonight I don’t care in the slightest about what I will do in the morning.

SO THERE.

(Read more…)


Twists and Surprises

Well, the book is coming along, and I’m anticipating finishing the first draft long before my self-imposed deadline. Yeah, it’s as much a shock to me as to anyone else, trust me. But for some reason, the act of setting myself a public deadline (and opening myself up to judgment should I fail to meet it) seems to have lit an even bigger fire under me. I expect this tactic wouldn’t keep working if I used it all the time, but clearly it’s a good tool to pull out on special occasions.

Just a quick update on that, for those keeping track. Mostly I have questions for you! And these are for writers and readers alike, because I think sometimes we as writers tend to get our perceptions of books muddled by the fact that we’re so interested in studying craft. We start looking for the complex answers when sometimes it’s the simple ones, the ones we’d have picked if we weren’t so obsessive, that are the most helpful.

So what I want to hear from you about is the subject of plot twists, secrets, shockers, and tricks. I’m getting to the end of my own book, and there are a few twists and reveals that (if I’ve done it correctly) should come as a surprise to the reader. I think, though, that twists are really hard to write. Something you’ll see a lot of in magazine’s requirements for short story submissions is that they don’t want stories with trick endings or big twists. I think this is because they’re often done so poorly, with a lot of handwaving and blatant prose that is the equivalent of the author popping out of a corner with a big sign saying “GOTCHA!” You want to be thrilled and excited and shocked–not prompted to roll your eyes and groan, like you’ve just been handed a bad pun.

One of the things I learned at the Odyssey Workshop, which falls under the category of Things I Knew Instinctively But Couldn’t Articulate, was that endings should be surprising but inevitable. Meaning, the ending should not be easily predicted through the book, and still surprise the reader, but in hindsight the reader should be able to look back and see that all the clues were there, making the ending inevitable. It’s like a good murder mystery–you don’t really want to get there long before the detective does, but you don’t want to feel like the solution came out of nowhere.

Think back over the books you’ve read, either recently or in the long distant past, that had twists in them–which ones worked? Which ones didn’t? (Try to avoid major spoilers, just in case they’re books that other people haven’t read and might some day!) Did you feel betrayed by the author, or did you get that rush of “Oh my god, this is the BEST THING EVER!” that a good twist can give you? And why?


Writing as Work–and Love

I have a friend who is, I think, a good writer. I haven’t actually read anything she’s written because she’s a bit shy about sharing it, but she’s a fantastic editor, a terribly creative person, and she reads about ten times as much as I do, and so I’d put money on the assumption that she’s probably not half bad. She always says, though, that she’s not sure she’s interested in seeking publication, for fear that writing would become work, and therefore not as much fun.

I must admit I’ve had this fear once or twice (okay, so that’s an understatement). I love music, and when I was in grade school I couldn’t wait to join orchestra and play the viola. A year into it I was like “Ugh, this sucks,” and switched to the flute. A couple years after that I switched to the oboe. And a couple of years after that I quit entirely, because frankly, practicing enough to actually be halfway decent (and I’m too competitive not to do that) made me hate the instrument. In college I picked up the guitar, taught myself, and just play for myself, not for anyone else, and certainly not for a music teacher or band. And six years or so later, I still love it.

So when I embarked on the whole 500-1000 words/day promise to myself, I worried that at some point along the way I’d grow to hate writing, if I was forcing myself to do it. What eventually convinced me that I had to try it, though, was that I knew I could never be a professional author if I couldn’t make writing my job and still love it enough to do it every day. On the one hand, if I tried it and killed my love of writing, I would have killed my dream of becoming a successful novelist, and that particular failure is one of my greatest fears. And if I never tried it, I’d at least always have that dream, the potential to get serious one day. On the other hand, though, if I never buckled down, even if doing it meant realizing it wasn’t for me, I’d never actually realize the dream either.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, especially now that my daily minimum has gone from 500 words a day to somewhere around 2500 words a day (although the technical minimum is still 500 words a day, I have to write a lot more than that on average to finish the book by my July 5th deadline). It’s quite definitely work now, forcing myself to sit down and write when I could be walking to the beach, going downtown to see the sights of Melbourne, hanging out with my friends here that I see so rarely when I’m living in the U.S.

