Jennette-ic Musings

This Blog has moved

2008-11-09T14:37:00.003-05:00

...just in case anyone was actually still reading here.
Please come visit me at my new address: www.jenpowell.com. Thanks for reading!

12k and counting

2008-03-09T17:44:00.003-04:00

The 70 Days of Sweat challenge is really keeping me cranking! The new WIP is now at 12k, after only nine days - right where I wanted to be!

My plan is to write 8k/week until the end of the challenge, which would put me at 88k after 11 weeks. To hit that 8k, I want to write 1,000 words/day M-F, allowing for one day off, then 2,000 each on Saturday and Sunday. This week was a bit of a challenge - I had family stuff to do both Tuesday and Wednesday night, but managed to squeeze in 1,000k between them.

On Friday, DH threw me a bit of a monkey wrench by suggesting we invite some friends over for dinner. No problem, I like these friends and how can I protest when he's doing the cooking? And the big thing, family and friends are more important than writing. Unfortunately, I got none of my 1,000 words written that night, and I'd already used my 'bye' on Tuesday/Wednesday, so that put me 1k behind.

I wasn't sure if I could make it up, but I was determined to try. Friday sent us a massive dump of the white, fluffy, get-my-car-stuck-if-I-go-out stuff, and it continued until Saturday evening. It also cancelled my RWA chapter meeting as of Friday, for which I was kind of glad. I'd been looking really forward to the program, and it was going to highly bum me out to miss it. However, our presenter lives even farther than I do, so there was no way she'd get there, either. No one questioned our wise prez's decision as the white stuff continued to fall and clog the roads, pretty much shutting down everything from Columbus through Cincinnati and beyond. But that helped me get my writing in, too, and with long enough time that I didn't have to cram too much in.

Today DH helped me by going out to snowblow then to have lunch and watch sports with friends (aren't Sundays great?) And I wrote 3,000 words - the most I think I've ever written in one day!

2 Days Down, 68 to Go...

2008-03-02T22:06:00.004-05:00

First weekend of the 70 Days of Sweat challenge has gone so far, so good! My overall goal is to write 8000 words/week - half of that Monday thru Friday, then 2k on both Saturday and Sunday. This weekend wasn't bad, since I had no out of the ordinary commitments - or so I thought, until my daughter nervously called up the stairs: "Uh, mom? I think I have a virus on my computer..."

I had everything planned out. DH had to go to a funeral some distance away this afternoon, then planned to go to a bar to commiserate with other folks who knew the deceased, so I planned to use that time to get my 2000 words written. Not! It took me a good three or four hours to get the evil "Internet Speed Monitor" virus/spyware off my daughter's computer. Evil spyware that infected her system despite having Computer Associates' EZTrust Anti-spyware and Windows Defender running. An unfortunate reminder that I'd forgotten to upgrade EZTrust to the new version on her system when I upgraded it on mine.

So, off to do that now. Hopefully will avoid any more interruptions of that sort in the near future.

The Next Best Thing to a Magic Bullet

2008-02-27T23:16:00.002-05:00

Holly Lisle's Create a Character Clinic and Create a Plot Clinic are not a magic bullet for writing a book, but IMO they're the next best thing. After going through maybe half of the exercises in these two books, I ended up with notecards for over fifty scenes.

That's right, fifty. Complete with conflict that stems from the characters and their pasts, their relationships, their own hangups and so forth. Good stuff.

Well, most of it. Some of the cards are decidedly lacking in conflict, and some are just dull, boring, too-everyday kind of stuff, while others simply don't relate enough to the main story. No problem, that's why we have extras. Others need connection, still others can be combined.

I'm a little over halfway plotted, and now I'm left with about 20 notecards yet to organize.

It's going painfully slow and I'm finding myself too easily distracted, but at least it's going. And plot-finished or not, I'll begin writing this Saturday with the other 70 Days of Sweat folks. Wish me luck!

No, I'm not dead

2008-02-13T21:53:00.004-05:00

I just haven't felt like blogging in, oh, six months or so. But I'm baaaaack!

This is what motivated me. Hopefully, it will motivate my fiction writing, too. Yes, I signed up for the 70 Days of Sweat writing challenge, and the timing couldn't be better. I finished last year's book, well, last year. New Year's Eve, as a matter of fact, was when I finished revisions. That book is now off with three beta readers, plus an editor and an agent from whom I won critiques in two completely separate contests. Wish me luck that not only will they provide some useful insight, but that they'd like to see more!

So what am I doing now? Well, like I wrote in my last post eons ago, I'm doing government work for the day job. Still there, it's going well, and I'm loving it!

My husband sold his business, and is now semi-retired. I say "semi" because he still finds plenty to do. We bought a 16-unit apartment building back in September, and he keeps busy taking care of things around there. And, best of all, he cleans house (sort of), and cooks. Boy does he ever. I'm not a bad cook, but DH is much better. Not only is his food tasty, he makes a real effort to make healthy meals. Between that, his reduced stress, and doing some intense workouts, he's managed to lose almost 30lbs. in the past three months. Now if only I could find the motivation to cut out the Mountain Dews (they're so readily available at work!), and get on the treadmill.

Back to the writing. I signed up for the challenge, and included my blog link, so I guess I'd better blog at least once in a while - more often than every six months, at least. The challenge starts 3/1, so I need to have my pre-writing finished by then. Right now, I am going through Holly Lisle's Create a Character Clinic to get some characterization stuff nailed down, then on to the outlining. These books are great! I used CCC for my last book, and I think the characterization aspects it makes you think through are one reason why my last book was my best work to date.

Now if only someone would buy or represent it...

Back to work. I've seen from my Sitemeter reports that this site still gets several hits a day (probably mostly from spambots, but maybe not?) so I'll try to post more regularly. If nothing else, to be accountable to myself for my progress these next few months.

Dispossessed

2007-07-13T13:31:00.000-04:00

Song stuck in my head at the moment: "Dispossessed" by Sister Machine Gun, thanks to my post title!

I have been at the new day job for a week now, and have yet to do any real work. I have no office, no computer and no email. This feels weird, like I'm a wandering pigeon that can't find a place to roost.

The main reason is that I am assigned to work at our nearby AF base, but just managed to obtain my base pass today. Right now I'm in a borrowed cube at the company office, but they tell me I'll be good to go at the base come Monday (I've seen my cube, so I know that's there ). Yay!

It's been the same way at home, with my writing. Having finished the first draft, I know I need to just let it sit, ideally for a month. Don't open the Word file. Don't think about it. Do something else. Then come back to it with fresher eyes. I suppose I could go back and dig into revisions on the second time travel novel, but the thought makes me want to go hide in a dark corner - no, wait, that's where I write.

I just can't do it – leave the current WIP alone, that is.

First, I've decided I don't have a month to do nothing on it. I won two critiques of a partial by published authors - one at a local conference, one on Brenda Novak's auction for diabetes research. Those authors are expecting my partial sometime this month. So I need to get the first three chapters in shape for these authors to critique for me - I certainly don't want to waste their time with a crappy first draft! So it gets to sit for a week, maybe two. That's it.

So I've been reviewing my WIP for research points I need to verify or find out. I haven't edited - well, nothing significant. What I did do was come up with 2-3 dozen questions that will need to be answered at some point in my book, and maybe a dozen more that are story details I haven't quite flushed out enough.

I have a plan. And if there's one thing that reduces stress, at least for me, it’s that. So hopefully I'll be settled into my new cube at work next week, and settled into my research on my WIP at home, no longer dispossessed. It's been a strange week.

Eleven Weeks

2007-07-08T12:17:00.000-04:00

I just typed THE END on my WIP. Of course I won't leave it there when it's time to submit it, but that's a ways off. First there is my own revision and polishing to do, then there are critiques and yet more changes to make, then probably more tightening and polishing before any industry pros get to see it.

But almost any writer I talk to says those two little words feel too good not to type.

This book took me eleven weeks to write, the fastest I've ever written. Of course, not having a day job for the last eight of those weeks helped immensely. But it goes to show what I'm capable of. And folks, if I can do it, you probably can too. I'm also thrilled that it came in at less than 100k - truly an amazing feat for a writer who's struggled to get her last two books under 125k. So I'm happy for that, too. I think Holly Lisle's notecard plotting was a huge contributor to that.

It also helped that this is my fifth completed novel, and I've learned enough about my writing style and process to have figured out that my scenes average about 2000 words each - so I planned fifty scenes for this book.

So the fun's over. That rush of new writing, of not worrying if what I write is crap (and much of it is, believe me). Of not caring if I'm shortchanging the emotions, or leaving out research or letting my setting be vague and my secondary characters be cardboard.

I'm going to take a break for a week, get settled into my new job which starts tomorrow, kick back, relax, play some Nethack - and oh yes, celebrate!

I celebrated when I finished the first draft of my first book. Nothing major - I took my family out to dinner, maybe drank a glass of champagne, I don't really remember. I don't remember finishing my second book at all - that's the one that will forever remain buried on my hard drive, that I lost interest in halfway through and finished just for the sake of finishing. I know I did not celebrate that.

Nor did I celebrate Book #3, though I should have. That one was three years in the writing - just the first draft! - because I was experimenting with process (i.e., not plotting) and discovering what totally didn't work for me (not plotting). I typed THE END on that ms in the middle of a power outage that lasted two days - Thank Dog my laptop had a functioning battery at the time!

I didn't celebrate finishing Book #4 either. Don't know why – that one was a bear to write, too, though nothing like Book #3. Even more, it was the continuation of Book #3, where h/h finally got their real HEA. Don't know why I didn't celebrate that one.

Book #1 sold, albeit to an e-publisher whose readership was totally the wrong market for that type of book. Third time might be a charm, but I've heard many authors say it was their fifth book that broke in for them. So today I celebrate. There's a bottle of champagne in my refrigerator that's been there longer than I care to think, that's finally going to get broken out. Going out to dinner sounds good, too - also to celebrate starting my new job tomorrow! And finally, I'm going to get a massage Tuesday evening - using a gift certificate that's also quite old.

Eleven weeks isn't that long - or is it? We'll see once I dive into revisions.

No, I’m Not Dead...

2007-07-07T16:43:00.000-04:00

Time to resurrect the blog. Much to my shock, I took a look at my feed in Bloglines and saw that I, amazingly, still have four subscribers! Whoo-hoo! I am going to try, once again, to get back to blogging on a semi-regular schedule (not sure what, just yet), so hopefully your sticking around will be worthwhile.

So what’s been going on these past couple of months, you might ask? Or you might not. But I’ll tell you anyway. Here’s a rough chronology:

April 17: Having had nothing to do at BigConsultingCompany for the past five months, I get put on notice that I have one month to find billable work to do, or I’m out the door. (Actually, they were a little nicer about it, but that’s the jist of it).

April 18: Put my resume on Monster.com and Dice.com. Apply to a few positions.

April 22: I start working on MS, my current WIP.

