Michelle Falkoff
HOW TO PACK FOR THE END OF THE WORLD
As both a writer and someone who often teaches fiction-writing classes, I’m often asked about what’s most important in the quest to become a published author. I know lots of people have asked and answered similar questions, and I have no doubt my answers will be similar if not identical to others, but I still think it’s important to reiterate a few key things.
- You have to read. More than that, you have to love reading. I remember teaching a class on writing mystery novels to a group of people working on their first books. On the first day we went around and talked about the last book we read that we loved, a question I think is far more important than the “favorite book question” since it often gets at what keeps us reading, not what got us started. Everyone in the room was surprised when one of the participants proudly announced that he doesn’t read fiction. “Why do you want to write it, then?” someone asked. “Because I’ve got a bestselling idea for a novel, and I think it’s going to make me rich,” he replied. As any writer can tell you, a) it’s almost impossible to know whether you’ve got a bestselling idea, and b) it’s even less likely that the idea will make you rich, no matter how fabulous it is.
- You have to write. You do not have to love writing, especially not the way you love reading, but you have to actually do it. It’s not enough to want to write or to dream of writing or to have always wanted to write or to plan to write or to contemplate writing over winter break or to be ready to start writing on Monday or when the kids are asleep or when you get up early one day. All these things might be components of getting you to write, but the writing part is what matters. It has to actually happen. That can be incredibly difficult, whether logistically or emotionally, but there’s no getting around this part.
- You have to write well. You don’t have to be the greatest writer who ever wrote a sentence, but you also have to be able to communicate with an audience. Both 1 and 2 help with this—reading gives you a sense of what good writing looks like, and writing helps you practice making your writing better. You may not find it surprising that the individual who had a bestselling idea in my mystery novel class was an abysmal writer, and it wasn’t because of a lack of capability—that person had no idea what good writing looked like and had never attempted to write before. It doesn’t come out of nowhere; it takes work.
These are the three most important things at the beginning. All the other things people want to know about—agents, publishers, marketing, etc.—don’t matter until much, much later, and skipping steps is a poor recipe for success. Focusing on reading and writing well matters more than anything else, and let’s be real—they’re the fun part, so why not enjoy it?
Book Details:
Book Title: How to Pack for the End of the World by Michelle Falkoff
Category: YA Fiction (Ages 13-17), 320 pages
Genre: Literary / Mystery
Publisher: HarperCollins (HarperTeen)
Release date: Nov 20, 2020
Format available for review: Print, NetGalley Download (mobi for kindle, epub, pdf)
Will send print books out: USA and Canada
Tour dates: Nov 3 to Nov 23, 2020
Content Rating: PG-13.
Language is clean, no sex on the page but reference to it, dark subject
matter–wasn’t sure the best category based on descriptions.
Book Description:
If you knew the world was going to end tomorrow, what would you do? This is the question that haunts Amina as she watches new and horrible stories of discord and crisis flash across the news every day. But when she starts at prestigious Gardner Academy, Amina finds a group of like-minded peers to join forces with—fast friends who dedicate their year to learning survival skills from each other, before it’s too late. Still, as their prepper knowledge multiplies, so do their regular high school problems, from relationship drama to family issues to friend blow-ups. Juggling the two parts of their lives forces Amina to ask another vital question: Is it worth living in the hypothetical future if it’s at the expense of your actual present?
Pre-Order the Book:
Amazon ~ Audible
Bookshop.org ~ IndieBound
Michelle Falkoff is the author of Playlist for the Dead, Pushing Perfect, Questions I Want to Ask You, and How to Pack for the End of the World. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and currently serves as director of communication and legal reasoning at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.
Connect with the author: website ~ twitter ~ instagram ~ goodreads
Tour Schedule:
Nov 3 – Deborah-Zenha Adams – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Nov 3 – Splashes of Joy – audiobook review / guest post / giveaway
Nov 3 – Stephanie Jane – book spotlight / giveaway
Nov 4 – Literary Flits – book spotlight / giveaway
Nov 5 – Gina Rae Mitchell – book review / author interview / giveaway
Nov 5 – Book Corner News and Reviews – book review / giveaway
Nov 6 – Rockin’ Book Reviews – book review / guest post / giveaway
Nov 9 –Jazzy Book Reviews – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Nov 10 – fundinmental – book spotlight / giveaway
Nov 10 – Corinne Rodrigues – book spotlight / giveaway
Nov 11 – Pick a Good Book – book review / author interview
Nov 12 – Books, Tea, Healthy Me – book review / author interview / giveaway
Nov 12 – Instagram:. All Booked Up Reviews – book review
Nov 13 – Viviana MacKade – book spotlight / guest post
Nov 16 – She Just Loves Books – book review / giveaway
Nov 17 –Westveil Publishing – book review / giveaway
Nov 18 – JulzReads – book review
Nov 18 – 411 ON BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND PUBLISHING NEWS – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Nov 19 –100 Pages A Day – book review / giveaway
Nov 20 –Books and Zebras @jypsylynn – book review
Nov 20 – Lamon Reviews – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Nov 23 – Writer with Wanderlust – book review / guest post / giveaway
Nov 23 – My Fictional Oasis – book review / giveaway
Nov 23 – Locks, Hooks and Books – book review / giveaway
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