So, just a little over three months from the day I started this 500 words/day commitment, has my love of writing changed?

Yes. Hands down. I don’t think it’s possible for it not to have changed. But at the risk of sounding like a total liar, I think my love of writing has actually grown stronger. It’s a different kind of love, though. It’s a much more complicated love. I think my love of writing used to be the daydreamy, crushy love you get in high school, or you get on characters in books or TV, where you sigh and fantasize about the day you’ll become an author (or marry Mr. Darcy as the case may be), and your ups and downs are all about whether your crush smiled at you or not (or if your mom/best friend/internet people liked your latest chapter). Now, if I’m allowed to sound completely pretentious, I think my love of writing is like the love of a long-term couple. Yeah, you fight now and then (and some days you have to cry and sweat just to get to 500 words), but mostly you work hard at the relationship, every day, and it becomes stronger for it. It’s not a fantasy, and it’s not always awesome, and in fact sometimes it’s downright horrendous. But it’s there, every day, and as long as you keep working on it, it’ll always be there.

So yeah, doing it every day has definitely changed my relationship with writing. But it’s been a change for the better. And now I know I can do it, which is better than the tenuous soap bubble of a high school crush any day.

Okay, no more metaphors for me. What about you guys? I know a couple of you have been doing daily writing goals too–has it changed the way you write, or feel about writing? And even if you haven’t, I’d love to hear about any forays into making writing a job, or the fear that keeps you from it, or the choices, good or bad, that you’ve made in relation to professional writing.


Commitment–and an excerpt.

I’m nearing the end of my book–I’m currently at approximately 75,000 words, and I forsee maybe another 30,000 words to go. It’s not quite close enough to make a mad, sprinting dash for the finish line, but that’s not really what I want to do anyway. Although I always was a sprinter rather than a distance runner, in this case I think consistency and a steady pace are going to be what sees me through.

That said, I’m close enough to set myself a deadline. So that’s what I’m doing, here in public so everyone can see, and therefore can hold me accountable if I don’t manage it.

So: By my birthday, July 5th, I’ll have this first draft completed. That’s a promise. Please judge me and hate me and all-of-my-irrational-fears-of-failure me if I don’t hold up my end.

To pass the time until then (even though it is no longer Teaser Tuesday) I’ll post another excerpt. I had so much fun with the last one, but it was such a brief, superficial moment in the book. It was really the first serious danger Lark encounters outside the Wall, and its purpose is mostly to show her just what she’s let herself in for, and that nothing–absolutely NOTHING–can be trusted in this new world.

This scene comes from a somewhat more character-driven part of the book. Lark has joined company with a young man named Oren, so far the only person she’s encountered who hasn’t been twisted into a monster by the magical vacuum and storms ravaging the wilderness. He’s unused to company and terse to the point of rudeness, but he knows how to find food and water, how stay ahead of the monsters, and when to seek shelter.

Lark has been struggling with fairly significant agoraphobia ever since setting foot outside the Wall. She grew up never having seen the sky, and now finds it overwhelming. Though she’s made significant progress over the past two weeks since her escape, the wilderness still has a few tricks up its sleeve.

We were maybe half an hour out from the start of the forest when the rain began.


Hi, I’m XYZ. Can I be your love interest?

Time for me to throw myself on your mercies, dear readers, and ask for some help. Let me lay out the issue.

Characters, for me, often live inside my head. Many writers will say this, to the point where I think non-writers will roll their eyes a bit (though quietly and in private where the writers can’t see and kill them for it). But it’s just an easy way to say that we spend so much time thinking about them that our characters become fully-formed, fleshed out people with their own decisions, and it’s hard to sometimes get the characters to do what you need them to do because the motivations you’ve already decided upon for them just won’t push them in that direction.

Of course, for me, it’s only main characters that live in my head. The lesser characters don’t really need to be known that well.