April 23 – May 16: Continue actively looking for a job, both at current employer and elsewhere. Get an offer, decline because not enough $$. I’m being picky. DH encourages this.

April 29: Post to Yahoo! Goals group. Have completed first chapter/three scenes/5000 words on new WIP. Happy progress!

May 17: Receive walking papers from BigConsultingCompany. Peeps and boss act genuinely sorry to see me go. I believe them, it’s business, no hard feelings.

May 18: Up writing production while I continue to look for a job. Both go slowly at first.

May 28: Writing production is up to 6 scenes/2 chapters/10k words per week.
June 1: Attend small, local writers’ conference. Pitch TE to a Berkley editor, who requests the material. Feel good to name several of her authors who I love.

June 5: Send partial to Berkley editor. Another job offer from company mentioned above—still not the right $$. Two more interviews that week – all seem to go well, and $$ discussed up front, so hopefully no more lowball surprises.

June 11: Another interview – goes well. Two days later I have an offer – the money’s right, the work’s what I want to do, and I even manage to negotiate an extra week of vacation! The only catch, and it really isn’t a catch: I won’t start until July 9. I’ll be working on a DoD project, and I expect they needed the time to get my security clearance transferred, base passes lined up, etc. I set myself a new goal: Finish the WIP by the time I start my new job. I review the calendar, and if I write one scene per day – no days off – I can do it.

July 2: I’ve managed to keep up the writing schedule so far. Occasionally needed a day off due to headaches, but caught up each time. Some scenes are very short, and that helped offset these. This day wasn’t good, writing-wise: between a very long scene, a research trip (and fun trip for DD and friend) and a headache when we got back, not much done.

July 4: Happy Independence Day! Got five pages written on the 3rd, but I still haven’t finished Monday’s scene. I write and write and write - lots of headphone time. I finish Monday’s scene, then crank out Tuesday’s. I keep on, and hit today’s – by the time I finish, DH suggests we go out for dinner, then to see fireworks!

July 7: I am two scenes away from finishing – yeah! Taking time to blog because the family’s sitting here watching TV. I will write today’s scene after they go to work/have friend over.

OK, to sum up (if you’re still reading, LOL) – Since mid-May, I’ve been laid off, found a new job, and written 42 scenes out of fifty on my new WIP (six were written before then, and I have two left to go).

I’m going to take a week off to let my WIP ferment a little, do some research, and most of all, get I’m going to challenge myself on revisions, and will try posting here to keep myself on track. There is an interesting challenge going on at Alison Kent’s blog, but I don’t know if she’ll let me apply it to revision or not. For me that’s as hard as, if not harder than, the initial writing. So wish me luck!

Tense and POV

2007-05-08T10:03:00.000-04:00

I've let the blog grow rather stale lately, and Romancing the Blog posed an interesting question that made me think, so I figured I'd share with all five of you who read this. The question was first person – First choice, last choice or never a choice?

Most readers don't care whether a story is told in first person or third, as long as it's done well, although several romance readers noted that they prefer third because that way they get the hero's point of view as well, which makes for a more satisfying read. I have to agree with that in most cases, but I also agree that it doesn't matter when done well. In fact, first person can enhance a story when done well. Case in point: I love-love-love Jennifer St. Giles's gothic romances, which are told in first person. As one might expect, a big part of these books is the hero's questionable motives, and his equally questionable past. Although the reader knows the books will end happily (after all, they’re romances), there's always the question of did he commit the murder? And why? Is he as dangerous as he comes across? These questions raise the stakes, heighten the mystery and increase the tension. None of this would work if we got to see the hero's POV. So first person can be particularly effective in instances like this.

My current WIP is my first foray into first person, so I'm experimenting with it myself. Where I'm not sure what to do is with the hero's POV. This story needs his POV, as the reader needs to see some things the heroine wouldn't see, and not seeing his internal conflict would take away from the story. However, I keep writing the heroine's scenes in first person POV – it simply started coming out that way, had all along in my mind ever since the story idea struck me and began fermenting.

So the question is, do I keep the hero's POV in first, switching back and forth? Or do I do what I've been doing – write her scenes in first, and his scenes in deep third? I have to admit this is more comfortable for me. He’s part alien, and I don’t think the alien thoughts would work in FPPOV. Yet I haven't seen very many books where this type of switch is used, so I'm wondering if I'm adding yet another hard-to-sell aspect to the book (imagine that). Oh well, I'm going to keep going and see how it fares once I pass it on to critique partners and contests. I can always change it later.

On the job front, I'm looking. The day job is soon to come to an end, unless I want to move to the D.C. area. Nothing against DC - in fact, I have some good friends in the area – but moving is a problem when DH owns a business here. So not gonna happen. Oddly enough, while I am unwilling to let my job relocate me, I have no compunction about relocating the mice who've taken up residence in my house. Only my choice is relocate or be unemployed; the mice's choice is relocate or die. Considering that my live-capture traps have caught nine in less than a week, compared to DH's glue traps only catching one in over two weeks, the choice is pretty obvious. They're too cute to kill. Too bad I'm not too cute to lay off. Then again, I could always write.

And it's time for a new progress bar! I'm measuring my progress in scenes this time, as it seems to work better for me. I'm also hoping it will curb my tendency to overwrite, which would make for easier revisions.

Crossroads, and Augmenting the Toolbox

2007-04-11T16:51:00.000-04:00

Decisions, decisions. Like what to do about my day job. And about my writing.

I'm not in the habit of blogging about my day job - after all, people get fired for doing so - but I'm not identifying my employer, much less saying anything bad about them. And even if it did get me cut, well, that would make one of those decisions easy.

I work as a software developer for a Big Consulting Company. Two of my coworkers and I have not been billable for nearly six months. One has given notice and is leaving in two weeks. As for me and the other guy - you can guess where we're heading. Only it should have happened by now, shouldn't it? My manager insists that the company is committed to keeping good people. So does his boss. The latter even said in a meeting that, the easy thing is to go elsewhere. The tough thing is to stick it out here. (I disagree - the default course of action in almost any case is to do nothing - what I'm doing here. Going elsewhere involves writing cover letters, sending out resumes, going on job interviews, etc. All of which I hate.)

Then again, I haven't exactly been doing "nothing" these past six months. I help with sales/presentation materials when there is the need. There was a small website project I worked on for a month (a value-add deal, not billable but counted as such) that fell through. And in between, my coworkers and I are expected to spend our time learning and enhancing our skills.

I'm taking a college course in Java. I've been doing Java development for several years now, but as a mostly self-taught developer, there are gaps and weak areas I need to work on. My teacher says I'm in an enviable position, being paid to learn (I don't go to my class during work hours, but I do do my homework then). And the company has a vast library of online courseware. It's all augmenting the toolbox - and as my manager likes to say, "it's all good."

Only thing is, this can't go on indefinitely. My manager has investigated numerous opportunities for work for me and my remaining teammate, and not a single one has come through. Eventually, business needs will force them to cut loose employees that aren't generating revenue, so change grows more inevitable each day.

I've been on the receiving end of that change before (dot-com bomb, 2002). Not fun. If the change is inevitable, I'd rather be the one to make it happen. At least there is a job market for my skills now, unlike 2002. But being paid to goof off and read blogs learn and enhance my skills does have its appeal…

As for the writing, I did stop working on the revisions for time travel book 2. That was the book I entered in the RWA's Golden Heart. Obviously, it didn't final, or you'd have read about it here. I am not going to conference this year, either. I just don't feel that good about my writing right now. Not that I don't think my time travel books are good, or that they don't deserve to be published - they do! - I'm just not confident in their marketability, and spending the time and money to go to conference isn't justifiable this year. Between the no-final and the rejections received on time travel book #1 last year, I'm having trouble maintaining any enthusiasm for marketing them.

I've been concentrating on a completely new book for the last month or so. I'm hopeful about it - and excited. It's a historical paranormal, and I believe there could be a market for it. It's similar enough to what's out there, yet it's not like anything I've read. Sorry, no specifics. Not that I'm afraid someone will take my idea, just my way of protecting the work is to not talk about it in much detail. So my goal is to get that book written this year. Conference is a distraction I don't need, especially when I don't have anything ready to market.

I'm thinking of entering time travel book #2 in a contest, but then again I'm not sure. The final judge is an editor 'd like to target, who doesn't take unagented material. And yes, this is the book that did final in another contest (then got third place out of three) but I've entered this contest before and didn't do squat. So hmmm. Should I take time away from my more promising book, to write the set-up the contest requires? The section of this book that I'm thinking about entering hasn't even been through the critique mill yet. (It's not the usual first chapter contest.) At least it's electronic entry, so I don't need to spend time printing and preparing paper entries, but still…

Decisions, decisions. In the meantime, I'll work on augmenting the toolbox.

Protecting the Work

2007-03-21T09:09:00.001-04:00

Where have I been the past few weeks? Right here, but I'm just keeping a low profile. I've gone into Protect the Work mode.

I've heard it a million times, and it's true - this industry is brutal on the ego. Writing fiction is not something to get into unless you can't imagine not doing it. Or if, like me, you've tried to quit and weren't able to. I still hope for publication, but my current mindset is cognizant of the hard fact that I may very well be writing just for myself. That's not what I want, but it's the reality of this business that there are many more writers -including plenty of good writers - who don't sell than writers who do.

So I have cut down on my blog reading as well as my blog writing, in an effort to concentrate on my newest work. I'm still revising the last one, but very slowly. My main effort is going into the project I believe has greater potential for success.* Because let's face it, time travel is not the easiest sell, particularly when there are no hunky highlanders involved.

A lot of the blogs I was reading were depressing me. Not because they were full of gloom and doom, but because they made me feel like everyone's getting agents, everyone's selling, everyone's getting contracts except me. Now I know that's not true of course, and I don't begrudge those authors their success, but it did not make me feel good and was adversely affecting my writing. As in, I would rather do two dozen puzzles on http://www.jigzone.com than write. Reading about promotion and industry woes was stressing me out, too. Although it's good be educated about such things, the fact is I can't worry about it at this point in my so-called writing career.

I also decided it was OK to let work on the old WIP proceed much more slowly, if at all. I do believe in finishing what one starts unless it's a completely useless effort, and I still love that story and believe in it, but it was getting me down. Cutting down on the blog reading and giving myself permission to slow/quit working on the other WIP has been liberating. In the past three weeks, I've brainstormed and written the entire outline for my new story. And so far I really like it. Of course, I haven't started the actual writing yet.

We'll see how that goes. For now, my blog posting's probably going to remain at the current "very occasional" frequency. Thanks for sticking around!

* The new book is historical paranormal romance with an urban fantasy feel. Historical paranormal romance/urban fantasy is something I'm seeing just starting to take off, so hopefully this one might do it for me.

"It was Boring"

2007-02-08T15:54:00.000-05:00

Reason #13 on "Why I put the book down."

