Old Cliches Die Hard

We had a terrific Cliche Twitter party today. It was an impromptu thing that caught my fancy, and then I couldn't pull away from. If you go to the #cliche hashtag, you can see all of the posts. We ended up having complete discussions using only cliches. It was honestly the most fun I had on twitter. I had to keep myself from responding with 'lol' and instead of sharing a cliched response. I'm sure that we'll do this one again. Next time I'll get my entire team involved, and hopefully you can join us too.

As far as cliches go though, I have to warn authors to stay away from them. I've always felt that those that know a lot of cliches are well versed in our language and its idioms. I do however believe that it shows a whole other level to your skill if you can take a cliche and or expression and come up with your own clever words to get that same point across. I think that that makes for good and stimulating story telling.

Creativity, not just in characters, setting, and plot, but also in the way that you express yourself goes a long way. Who knows, maybe your innovative phrase will one day become a cliche too... no sense in dreaming small!

Happy Creating!
~Marisa

Started the New Year with a Bang...or Two

If you are a friend and or follower, you may have noticed that things have been quiet for me on the social media front. The last few months have been not uneventful for me professionally and personally, and although I miss the buzz that comes with being in touch and in the spotlight, I have had a lot to focus on. So much has happened that if I had to fill you all in with this one blog post it would be quite a tome. So I'll start with a short post about my Agency and things that we are working on.

I founded the Corvisiero Literary Agency almost a year ago in March. Although it seems like I've been on my own forever, the last 11 months have been an incredible journey of growth. One never really knows what it's like to do something until they actually try. Just like swimming, having babies, jumping off an airplane, or even having sex... you never know what it feels like until you do it.

Well, running an agency is no different. Starting any business is a challenging task. And no matter how good you are at it, there is always room for learning and there is a lot of work to be done (it's a never ending fountain actually). I have been lucky however to have been joined by my L. Perkins awesome colleague Saritza Hernandez, as well as the wonderful ladies (Stacey Donaghy, Brittany Howard, Sarah Negovetich, et all.) that joined my staff, and most of whom became in integral part of my life. The Agency's success would not be the same without you. 

During this year we have fallen into our stride and have become incredibly strong. We are representing very talented authors and signed some great deals the past few months, some of which have wet ink on the contracts and haven't even been announced yet. We have grand things in the works. More to follow on these when I'm allowed to share, but for now lets say that we have some rising stars (Stacey Donaghy and Brittany Howard, shhh... wait for it.) on our hands who have made a significant impact.

Some of our success has been noted and our query inbox shows it- It's bursting at the seams! If you are one of the authors that sent us a query, fear not. This weekend some of the staff and I are having a QueryParty and we plan to make a huge dent on those numbers. We are meeting virtually on Saturday, and each of us is bringing our poison of choice (coffee, wine or whatever gets us going). We plan to have a blast in the process. Stay tuned to @corvisierolit and #queryparty as we tweet along and share our progress. I'll be tweeting as @mcorvisiero.

I will try to not stay away from my blog and other pages for long. I will be very focused on selling projects, attending conferences, scouting talent, and teaching workshops for the next few months, but I'll do my best to stay in touch.

Happy Writing!
~Marisa