In THE IRON WOOD, my current WIP, we’re just coming to get to know a new character. Is he a monster? A spy for the Facility? A nice, misunderstood boy in dire need of a bath and a hairbrush? A potential love interest? WHO CAN SAY? (Actually, I can, but that’s beside the point.) And yes, I’m only introducing the potential love interest 60,000 words into the story. I am aware of this. This is an issue for the rewrite, folks. Stay focused.

The point is that I’m really struggling to write him. Part of it is that Lark, my main character, has been alone for almost the entire novel, and I’m used to her solitude and how she handles it. Part of it is that I am seeing this new character the way Lark does, because she is the predominant voice in my head–and she sees him as confusing, inscrutable, and possibly quite frightening. And part of it is the issue of buildup–he’s been behind the scenes throughout the whole book, with tiny touches here and there, and now he needs to be finally revealed as a fully-formed character, but it really is the first time I’ve met him, too.

So here’s my question: how do you guys get to know a stubbornly shy character who refuses to introduce himself? Do you fill out character sheets? Write vignettes about his childhood? Pretend to interview him? Have conversations out loud, pretending to be him? I’ve tried all of this in the past (yep, even the conversation thing–I’m a writer, I have no shame) and none of it seems to be appropriate in this situation, though I may just be being stubborn myself.

I’d love to hear any input or suggestions! Don’t be shy, I’m ready to try absolutely anything. And even if all you have to offer is commiseration, well, I could use some of that right about now too.


I’m writing this upside down.

Time to end the radio silence, hooray! This is just a post catching up on what I’ve been doing the past week. As some of you may know, I’ve been traveling lately, from the Friday before last on. For a while I was in Santa Barbara with savannahjfoley and bee245 to see sjmaas get married, and I was having way too much fun to post here. The ceremony was beautiful, Santa Barbara was beautiful, and, of course, sjmaas was beyond beautiful.

Then, on Tuesday, I headed for LAX and then on to Melbourne, Australia, which is where I’ll be hanging my hat for the next year. lilykaufman and her long-suffering husband met me at the airport and ushered me home to the sweetest little room they’ve made up for me, and now I’m finally unpacked and all set up. The PC is still in pieces, but I have my netbook and my big keyboard plugged into it, which is all I need to do a ton of writing.

As savannahjfoley and bee245 can vouch, I managed to keep up my writing even in the midst of festivities in Santa Barbara, despite travel, etc. I left for Australia on a Tuesday (U.S. time) and arrived in Australia on Thursday (Oz time) and actually wrote on the plane, during this weird middle time when I had no idea what time or even what day it was, just that I knew I was losing Wednesday at some point so I had better stick 500 words in there at some point.

I’m completely psyched to be back in Australia–as some of you know, I lived there before for about eight months a couple of years ago. It’s full of absolutely fantastic people, friends who have greeted me so enthusiastically that it’s like I’ve lived here my whole life. My house is walking distance to the beach, and even though it’s winter now I plan to head down there today with my laptop and sit in the cold and write, because right now, my protagonist is wet and cold, and it seems appropriate. I have fingerless gloves created for just this purpose. There’s a very charming dog indeed, doing his best to cure me of my lifelong cat-lovingness, and of course, bakeries full of caramel slice waiting to remind me of what I’ve been missing. Best of all, I’m back living with some of my best friends in the world, and I’m way excited. My vowels are already starting to slip, and I’m finding myself saying “heeya” instead of “here,” and asking my housemates if they want some brekky.

It’s a little bittersweet too, though. This is the place where I’m going to finish my WIP, once and for all, and start it on queries. I have a loose timetable that I’m following to that end, and somehow it seems much more final and huge when you know it’s going to be within the next year. I’m excited about it, but also quite frightened, too. As anyone who’s submitted anything, be it a short story or a novel, knows, submitting is this terrible and wonderful flutter in your chest and twist in your stomach. I’m just trying not to think about it. Cart before the horse, etc. I have a long way to go before then, so best just to alt+tab back over to chapter fifteen and get back to work.

But maybe down at the beach.

PS: My word count today is only a loose estimate. My actual running tally is on my PC, which is inaccessible at the moment, and I’m way too lazy to go total it up all over again on the netbook.