Actually, this one might even deserve to be Reason #1. After all, if it's interesting in some way, there's a chance I might push through other elements I don't like, poor writing, clichés or unsympathetic characters.

But yes, I put a book down the last week. I gave it its 50-page chance, and I still wasn't anxious to get back to it. I wasn't even looking forward to it. I wanted to like this book - I've met the author - but 50 pages is enough time for me to invest in something that I'm not enjoying.

So I asked myself why, and the answer was simply "It was boring."

Why was it boring? I try to analyze this whenever I come across a book that doesn't work for me, hoping to learn something from it, or simply to decide if it's just my taste.

I think this book was a little of both. For starters, it was a straight romance. I usually prefer at least a little something else mixed in with my romance, usually paranormal happenings, suspense, or best of all, both. With this book, there wasn't any of that, and the conflict between the characters wasn't enough by itself to carry my interest.

Conflict - there has to be enough of it, and preferably conflict should come from multiple sources. In a suspense novel, this may be a serial killer or other villain, in addition to personal issues driving the conflict between the hero and heroine. Multiple villains that may or may not be working together are even better. The book I put down only had conflict between the hero and heroine, and again, it wasn't strong enough for me to want to slog through 300+ pages.

Another thing I didn't like about this book was that the hero and heroine were constantly fawning over each other (mentally, that is), thinking how hawt each other were. A little of this is good - hey, it's a romance, they're supposed to be attracted to each other. But too much is too much beating the reader over the head. Hey, he's so hawt! Even though he's such an arrogant jerk! For three chapters. Definitely too much thinking about how hawt the other was while flirting and trading insulting banter with inadequate provocation. Yawn.

So that's why I put the book down.

As a side note, you won't find these in my sidebars, so don't go looking for them. My intention is not to bash authors or books, but to point out why one book didn't work for one reader. I put down three or four books before I realized, hey, maybe I don't want to put this one in my sidebar. Make sure I like it before I do. That way some astute blog reader won't figure out what book I was talking about. So no, this one did not go in my sidebar. The attempted reading occurred between Heart Thief and Man with a Past, both of which I immensely enjoyed.

When they're bad, they're reaaaaaaaly bad

2007-01-22T15:16:00.000-05:00

I spent some time this weekend judging contest entries, and some interesting patterns emerged.

First, the statistics, on my small sample of five:

Entry #1 - meh.
Entry #2 - Ugh.
Entry #3 - pretty darn good! I'd read more if I had it.
Entry #4 - also good, kept my interest.
Entry #5 - oh dear dog. I Could. Not. Finish. This.

Entries that started with a character getting up in the morning: 1 & 2.
Entries that featured a POV character looking in a mirror to describe herself: 1, 2 & 3. Although, I have to admit, #3 didn't bother me because it was less a cataloguing of hair color, eye color, attractiveness, etc. and instead drew out the character's weariness from her situation.

But the others really make me wonder: do these authors live under a rock? Do they not have Internet access?

The more important question is, what was so bad about Entries #2 and 5? Without giving any identifying details:
- Both writers seem to have completely missed out on all the craft books, articles and workshops that tell us to Show Don't Tell. These entries were full of stuff like, "She was scared." Yes, that bad.
- The author of Entry #5 also missed out on basic grammar instruction, especially the lessons on commas and apostrophes. The entry was full of plural words containing apostrophes, and hardly ever used commas. It was also full of misused homonyms - so much, and all through what I read, that I wondered if anyone had proofread this story.
- Entry #5 also lacked sympathetic characters, who in turn were devoid of motivation for doing the things they did.
- The author of Entry #2 had a strange fascination with italics and exclamation points.
- Neither of these entries, nor Entry #1 had appropriate pacing for the type of stories they were. None of them started in the right place, either.

I feel bad for the authors of Entries #2 and 5 that they actually paid to enter this contest. This contest doesn't allow for feedback, just a score, so chances are none of these authors will know why they scored low (or in the case of #3, mediocre).

Entry #2 has hope, as it had an interesting premise. It could be a worthwhile read if the author learns to cut out all the boring stuff and improves on grammar and use of POV. Entries 1 and 5 - well, I imagine an editor or agent would quickly toss them aside because there was nothing original or interestingly done about either.

As a side note, Entry #3 (my favorite of the bunch) kept harping on the heroine's hair color. Author, I got it the first time. But really, the rest of the story was good enough I was willing to forgive this. Hopefully an agent or editor will, too.

And yes, as noted above, I did not read all of Entry #5. I realize that, as a contest judge, I made a commitment to read the whole entry. But among other sins, this entry was printed in Times New Roman 10 pt. This entry hurt my eyes in more ways than one. I justified not reading all of it by the fact that the contest rules specify "industry standard formatting" - which is 12pt, or at least larger than this. Had this author printed the entry in a decent-sized font, the amount I read would have probably been the whole thing.

Gives you a little bit of insight as to why agents and editors often don't read past the first page, doesn't it?

So if you're getting low contest scores and you don't know why, and you don't have a critique partner or beta reader, find one. If you do have one and they're not catching stuff like this, find a better one. And if you're going to enter a contest or send something out, for dog's sake, have someone proofread it. Please.

Dilemma

2007-01-19T14:20:00.000-05:00

Start something with more potential, or finish what's already started?

This is a big one for many writers - it's not uncommon to face the siren song of a new story long before the current WIP is finished. Usually, I don't have a problem with this - I'm a very linear thinker, and a strong believer in finishing one project before moving to the next. This doesn't count the 4-6 week fermenting period between finishing a first draft and beginning revisions - that's a must for me, and is the ideal time to start cranking around with the outline for a new story. If a new story beckons too loudly at any other point while working on the WIP, exorcising it is a simple matter of jotting down a few notes, then returning to the matter at hand.

But the dilemma I'm dealing with now is a little different, and not so simple as resist-the-siren-song-finish-what-you-started.

I honestly believe the work that I'm shopping is good and worthy of being published. So far the agents I've queried about it haven't agreed. OK, I realize that that book may not be the one to do it for me, I can deal with that. The trouble is, the WIP I'm currently revising is the sequel to the one I'm shopping. Yeah, I know, it doesn't make much sense to crank out more than one book in a series until I sell the first, but this one and the in-submission book were originally one book; and I felt strongly enough about this one I couldn't not write it. Even though the two can each stand alone, to not finish this one was to not finish the story.

I'm halfway through my revisions, and they're going slowly. Polishing is always a tedious process for me (anyone with suggestions on how to make it less so, I'd love to hear them). But I'm having trouble getting myself to even make the revisions - actual changes - before I even do the polish. So siren song is getting louder.

But the reason it's loudest? I expected to start working on it this month. Revisions on WIP are taking much longer than I thought, and between that and the dawning realization that you know, Book #1 may not sell or even gain me an agent, I'm having trouble staying motivated. And here's the deal with the Siren Song book: I think it has much better market potential than the book I'm currently revising. I'd like to get IT written and out there. On top of that, my RWA chapter offers a finish-the-manuscript incentive that will get my first three chapters read AND COMMENTED ON by an agent or editor of my choice (maybe not my first choice, but my second, third and fourth choices are pretty darn awesome too!). All I have to do to get this is complete a novel - and get it in ready-to-submit shape in ONE year. No problem, right? I should be able to do that, especially if I can achieve my one goal of actually writing something the correct length from the start, and not twice as long then have to cut, cut, cut. The catch? The novel must be started AND COMPLETED between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2007. Not March 1, 2007 - February 29, 2008. So I've already lost three weeks of the year.

I'm seriously thinking about putting the current revisions on hold and digging into the new one, except…

That ol' finish-what-you-started song keeps yelling at me. And I do believe current WIP is good, and worthy of being published, and I still love the characters and the story. So what to do? Which choice will bring me closer to my goal, to sell my first book to a big-time publisher?

I leaned toward the new book, then swung back around to the finish-what-you-started mindset. Then I remembered what I'd once read from one of my favorite authors. She works on multiple projects at once. I don't mean she stops working on the WIP to go back and do editor-requested revisions on a book that's already sold (though of course, she does do this), I mean she works on multiple WIPS at once. She'll work on one until she gets stuck, then works on another. Then goes back to the first when a solution for the sticking point occurs to her and so on.

That could work. In the meantime, I need to figure out what the hell happens in the new book. I think I am going to try Holly Lisle's notecard plotting…

I Just Don't Wanna…

2007-01-16T13:29:00.000-05:00

I just checked my blog in Bloglines and… OMG! I still have four subscribers! Thanks for sticking with me, folks. I figured you all would've left me by now.

Why haven't I blogged in almost a month? I don't know. The holidays are one reason - I do most of my blog reading and writing at work (at lunchtime, of course!), and I took two weeks off, combining vacation and holidays. At home I was focused on getting the usual holiday stuff done, plus plugging along with my WIP.

December's usually a wash when it comes to my writing - there's just too many other demands on my time. It's hard to focus on something that no one else really cares about when there are family and friends that expect gatherings attended, dinners hosted, and gifts bought (and returned). Much of which also requires at least a semi-clean house. And that's one of those jobs that, if I don't do it, it doesn't get done.

I was determined that this year would be different. After all, authors with contracts can't usually take a whole month off, holidays or no.

And I didn't. I got a four chapters revised and polished during my blog hiatus. Not as much as I'd have liked to get done, but more than I normally accomplish in December.

And now I've run into a roadblock. Chapter 12 took me two weeks to revise and polish - and the first of those two weeks, I was even off work. It was the first week of January, so the holidays were over. The past few days, I've done little more than open the file on my computer and look at it. Why?

I could offer excuses. Chapter 12 was twice as long as most of my chapters. It had a lot going on - a major turning point, lots of emotion that needed shored up, etc. A former coworker I greatly admire once told me that "there are no such things as excuses - only reasons." I have to agree. The real reason I wasn't very productive these past couple of weeks was the same reason I haven't blogged in a month. My cousin Sheri summed it up nicely in a recent email: I Just Don't Wanna.

I'm not sure why my motivation has flagged. It could be because my Goals Group has been on hiatus since before Thanksgiving. It could be because I'm at a difficult part of the story, but I don't think so. It could be the weather - we've had lots of rain, so I've had lots of headaches.

My Goals Group is starting up next week, which should help. It's hard to stay unmotivated when you see others - not big-time, published authors, but small press authors and not-quite-there peeps like me - posting that they edited 25 pages last week, or cranked out 2000 new words. It's my job to be their cheerleader, to give them kudos when they meet their goals, and offer a sympathetic but firm, virtual kick in the pants when they don't.In the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions for cranking back into gear, or just a sympathetic but firm virtual kick in the pants, send it along. I'd be grateful.

Babysteps Get the Job Done

2006-12-12T16:41:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of Flylady. A few years ago I was laid off from my job, and suddenly I had time (and expectations) to keep my house in better order. I get stressed out by clutter and mess, so it became a necessity.

Flylady covers all areas of getting your home life in order--not just keeping your house tidy and within fifteen minutes of being company-ready. She also reminds her readers to take time for themselves, spend quality time with their Significant Other (if applicable) and take good care of themselves and their families by planning and preparing nutritious, tasty dinners that don't take hours to fix. Her cohort Leanne Ely's Saving Dinner is my favorite cookbook, hands down, because none of the recipes take more than ½ hour to prepare, require only common ingredients, taste good and are nutritious.

One thing Flylady constantly reminds her readers is to take Babysteps. Trying to jump in and get your house decluttered in a day (or a week) will only lead one to crash and burn. She encourages her readers to work on getting into one new habit a month-- your home did not become a disaster in one day, and it's not going to get clean in one day either. She suggests newbies to her email list to start with one simple habit each day: shine your kitchen sink. Sounds silly, but it really works. Start with a quick, easy task, and once that becomes a habit, add something else. Try to jump in at once is only asking to be overwhelmed, and if you're like me, it's easier to not start at all.

Much of Flylady's wisdom applies to my writing too--and lately, I've forgotten that.

Two weeks ago, I finished the major hack 'n slash, having cut the unwieldy WIP from a bloated 200,000 words down to a reasonable 120k. Now it's back to working in the changes, and polishing.

My editing process at this point is two-fold: I have a list of bullet points for each chapter, of stuff that needs to be changed. Most of it is little stuff, things I thought about while I was writing the first draft but didn't want to stop and change, or ideas I had later that would make something better. I make those changes first. Then I polish.

It's slow going. And at the rate I've gone for the past couple weeks, it might get done--not even submission ready! Just ready for the critique partners-- by oh, 2012.

The other day, I was trying to figure out how I can kick my own fanny into gear, and I realized why I was working so slowly, taking many, many breaks to goof off, and generally doing anything but working on the WIP: I hadn't broken it down into babysteps.

But I am, I thought. I only work on editing one chapter at a time.

Not good enough. Polishing a 15 page chapter (20, when I was using the Courier font - yuck) seemed an overwhelming task. I go over each page carefully, asking many questions, trying to make it the best I possibly can. It's not a quick job in any case, but I just couldn’t keep my mind on the task (OTOH, I'm getting really good at Sudoku and I actually reached the quest level in Nethack - twice!). I looked forward to my writing time each day (on the days I get to write), yet I dreaded it. And when the time came, I did a lot more goofing off than writing.

Chapters are not babysteps. But a page? That could work.

So I set myself a new goal this week: polish two pages a day on one chapter (this week, that's Chapter 8), and make two bullet point changes on the next chapter (9). I did it last night, and was surprised to see how little time it took since I only had to do that little bit. Which brings up another bit of Flylady wisdom: "You can do anything for fifteen minutes." I planned to work on my editing for I was able to get on to wrapping Christmas gifts, watch WWE, and --gasp!-- actually talk on the phone to a friend without that stressed-out I-really-need-to-get-back-to-my-writing feeling.

And yay! I have a new progress bar. I'm hoping to get this book edited and polished by the end of February. Sounds like a long time away, but I have a lot of work to do.

Must I Suffer for my Art?

2006-11-28T09:10:00.000-05:00

This topic's been brewing in my mind ever since the 2005 RWA National conference, and this young writer's thoughtful post yesterday reminded me of it. At the 2005 conference, one of the keynote speakers was Debbie Macomber, who gave a poignant talk about her struggles to become a published writer. During the journey, she decided she'd never become a published author unless she took a chance and quit her day job to write full time. She gave herself a year (if I recall) and told her husband she'd go back to work if she hadn't sold by then.

It wasn't easy (is it ever?). She struggled to pay the bills. Right before she sold (which was also right before her self-imposed deadline), she struggled to come up with the postage to mail her submission to Silhouette. Though we are talking back in the eighties (again, I think), that couldn't have been more than ten bucks. Can you imagine not being able to come up with ten bucks, with having to choose whether to eat lunch, or mail your manuscript? I can't. Yet plenty of writers deal with this. Even more (published and not) have difficulty coming up with $75 for their RWA dues each year, or to fund attending National conference.

Do we have to struggle financially to sell? I don't think so.

Perhaps the pressure gave Debbie Macomber that extra push to produce, to hone her craft, to excel. It would have the opposite effect on me. For me, this kind of stress is burdensome and stifling. I would not be able to produce. The quality of my work would suffer if I was worried about having the electricity shut off, or feeling guilty because we were eating ramen again instead of steak (or even chicken).

My late father in law was a gambler. My husband's childhood memories include getting steak for dinner because the Lakers won - and eating macaroni and cheese (again) when they didn't. My husband is never comfortable without having considerable savings. Many full-time authors still struggle to pay the bills, and live off of credit card debt. My husband would not be able to sleep at night if this were our case. Neither could I.

Granted, plenty of full-time writers are supported by a spouse or by retirement income, and while they may not have the standard of living they'd have with a regular paycheck, they don't struggle financially. I was without a job for two years, thanks to the dot-com bust. We got by fine, but I always felt a cloud hovering over my head because we didn't save anything during that time, much to my husband's discomfort. Because I felt obligated to help in any way possible, I did all the child care and taxiing during that time, and often ran errands for my husband's business. I ended up not producing any more writing than I did while working for a paycheck. I did freelance graphic design work to alleviate the burden somewhat, but the fact is, it was a huge relief when the current day job fell into my lap.

Many people posted blogs last week about what they are thankful for this Thanksgiving. Of course I'm thankful for family, friends, home, health and all that. I'm also thankful for my day job. It allows me to focus on my writing during my writing time, without worrying about credit card debt piling up or not being able to pay the mortgage. I'm fortunate that my day job is fairly low-stress, pays decently, and provides health insurance without requiring me to take work home. There are plenty of writers who work crappy-paying jobs to pay the bills while they try to sell, because they can't get anything else that wouldn't take too much time away from writing. These are the folks I really feel for. I have worked hard over many years to excel in my fields - graphic design and software development - but I still realize I'm very fortunate.

Each writer can only determine for her/himself which is the right path. The young woman linked above is smart to go to college and plan on a career where she can earn a good living. You can't count on ever making a penny on writing. Sure, it would be great to get paid for the stuff I make up, and yes, I think my work is worth being paid for, but realistically, the odds are long. I don't plan to quit the day job when I do sell (thinking positively), as I know how low the advances typically are for a first-time romance author. Plenty of successful authors continue to work a day job. For now, I consider my writing a second job. It works for me.

Without the suffering.

Oh yeah - I finished my cutting, whoo-hoo! It's out the door and on its way to Texas for the Golden Heart contest. Now it's back to refining and polishing the WIP. New progress bar next week.

Goal Met, Moving On

2006-11-16T10:10:00.000-05:00

I am one of those people who love to make to-do lists and even more, love to mark things off those lists.

I have yearly, monthly, and weekly lists of goals. The yearly goals include personal goals (i.e., have someone over for dinner once a month), day-job professional goals (take one college-level computer programming course), "home" goals (declutter DD's playroom) and writing goals.

So far I think I've managed to have someone over for dinner, um, maybe three or four times this year, the most recent example being an unexpected visit from my brother and his wife. We ordered pizza. Sorry to say, a hostess I'm not. However, by this time next week, I'll have completed my programming class, and I did the playroom decluttering over the past couple of weeks. DD is thrilled to have all that room, and amazed at how much trash she'd collected.

I also completed a big writing goal a couple days ago. No, not the novel editing, {sigh} though that is progressing. I had a goal to query x # of agents this year, and Tuesday, I hit the number. I'm going to stop now until after January 1st, figuring most of the industry is gearing down for the holidays, and heck, I'd like to take a break from querying.

One thing I'm not going to do any more of is discuss here how many rejections I get, as I've recently read advice in the writing community that it's not a good idea to discuss them publicly. I never mention any agent or editor by name when discussing rejections, and even then I never dis them. The main concern over discussing the rejections was not this, but the fact that if an agent or editor stumbles over the blog, you don't want to give them the idea that your work has already been rejected all over the place. The thinking is, if it has, an agent who's considering repping you will decide against it. I doubt most agents have much time to go trolling for writers' blogs, but I bet many of them search the 'net when they're contemplating offering representation. So, I'm not sure if blogging about rejections hurts one's chances of snagging an agent, but why take chances?

But back to querying. I'm going to set a higher goal for 2007, and probably will shop both of my time travel books (individually, not in the same query). Hopefully, I'll have a more effective query by then. I'm currently taking a one week, online workshop on query letters. I believe mine is good, but there's always room for improvement. The instructor is a NYT best selling author, and I've already learned from her lectures that the hook/first line of my query letter, should probably be more succinct and hard-hitting.

I know I would not have sent out as many queries as I did this year without a specific goal. Yes, there have been more rejections. The last few haven't gotten me down as much as the earlier ones did. I imagine part of this is I'm simply getting used to them. The other part is that I'm telling myself the results don't matter, that meeting my goal is what's important. Of course, the results do matter, otherwise why would I bother at all? But telling myself that they don't makes the rejections easier to deal with. And it's not like I'm blindly querying -- I only query agents I'd like to work with, and who have sales in the type of books I write. But the results are something over which I have no control. I can control how many submissions I send out, so that's what I focus on.

If you don't set writing goals, why not? If you do, do you set them for the week, for the month, for the year? And are you meeting them -- or on target to do so?

In for a Penny, In for Fifty Bucks

2006-11-10T12:19:00.000-05:00

For me, NaNoWriMmo is a no-no.

Last year at this time, I thought maybe I'd do it next year. But once again, the timing's not right. My goal was to have the current WIP done and be ready to work on the next book.

That hasn't happened - see last week's post on why my editing progress meter hasn't budged in the past two months. Not a bad thing - I'm making the book better, but still - not what I'd hoped for, time-wise.

I am determined to get the current WIP whacked down to size, edited, polished, and done. Even though it doesn't look like that's going to happen this year.

The emphasis on careful editing has been part of the slowness problem. But my productivity has been sagging for other reasons, and I blame no one and nothing but myself.

So I found something else to kick my butt back into gear. For the first time in my seven-year membership in RWA, I'm entering the Golden Heart contest.

Crazy, yes, I know. Especially given that this is the mother of all crapshoots.

There are no score sheets. No feedback. No judging guidelines beyond word count, category requirements (i.e., a paranormal romance must contain both paranormal and romantic elements), and for most categories, the love relationship must be the central plot. The judging is based on one thing: a single numeric score, awarded based on how well the judge likes the book and considers it to be "the best in unpublished romantic fiction." Totally subjective. So you run the chance of getting a judge who thinks your book is the most awesome thing ever - or one who gives it a one simply because she doesn't like amnesia stories (or whatever), never mind the writing, never mind the intricate plot.

Then there's the fact that those running the contest not only encourage, but expect, entrants to also judge. And - here's the kicker - they do not have a prohibition against judging in a category you have entered. So it's entirely possible that one of my judges will have entered the same category as me, and instead of judging each book on its individual merits, gives low scores to all in an effort to kill the competition.

For the past two years, I judged in the category I'm entering this year. Two years ago, I had some fantastic entries. I would have given them the same high scores even if I'd entered, because the stories entertained me, I wanted to read more, and I continued to think about them afterward. I still remember them today. The entries I read last year would have all gotten the same "meh" scores, because they were "meh" books. I would not have lowered their mediocre scores if I'd been their competition.

I'd like to think that my fellow RWA members are above scoring something unfairly because they or a friend entered the category they're judging. I think most are above this. But not all. I simply don't have that high an opinion of humanity. One only has to look to recent politics for an example of this.

So it's a crapshoot. I'd be thrilled to final. Given iffiness of the judging process, I'm not optimistic. But entering this contest is the kick in the pants I need.

The entry fee is $50. The deadline to sign up is the 15th. Last year, they only accepted the first thousand entries. I know people who waited until the last minute to enter, only to have their entry returned. This year RWA increased the limit on entries to 1200, but I decided I didn't want to wait and risk it.

So yesterday, I entered. My Discover card has been charged. My manuscript is due at RWA HQ by COB, December 4th, or I forfeit my $50. Good motivation there.

It's already working. I got my chapter three back from the CP two days ago, and have already addressed her excellent suggestions and concerns. I've polished and trimmed to get the three chapters down from 53 pages to the requisite fifty.

My first three chapters and synopsis - which is all that's judged in the Golden Heart - are in good shape. I still have time to get a sanity check from a couple more writer friends (who aren't doing NaNoWriMo).

Now I have to get out the chainsaw and hack at the rest of the manuscript. You see, we still have to send in the whole ms (it can be on computer disk, thank Dog). I entered 120,000 as the word count on my entry form. I doubt they'd DQ me if it's over, since my category does not have an upper limit, but I'd much rather send them a novel of that reasonable length than a bloated 150k behemoth.

So there it is. Some people give fifty thousand words for motivation. I give fifty bucks.

Wish me luck.

Time Off

2006-10-31T10:06:00.000-05:00

I'm a web developer in my day job. I design the look 'n feel for web applications (i.e., the pretty graphics) but mostly my job involves programming.

I like my job. In many ways, it's like working a puzzle - you have a problem to solve, and you have to figure out how. The programming aspect of my job actually has more in common with my writing than the graphic design aspect.

Sometimes, the code gets the better of even the most seasoned programmers. When that happens, the best thing to do is take a step back, walk away from the project that you just can't get to work, do something else for a while, then come back to it later. Almost invariably, you'll see mistakes you didn't before, think of a new way to accomplish a task, see the code with a fresh view. It makes a ton of difference.

The same is true with fiction writing. Sometimes a specific plot detail will elude me, and I have to take a break and let the solution come to me. I don't think on it too hard or try to force it, because that almost never works. Often the solution will pop into my mind at the oddest times.

Regular followers of this blog (all four or five of you) might notice that my editing progress bar hasn't moved in a while. I have made progress, but it's been more polishing than revisions (which for me are two separate and very different processes). I took an online class in September that has made me look at my work page by page, more critically. It's made my work a lot better.

It's also a very slow process.

I set goals each week, including writing tasks I want to accomplish. Since finishing the Deep Edits* course, my goal each week has been to deep-edit (i.e., polish) one chapter, do revisions (bigger picture changes and cuts) to one chapter, send out a couple of queries, and plan (but not actually do) my big picture revisions for the next chapter.

That may not sound like a lot, but after a full time job, a family that deserves some attention, and all the other life-stuff, it IS a lot. Too much.

I've hit this goal about half the time, and only when the deep-edit chapter was short (which most of my chapters are not) and only when the revisions are simple.

This weekend, I just Did Not Want to work.

I don't believe in just writing when you feel like it, or on waiting for the muse. Normally I do still get work done, even when I don't feel like it. This was a stronger did-not-feel-like-it. The writing was starting to get not-fun, but stressful. I was getting burned out.

So I took the weekend off, and yesterday too.

I played a lot of NetHack. I did not totally abandon my writing. I did some research I'd been putting off, and got a couple of queries out.

I feel more relaxed now, and ready to jump back in to the edits. Having done the research helped, too.

I imagine I'd feel differently if I'd been contracted, and had a deadline imposed by someone other than myself. As it was, I needed those few days off.

Writing stressing you out? A day off once in a while doesn't hurt. And it just might help.

* I highly recommend Deep Edits, or any of Margie Lawson's other courses. Regardless of your process, they will really help you take your writing to the next level.

Random Acts of Silliness

2006-10-25T11:40:00.000-04:00

I got a package in the mail the other day.

It was from one of TheSevenBigPublishersInNY.

I had submitted a partial to an editor there back in August. This is the editor I pitched to in an appointment at the RWA National conference. She didn’t sound too enthused but told me to send the partial so I did. Good little instruction-following writer that I am, I was sure to include an SASE. I did not expect to hear back from her for a while, and did not expect that to be anything other than a form letter.

Well, it was a rejection letter all right, but not a form letter. Not a long detailed one, but one that at least said why the editor rejected it, which I appreciated. It didn't have her turning the pages fast enough, which makes me wonder if it's slow-paced, just meh, or just didn't grab this editor. I prefer to think the latter, though if it's the former, the feedback wasn't specific enough for me to do anything about it. It was a very nice letter and appreciated nevertheless.

What was weird was that they returned my entire partial – on their dime. You see, I don't ever want these things back. I might if there were useful comments scribbled on the MS, but that wasn't the case here. The major reason is, why waste the money on return postage, when it's cheaper to just print up another partial? Especially since one can't be guaranteed such will be returned in pristine enough condition to be sent out again (though this one was)? I always just include a regular business envelope. I've seen a few agents' web sites instruct writers to tell them if the sub can be recycled, but really, agents and editors are smart people, if they get a sub with only a #10 envelope, they understand that the rejection letter (or request) is all the writer expects back.

This editor even returned the SASE. And the package was sent Fed-Ex. Ground, but still Fed-Ex. (Of course, one might assume that the editor loathed my writing so much she wanted the fastest method possible to get it off the property, LOL, but shredding would have accomplished that just fine.) I guess it's also possible that they have a policy to return everything, because some whack-job, some time, has probably accused them of giving his/her idea to another author. Anyway, it was nice of them to return it when I didn’t expect it.

The other weird thing is this rejection did not bother me at all. Maybe because I knew it was a long-long-LONG shot. Or maybe I'm just getting immune to them, I don't know.

Other Silly acts of Kindness

Chivalry is definitely not dead in Dayton, Ohio. One only has to visit my workplace to see it in action.

People around here have a thing for holding doors. Not just men holding them for women either, but men hold doors for men too and women hold doors for either. It's nice when someone gets to the security door just before you, saving you the trouble of digging out your security card. But they do this for exiting, and for the main building doors, too. I mean, some of these people will hold the door and wait for anyone within fifty feet.

It's the waiting that mildly annoys me. Because when someone's there, holding the door and waiting for me, I feel obliged to hurry. And sometimes I don't want to hurry.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against door-holding, just the waiting and the expectations. I'm glad to hold the door for someone who's right behind me, and I might even wait a few seconds if it's the security door, but otherwise, I don't wait. It just seems silly.

"Just Didn't Love It"

2006-10-10T09:29:00.000-04:00

Yes, I finally got one of those rejections - from the agent who requested my full on exclusive back at the end of August.

Surprisingly, as much as I'd been dreading seeing my SASE in the mail, when it finally came it didn't bother me that much. I didn't even take a night off writing to pout.

My contest final may have had something to do with that. Or it could just be that hey, I know from judging contests that most pieces just don't grab you. It could be that the agent read the first ten pages with the query and liked it enough to at least request more - that she gave me a chance. Or maybe it was because she included a handwritten note, and before said she just didn't love it enough to rep it, she said "There's nothing wrong with your writing." Meaning it doesn't suck!

Of course that could also mean it's meh - which in a way is worse than sucking. But I really think it just didn't grab her - which means it could grab the next agent. And once I got my contest finalist entry back with the judges' comments, that made me feel even better. The contest entry was a different book, but it was the same characters (it's book 2, the one I'm currently shopping was book 1). And all three judges totally got it.

While I agree 100% that you learn more from criticism than praise, praise is important too. As well as knowing our weaknesses and what we need to work on, we also need to know our strengths so we can play them up.

It's also good to know that someone gets it - that I don't suck, and not to give up.

Time to get rolling on those queries again. And write those thank you notes for the contest judges.

Contests - for what they're worth

2006-09-28T15:34:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, I think, not much. Of course, those are the ones I don't final in.

Seriously, why enter contests? It's something I've given a bit of thought to lately, particularly since I entered two this summer, and found out the results of both in the past week. Oddly enough:

I did not final in the one I expected to final in.
I did final in the one I did not expect to final in.

Total crapshoot, right?

Well, one side of me wants to dip my glasses in grenadine and say that Work #2 is simply damn good and the folks who judged in Contest #1 did not know what they're talking about. But really I don't think the latter is true.

I have not seen my scoresheets yet, and with the first contest, I'm not going to. You see, the contest coordinator is my critique partner. And when I found out I didn't final, I asked her to destroy my entries.

Jennette, why the hell did you do that? Don't you want to learn? Are you nuts?

No, my critique partner did not ask me this, it's what I asked myself. And what it really comes down to is, what did I want to get from these contests? Why did I enter? (As for the last question, that's debatable.)

There are two major reasons I enter writing contests. Oh, and for the curious, I'm mostly referring to RWA chapter contests. Those reasons are:

The final judge in my category is an agent or editor I'm targeting, and contests can be a shortcut out of the query slush, or a way to get my work in front of an editor who normally doesn't take unagented material.
I want feedback on my WIP from someone who doesn't have the investment in it that a critique partner does and can perhaps give more candid feedback from behind a veil of anonymity. Granted, a good contest judge will make comments constructive and kind, even if they are not praise.

Other reasons to enter contests may be the prestige of winning/finaling, prizes, meeting a goal, or just getting practice submitting and getting something out there.

(Prizes are a non-issue to me, since most are only a small cash amount or something jewelry-ish or sit-aroundish. Many of the RWA chapter contests only offer a certificate. The real prizes are the two items above - good, unbiased (one hopes) feedback, and the chance to get it in front of an acquiring editor or agent.)

The second contest I mention above was your basic first-chapter-plus-unjudged-synopsis (usually required so the contest judges can see that your story is suitable for the category). The first contest (the one my CP is coordinating) was one of those out-of-context ones - in this case, it was supposed to be a scene highlighting sexual tension. I think my scene had plenty of that, but it may have been too hot for the category I entered. You see, I entered it for the first reason - I wanted to get this book in front of one of the final editor judges, and the judge for the more suitable category was not one I was targeting (as a 120,000 word time-travel, my book was not something she'd be able to buy). Then there's also the fact that I included 11 pages - and my sexual tension scene was only about half that. So I included the next scene too. It had plenty of sexual tension, but also involved the time-travel aspect - which, out of context, probably confused the hell out of the judges. I included this additional material because it just seemed - well, wasteful - to enter only 5 pages when the contest called for "up to 12 pages." In retrospect, not a good idea.

Of course, there's always the possibility that my scene sucks. But really, I don't think so. Not that I can't be deluded, but this whole book has been through the critique wringer plenty of times, and this scene was one my readers all liked.

Which is why I don't want the feedback. Not that I'm not appreciative to the judges who volunteered their time to the chapter, but this book is the one I'm currently shopping to agents. I'm finished making changes to it, unless the feedback comes from someone who's in a position to either sell it or buy it. So what's the point of reading the feedback? Especially if someone did think it sucks. Form rejection letters are depressing enough, thank you. (And no, none have come from anyone who read this far in the book.)

Now about the other entry, the one I didn't expect to final that did. That's the second of the two time-travel books, that I'm just now starting to send out for critiques. I'm still going through and doing some heavy polishing on my first chapters, and serious revision on the later ones. I entered it in a contest soon after I started it and got dismal scores - and fantastic feedback. I addressed most of the judges' suggestions, and entered it in this contest (a different one) to see how it fared. On this one, I wanted the feedback.

I entered WIP#1 in this same contest a couple years ago, and it finaled, too. There were some good constructive comments, but best of all was one of the judges' comments:

I desperately wanted to read more.

Something to remember when those rejection letters keep coming - and I do think about it.

Hope, that's what it's about. If this reader wanted more, all I really need to do is find the one agent who feels this way. Hope.

And that, alone, is worth the price of admission.

There was a good article about contests on Maya Reynolds's blog last week.

Other updates:
On the agent front, I am still waiting to hear back from the agent who has my full. Her excusive is almost up, and I'm dreading checking the mail every day, waiting for the rejection letter. Each day I don't see one is a good day! We'll see tonight. At any rate, her exclusive gave me an excuse not to send out any more queries for a month, and that was fine by me. But this contest final gives me hope too, and makes me feel better about starting to query again if and when that rejection letter comes. Interestingly enough, the final judge is Agent #1, who form-rejected the first book two years ago (when it was not ready to go out). I'll be interested to see what she has to say about this book.

Pirates - I'd rather talk like one than read about them

2006-09-20T08:22:00.000-04:00

Note: this was supposed to go up yesterday, but Blogger was being temperamental. So anyway...

Ahoy mateys, today an' today only, ye can call me Saucy Wench, for it be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Me hearties be havin' a jolly good time 'ere in the Fishbowl, an' our First Mate be shakin' 'er head all day long. Right fun, it is. Me matey on my right even emailed us a mighty clever instructional video wid' all the how-tos. (Search for "talk like a pirate" on Youtube.com - at least four people have posted this one, it be side-splittin' funny! I can't link 'cause Youtube be blocked on this here ship.)

Okay, I can only talk like a pirate so much. Yesterday I was talking food (another popular topic in the Fishbowl) with the guy who sits next to me. Specifically, we were talking about the soups on Kroger's salad bar. We both agree their chili's awesome. My second favorite after that is chicken and dumplings, and there we differ. My peep admitted that he'd never liked any kind of chicken soup, not since the time he was a kid and came down with the flu right after he scarfed a big bowl of chicken noodle soup.

I knew exactly what he meant - the same thing happened to me when I was about ten, only my food-to-avoid is lemon custard ice cream. Haven't touched the stuff since.

Intellectually, we both know there was nothing wrong with the soup or ice cream, but thirty years later, the association remains.

And so it is with me and pirate romance novels.

One of the first romances I read was back in the early eighties - I think it was the summer before I graduated, so that would be '83. A friend I worked with mentioned that she liked historical romance novels—the big subgenre at that time—and I wanted to try one. My favorite reading material at the time was fantasy - David Eddings, Stephen R. Donaldson, Piers Anthony, Robert Aspirin. I loved these books, but one thing was lacking: romance.

So I went to the library and got what looked like an exciting adventure tale on the high seas where I was assured the relationship wouldn't be shortchanged.

I forced myself to read maybe four chapters before I could stand no more.

It was everything that was wrong with romance. It was everything deserving of the moniker "bodice ripper." It was everything that makes me drop a book straight in the giveaway bag if not a library book (I can never bring myself to throw a book against the wall, even one this bad). Forced seduction, a TSTL heroine (young and virginal, of course), and purple prose galore. I'm talking throbbing you-know-whats at the gates of paradise, you name it. I mean, this book was BAD. It was a good six or seven years later before I picked up another romance, when a friend whose reading tastes I trusted (still do) urged me to read a couple of Silhouette Shadows. I loved them, and soon happily discovered Harlequin Intrigues.

Thankfully, I seem to have blocked out the title and author of that first pirate romance. I've read (or started) lousy books since then, but this one was the topper. Anytime I see a pirate cover --especially with a buxom wench (sorry, couldn't help it LOL) all but spilling out of her dress, I can't break the association, can't tamp down the mental (sometimes out loud) laughter thinking how dog-awful it probably is.

Even though I know romance has come a long way in the past twenty years, that the books published today are nothing like those—even the pirate stories. I managed to set aside my prejudice when judging a pirate time-travel in a contest last year. The entry was pretty good, but it could well be that the time-travel aspect of the story eclipsed the pirate aspect. I don't generally judge historical, so if you've written one, no worries about me getting hold of it. I'd like to think I could be impartial for a contest, anyway, and if an entry features the things I hated about that early eighties pirate romance, I'd do my best to kindly point out that this type of thing usually doesn't go over well in today's romance.

So that's my main book prejudice - pirate romances. And that be all I've to say today. Arrrr!

I Made CNN!

2006-09-11T08:37:00.000-04:00

One of the ladies in my RWA posted this to our Yahoogroups loop yesterday - too funny! You can see it here - it's worth a look, even without me.

The video is about five minutes long. It's well-done,and takes the common misperceptions about romance novels that still abound, like "bodice ripper" and "they're all about sex." It features Christina Dodd and Nora Roberts talking about what romance novels really are: adventure, suspense, mystery, paranormal happenings, etc., all while going through that greatest adventure of all--finding the love of your life.

The video was shot in July during the RWA National conference. I show up about halfway through, at a booksigning, where I was waiting in line for MaryJanice Davidson to sign Undead and Unwed. The lady in front of me saw the camera and hid, saying, "Oh no, I can't be on TV!" I didn't care and was happy to move up in line. I am wearing a cerulean blue shirt with 3/4 sleeves and have a black tote bag over my shoulder.

I figured the cameraman was from a local Atlanta station and didn't expect I'd ever see myself, nor would anyone I knew.

Hehe. I don't even look too fat in the video. Now if only it could be me on the other side of the table next time!

The Rejection Letter I Wanted

2006-09-08T09:48:00.000-04:00

It actually came in email, last Saturday. And I was glad to get it. It was a big surprise. I wasn't surprised that it was a rejection, but that it came at all.

You see, this was from Agent #2, to whom I'd sent a requested full nine months ago, and who I'd pretty much written off.

I know, plenty of agents sit on a full ms. for more than nine months. Still, she'd seemed pretty excited about it when I told her about it (this was at a writers' conference) and when an agent is excited, they don't take that long to look at something.

Still, it was nice to hear from her. Not only for the closure a rejection provides, but because her letter, although short, gave me some good feedback.

It said the writing was solid, but the plot was too convoluted.

The writing is solid. Yay! I don't suck!

The plot is too convoluted. Also good feedback because this is something I can fix—and maybe already have. The ms. Agent #2 read was the 138,000 word version, which has since been pared down to 118,000. One way I achieved this was by removing a lot of backstory that had been inserted as if it was part of the story. Hopefully removing it also removed some of the confusion.

The other reason I was glad to receive the rejection was that Agent #2 doesn't discuss her sales. I found that odd when she said it, but went ahead and sent the ms anyway, figuring I'd deal with it if and when she offered representation. I strongly doubt she's a scammer, being associated with the writers' group where I met her, but the reluctance to discuss sales is often the sign of an agent who doesn't have (m)any. She might have perfectly valid reasons for this, but it still didn't sit well with me.

I know, I know, research first. I didn't have a chance to research this agent before meeting with her at the conference, as I got my appointment at the last minute due to a cancellation (I didn't make it to the sign-ups in time).

So yeah, I paid about $8 in postage plus a ream of paper to get two lines of feedback. That's OK. It was something I wanted and not a bad thing.

Giving Up

2006-08-23T08:36:00.000-04:00

I'm not. But I gave it some serious thought this past weekend.

I really dread seeing my SASEs in my mail. Because I know it'll be a rejection letter - most likely a form rejection. (This is not being pessimistic, it's looking at the known odds in this writing business.) This is another reason I don't do e-queries unless the agent accepts no other - I really don't like getting these in my email. Email is comfortable, safe. The worst thing I get there is a solicitation for meds I don't need (i.e., I'm not a man), bogus stock tips or a bogus warning that my PayPal account is about to expire.

One of those SASEs was sitting on the kitchen table when I got home from work Friday. Sure enough, it was a rejection letter, though not from one of the agents I expected (8, 12 or 13, all of whom I queried a month ago). It was from Agent #15, who I just queried a couple weeks ago.

Be careful of what you ask for.
This is a fairly new agent, so he has room on his list. He also sounded like he was looking for something a bit more out of the ordinary and would be more open to a - um, let's say, "challenging" project such as mine. So this agent wasn't as much of a long shot as say, #14, and I was more bummed than usual.

Especially since this wasn't standard form letter, but one of many he uses (I think) containing the general reason he passed.

He said my voice was "a bit too category." (As in category romance, which he doesn't rep.)

Honestly, I appreciate the feedback, as slim as it was, but still... WTF??

My book's definitely not category. I know what makes a category story: shorter length and by necessity, less complex plot and fewer characters that are fully developed among other things. There are also some standard plot lines and elements that are classic sellers (and yes, my book includes one of these), but what makes a category voice?

I puzzled over this for quite a while (and of course, did no writing that night). Category writers, while encouraged to let their own voice shine through, do somewhat have to adhere to a "house" style and tone. Is this what he means? Or to take it further, is my voice bland? Not distinctive enough?

Or does he just mean not literary enough? He is of an academic background, after all. I would be relieved if this was the case. I know my voice is far from literary. And I'm okay with that.

So after stressing about it for a while (and some very helpful, supportive emails from a couple writing friends, one of whom gave me just the virtual kick in the butt I needed), I decided that, even if he did mean my voice is bland I shouldn't worry too much. After all, there are plenty of very successful writers with bland voices - Grisham comes to mind.

And that's not bad company to be in.

So Saturday and Sunday I spent much time at the computer, and finished my writing goals for the week - finished my revision of Chapter 6, made a list of research questions (came up with over fifty - yikes!), and judged three contest entries. The revision was substantial - I ended up completely rewriting two of three scenes. But it's a TON better than before, and I also cut another thousand words.

13 - not so unlucky?
I got another of my SASEs in the mail Monday.

I played a guessing game with myself. "Which one is this form rejection from?"

It's a little early to be hearing from Agent #14 or Editor #1. I've pretty much given up on hearing from Agent #8. So that left 12 and 13.

I guessed #12.

I was wrong - on two counts.

The letter was from Agent #13, and it was a REQUEST. For the FULL manuscript! Especially funny after the funk I let myself get in Friday.

As my lecturing writing friend pointed out, ten rejections is nothing. So I'm definitely not giving up. As a side note, I mostly thought about giving up on that particular book, not writing altogether. I did think of that, but only briefly. Because I couldn't imagine not writing.

So I guess that means I'm really a writer. And I'm not giving up.

Linkage
I really do believe there's some kind of common consciousness, synchronicity, or connected awareness, because since I thought about giving up on Friday, several people have posted blogs about it:
Agent Rachel Vater

Miss Snark

And here's an inspiring story - one she told a while ago, but she's giving an online workshop this month - and I got notice in my email yesterday.

UPDATED: I just found another inspiring post about not giving up, from Natalie R. Collins. I'm glad she didn't give up, as I loved her latest book.

Random Thoughts Friday

2006-08-18T08:53:00.000-04:00

I have a list of a dozen or more topics to blog about, and none of them have inspired me this week. Hence... it's Random Thoughts Friday.

My grammar pet peeve: confusing it's and its. I see this one a lot in contest entries, newsletter articles, and even in published novels. Annoys the hell out of me. It's is a contraction for "it is," as in "It is Random Thoughts Friday". Its is possessive - something belongs to it, as in "the dog wagged its tail."

A close second is sight/site/cite. You cite something when you quote from it or use the material in your own. A site is a place (i.e., construction site). This includes virtual places, i.e. "web sites." A sight is something you see - "the sight of her made his heart beat faster."

Form rejection letters suck. OK, everyone knows that, including the agents who send them. However, I don't blame them for doing this - there are several reasons.
Writing a personalized rejection takes time that is usually needed for reading current clients' work, dealing with contracts, reading new queries and requested work. Considering the fact that most agents receive dozens of queries a day, it would take them all day to respond to each one personally. Also, a personal response mentioning why they passed sometimes invites further dialog with the author -- something the agent does not want in his/her busy day. Many of the authors who continue dialog after their work is rejected are crackpots whose work is in no way suitable for that particular agent (very, very rough; something the agent doesn't represent, totally unmarketable, etc.). Still, they're very frustrating for the author, because you don't know what's wrong with your work, or if it's something you can fix.

As you might guess, I received another one of these suckers this week, from Agent #10. I realized it's another reason I don't like e-queries - I don't want to get this stuff in my email. Bad enough to find them in the physical mailbox.

And yes, I'm really frustrated.

I don't know if:
a) My writing sucks (I honestly don't think so, but then no writer does.)
b) My premise sucks
c) My book is unmarketable (this one's fairly likely, considering it's time travel set in the U.S. and does not feature any hunky highlanders. However, I still wish I knew if this was the case--mainly because that would tell me that a is not the reason.)
d) It just hasn't grabbed any of the agents I've sent it to (ah, yes, this is a totally subjective business, and I'd be glad if I knew this was it. That means it's just a matter of finding the agent it does grab.)

If it is reason A, I'd like to know that too, if for no other reason than knowing I need to work on my craft some more. (Actually, any good writer continually works on craft - it's a field where you never stop learning.) What I'd like to know is specifically what do I need to work on to take my writing to the next level. I've used critique partners, beta readers, contests, etc. and have received good feedback from all - enough that I don't think others find my writing sucky, either. It's to the point that I really would like an opinion from a professional. Trouble is, no way to get that unless one of them chooses to provide a personalized rejection letter (or better, a revision request).

I've cut a total of 30,000 words from WIP#2. 45k more to go. I'm about 1/4 of the way through it, so right now I'm feeling good about this.

Except that I can't believe I wrote all those damn tea scenes in the first place.

Cutting Up, Or, Making a Molehill out of a Mountain

2006-08-08T09:50:00.000-04:00

I am back to editing WIP#2, the behemoth that used to be 200,000 words.

This week I'm working on Chapters 5 and 6, which used to be Chapters 7 and 8.

I've cut two entire chapters, and a number of scenes - I don't know how many. The old Chapter 1-6 was originally 196 pages. Now it only takes 86 pages and four chapters to get to the same point in the story. The word count is now down around 173k.

What did I cut?

Repeated information/overexplained information. One of the challenges of writing a paranormal is making sure the "rules" of the paranormal are understandable, consistent and make sense within the world you've created. This is the second book of a duology, but I want it to be able to stand alone, so I have to present how the time travel works all over again. The challenge is to explain it adequately for readers who haven't read the first book, but without boring those who have read the other book. In the first draft, I erred waaaaaay to the former-far more than needed in any case. Much of the info was repeated in addition, sometimes more than once.

This also includes smaller bits of information, turns of phrase, etc. that fall under word polishing.

Moving characters from place to place. This is one place where I think "show don't tell" gets me into trouble. It's OK to tell if you do it quickly and the showing doesn't add anything to the story, enhance plot, or illustrate character. Often, stage direction, or moving characters from one place to another, does none of these. I take a hint from TV and the movies and do a fast cut - delete the getting there and cut to the next scene.

Unnecessary backstory. Also a challenge relating to this being the second book of two, that needs to stand alone as well. The temptation to explain everything that happened in book one was almost overwhelming in that first draft, I'm now seeing. Some of it's necessary for the reader to understand the characters' motivations and conflicts, but much of it isn't, so that's getting cut. Ideally, I'm leaving enough in (scattered throughout) that the new reader will have the understanding s/he needs of the characters and what went before, while the knowledge of what happened in the first book will simply enrich the experience for readers who have read it.

My favorite, sitting and thinking scenes, also known as "tea scenes." (See Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass, one of my favorite craft books.) These are scenes where nothing happens, where all that's going on is a character thinking. I think a lot of these crept in because I didn't do a detailed outline for the first six chapters of the book - which probably also contributed to all the repeated info.

One of the biggest helps I've found to avoid this is determining what a scene's purpose is before I write it. I also want each scene to fit one of the following categories:* Action (a character does something proactive), reaction (a character reacts to something - duh), discovery (a character learns or uncovers something that will affect him/her and hopefully the plot), revelation (similar to discovery, a character provides an important bit of information/drops a bomb that affects others), happening (something happens to a character - I try to avoid having too many of these, so as not to have passive characters, but some are necessary), and interaction (two characters have a conversation or interaction that affects the plot - not just banter or conversation). If the scene doesn't fit any of these categories, chances are it's not needed and the information I wanted to impart can be fit in elsewhere, into one or more scenes that do fit one of these types. Every scene should move the story along.

If a scene exists mostly to provide information to the reader or to illuminate characters, I see if that information can be worked in elsewhere. Often it can. Yeah, it's hard to highlight a whole scene and hit delete - some of mine are ten pages or more - but it's a little less painful when I remember that I have a separate Word file of the full previous draft, with the scene intact should I decide I need something else from it.

Before I hit delete, I analyze the boring scene to see what necessary info I need to work in elsewhere. Sometimes there isn't any. That makes it easier to delete. Otherwise, I make a list of bullet points in my revision notes file, then cut.

After that I go over my bullets, and decide where each can logically be worked in, again evaluating if it's really needed (i.e., isn't already mentioned elsewhere). Often I'll put it in the previous or next scene, but sometimes it's way earlier in the book, or way later. It's a little tricky to work the new info in seamlessly, but somehow I always manage to find a way/place for it. One bit of info may go in one place, another bit elsewhere. It's simple. And it works fabulously.

The last thing I do is what I consider word polishing. Sometimes I get overly wordy (who, me? Go ahead, LOL.) This is trimming nnecessary adverbs, adjectives, dialogue tags and my favorite, prepositional phrases. I use way to many of these. I recently critiqued a chapter for L, and after rereading one particularly awkward sentence, discovered it contained five prepositional phrases. I suggested she get rid of some, noting that I was hyper-sensitive to it because I'd been finding the same thing in my own work. Unnecessary is the key word here - like my CP’s sentence, a lot of my prepositional phrases simply aren't needed - the reader will fill in the information. As an example, here’s one I cut last night:

Before: She brushed her bangs back with the back of her hand.

After: She brushed her bangs back.

She's not brushing her hair in that scene, so readers will assume she's using her hand. Duh. And "the back of" simply isn't necessary in any case.

So now I'm about 20% through the book, and I've cut over 25,000 words. Only 55k more to go.

TGAH** Update: I’ve sent out material to the two agents I spoke with at RWA National, henceforth known as Agents #14 and 15. I also sent the partial out to the editor, who shall henceforth be referred to here as Editor #1. Don’t know if I’ll send out to any other editors, as I’d really like to get an agent first.

* I got this tip from a fantastic article in Romance Writers Report by Alicia Rasley. Check out her website for more helpful writing advice.

** The Great Agent Hunt

Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit outa my hat...

2006-08-01T10:16:00.000-04:00

In case anyone noticed I've been gone for the last couple of weeks, my excuse is…
I was at RWA. Yeah. And I'm too cheap to pay for wireless, and the free WiFi offered by the mall next door was… well, let's say you get what you pay for. So, no blogging. And the week before RWA, I just didn’t have much to say. I don’t think anyone really cares what I shopped for, or what I packed.

I didn't have as exciting a time as some people, but here were my highlights:

Getting free drinks in Champions bar on Tuesday night. My CP/roommate and I ordered drinks and food. The drinks arrived quickly. L's food—a sandwich platter—arrived not too long after. All I'd ordered was chips & spinach dip—not too difficult, right? When L was halfway done with her dinner, I asked what was going on with mine. Turns out they'd lost the order. They brought it ten minutes later, and the bartender offered both me and L a free drink—in a to-go cup, 'cause we were ready to leave. I hadn't been starving, so waiting on the chips & dip was worth it.

The FF&P party on Wednesday night. Always fun, always informative with their agent and editor panels. It was cool to meet people I'd talked to online, to see the faces that went with the names. Interestingly, some people looked nothing like I expected, but others looked exactly how I pictured them. This went on throughout the conference.

Nora Roberts' keynote address at the PRO Retreat. She compared writing to making magic, and said if it's IN YOU (a la Gatorade) you'll keep working to perfect it, no matter what. Then she compared it to Bullwinkle. I love Bullwinkle, so this definitely resonated with me. (Heck, I even have Rocky & Bullwinkle figurines above my desk!) Bullwinkle was always trying to pull a rabbit out of his hat and never quite managing to do so, because for Bullwinkle, the magic was just a side thing for him – his main focus was on catching Russian spies, etc. She said some of us may pull nothing but air out of our hats for a while, or some of us may pull out a rabbit that’s mangled and deformed but if we keep at it, we'll pull out a real rabbit one of these days. She didn’t mention pulling a ferocious lion out of the hat, which is what I always seem to get.

The Death-by-Chocolate party on Thursday night. This is the annual party hosted by the Kiss of Death, RWA's mystery-suspense chapter. The food was cool. Winning a huuuuuuuge gift basket was cool and totally unexpected. There must've been two dozen books in that thing! But what was really cool was meeting Janette Kenny and Amy Knupp of the Write-Minded Blog, a blog I lurk on regularly. What was wild was that Jan had actually heard of me! She said, "You’re Jennette Marie, aren't you?" Whoa! I think maybe I've commented on their blog once or twice, and she noticed my name because it's pronounced the same as hers, but spelled differently (and mine gets shortened to Jen or Jenny). Amy's book was in my gift basket – I'm looking forward to reading it.

Pitching Agents and Editors, Oh My!
Friday morning I volunteered to help with agent and editor appointments. I was the timekeeper for three agents and two Red Sage editors. Two of the agents don't represent paranormal, and the other had already rejected my work (or rather, her agency did, and they’re a "rejection from one=rejection from all"). They were all so nice that I wished I wrote erotica and had something else to send the agents. One of the other volunteers managed to squeeze in pitches to all the agents in between appointments, but I'm not that aggressive. Still, it was nice to meet them, and I was even able to help one out beyond telling them "time’s up!" RWA gave them each a very nice thank-you gift of a USB flash drive. This agent showed it to me as we were packing up and asked "what is this?" I explained that it was like a miniature hard drive, that all she had to do was stick it in her computer's USB port (she did know what that was), and that it was a great way to back up important files.

I had a couple of appointments myself—both group appointments. In these, the agent or editor will typically tell the whole group to send their material unless it's totally not what they represent or publish. The editor didn't sound too enthused about American-set time travel, but she did ask what time period, and when I told her Great Depression, she sound a little interested. So I'll go ahead and send it. Funny thing was, the woman next to me was also pitching American set time-travel, though hers was Contemporary/Civil War/Revolutionary War. Interesting—like mine, it sounds like her people jump back and forth a few times, as opposed to jumping back in time and staying there for most of the book. The agent I had my appointment with also asked the whole group to send her material. Again, I'm not hopeful as this agent has a pretty full list, but you never know.

I also talked to one of the agents who sat on the FF&P party's panel. He's fairly new, and while he emphasizes that he's picky, he sounded encouraging. He's interested in time-travel that's not set in Scotland—yay! I actually talked to him last year and didn't end up sending my work because it was waaaaaay too long. This time I'll send it.

Could this be a resurgence in time-travel?
I talked to several other conference attendees who were writing time-travel. Makes me wonder if there's renewed interest in the subgenre? I sure hope so, especially since there are actually other people writing TT set in the U.S. (as opposed to Scotland, where almost all of it seems to take place). There are agents actively acquiring it. Maybe my books have a snowball's chance of selling.

Other Stuff
I went to several good workshops, did no sightseeing (my roommate and I were more into sitting around and relaxing those first couple days), and even got a scene written on the WIP I'm currently reworking. My flights were uneventful and travel to and from the hotel was easy on the MARTA system. Since I got so many books in my conference pack and the KOD gift basket, I used a great deal of restraint at the publisher booksignings, and only got ten free books from them. Several of these I'll give to my friend down the street who reads tons of romances.

So that's my conference experience. From what I could tell, a good time was had by all.

New photo, and query madness!

2006-07-16T14:39:00.000-04:00

Well OK, three queries isn't exactly madness, but I was only planning to send out one. But I was on a roll and figured heck, might as well get all three out. I was planning to by the end of the month anyway so I'd be back to having five out. I sent a partial & synopsis to Agent #11 and #12 per their guidelines. Agent #13 got ten pages. And Agent #8, from whom I've still not heard since March, got a polite nudge letter. Her website said to send a note if no response in 8-10 weeks, and it's been twice that. Agent #10's is also still out, but she's only had the partial a month. So, moving right along. Now if only one of them (or more!) would request the full...

I finally updated my profile, with a photo of me on the new Harley. I also updated my About Me section, with a modified version of the bio I sent to Agent #4.

Now, we return me to my regularly-scheduled revisions of WIP #2. Almost through Chapter Three! The week after that, here I come, RWA National Conference!

When was the last time you laughed until you cried?

2006-07-12T14:51:00.000-04:00

Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels has a Mad Lib up on their blog... OMG, SIMCLMAOTIME* - literally. And I'm at work. I'm getting strange looks from the other Fishbowl People. They'll want me to share. Other problem: runny mascara might give away the fact that I'm goofing off. Hmmmm.... Better go wash up. And read more at home.

*Sitting In My Chair Laughing My Ass Off, Tears In My Eyes

Distractions, continued

2006-07-12T09:11:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know, I'm late posting again. I've been busy. Not with writing, unfortunately, but with its almost-homophone, riding. Also I've been waiting for DH to take a picture of me to post here but he left the camera at the bar and just brought it home last night - and it was raining.

I got the Harley Friday. That's what I was waiting for a photo of. Since it still isn't happening (the photo, that is), I'll post one when I get it. And change my profile pic.

It started raining yesterday - with tornados, even - but we had beautiful weather all weekend and yesterday. I put almost 200 miles on the Harley.

Aside from the engine, which is 7x more powerful than that of The Little Engine That Could, the bike overall is significantly bigger. It's a Sportster 883Low, the only Harley small enough for me, and it's twice the weight of TLETC. The seat's about an inch higher, and it's a little wider too - insignificant to most people, significant to me. I have to wear my boots with heels to ride, but that's OK as they are my preferred riding footwear anyway. I still don't always completely flatfoot it, as I take care to keep my leg far enough away from the tailpipe so as not to ruin my pants (DH has burnt holes a couple pairs of sweats this way). The main time this is a problem is backing up - I don't have enough leverage to do so if there's any kind of grade at all, so right now I'm picking my parking spaces carefully. We have a set of alternative shocks on order which will lower the bike by 1/2". Doesn't sound like much but it will help a lot.

I love this bike. I never liked going fast (i.e. anything over 45 mph) on TLETC, but now I realize this was due to discomfort with the bike, not with my riding ability. On the Harley I worry about getting speeding tickets - I take off and next thing I know I'm doing 50 in a 35mph zone. Oops! Going 60 or 65? No problem.

We went on a family ride the other night, DD on back of DH's bike, and I got my first opportunity to ride on the highway - something that would have terrified me on TLETC. But the Harley handled it like it was nothing - even when DH got up to 80mph for a couple minutes. I kept up, suspecting he wouldn't expect me to. There is one thing this experience taught me:

Next accessory: windshield.

It rained like hell yesterday, and DH had a darts meeting so I was able to get a little writing done. I've remembered a couple things I used to use to get myself to produce new pages:

1. You can do anything for fifteen minutes. (with acknowledgement to Flylady)

2. Do it first.

By digging into the writing before I touch my email, and before I let that stack of paperwork staring me in the face get to me, I write. I set a timer* for fifteen minutes and don't stop working on the WIP until it goes off.

I cut almost 35 pages and got a good start reworking my next scene.

It's supposed to rain all weekend, so I should be able to get a good amount done.

*I use Cooltimer, and see that they've released an upgrade that allows you to save commonly used times! And no adware. I knew it had this before but removed it.

Sunshine, Ice and Fish Tales

2006-07-05T22:52:00.000-04:00

Finally, a blog post! My apologies to my faithful readers, all four or five of you!

And why no blog post for over a week? I've been on vacation, without Internet access (horrors!) for over a week. But it was worth it. So much that I hardly missed the 'net. You see, my family went to Alaska for a cruise - something I've wanted to do for years.

DH had been to Alaska twice before, both times on "male bonding" trips where the main activities were drinking and fishing. The scenery in his videos was
incredibly beautiful and something I really wanted to see, the excessive drinking and fishing did not interest me. It would interest DD even less, and Alaska was something DH and I wanted her to see as well. Hence, the cruise, with its various stops and a kids' Fun Zone so we could have a little time to ourselves too.

The cruise was, of course, wonderful - even the hour long bus ride from the
Anchorage airport to the cruise ship dock had incredible scenery. I was glad to
view Turnagain Arm from the bus, as I associate this beautiful place with death. (Explanation: a critique partner wrote a book in which the hero's wife had died there by being sucked into the quicksand-like glacial silt. ) The food was, of course, wonderful. So much that both DH and I are afraid to step on a scale until we've been back on our healthy eating and exercise for a good week or so.

Our stops were in historic mining town Skagway, Juneau, and the salmon capital of the world, Ketchikan. Our cruise ship also took a side tour through Glacier Bay National Park, which is not accessible by land. Here's an photo of the breathtaking Margerie Glacier:

There is definitely a time-travel story or two in Skagway. There, we toured a mining dredge and took a train ride up to the White Pass in the Yukon mts. This is Bridal Veil Falls, and the photo in no way does it justice:

We saw humpback whales from the ship. Sea lions too, but they were too far away for me to take good pictures. Here is the sunset from the ship, I think our third night out. This is about as low as the sun got, until we moved further south, to British Columbia. We took a southbound cruise, and did not see darkness until the sixth night.

In Juneau, we took a helicopter ride over the mountains and glaciers to a dog sled mushers' camp. There, we got to ride and drive a dogsled! That was the highlight of the trip. If you have not been to Alaska, and you have the chance to do this, GO! It was the most costly of all the shore excursions offered on the Coral Princess - and the most worthwhile. Since I don't post photos of my daughter on the 'net - yes, I'm paranoid - I'll show a picture of scenery taken from the helicopter ride instead of one of us with the dogsleds.

Our last shore excursion was to Ketchikan. Just its nickname - "Salmon Capital of the World" was enough to bring me there. We went on a fishing charter, DH's only chance to fish. I'm not into hanging around on a boat all
day to fish, but this four hour excursion was fun. Everyone caught a fish - DH caught the first Koho salmon of the season, according to our captain (Koho usually don't come that far up the inlet until August), I caught a pink salmon, DD caught two little King salmon that were too small to keep. The father and
son we shared our trip with caught three Kings, one of which they traded to us for our pink and Koho. Here's my fish tale, and one of the few photos with me in it, since I took most of them:

Our trip ended in Vancouver, BC, where I would have loved to meet Dean and sxKitten, but we were only there long enough to take a bus tour from the seaport to the airport. Long enough to see why they love the area!

So, overall a great trip and well worth the $$. I still haven't come down from the distraction (or the jet lag). Only negative was that in addition to the pink salmon, I also caught bronchitis. Because of that, I haven't picked up the Harley yet, but you can bet I've been thinking about it!

Did I get any writing done? Um, no. Not unless two paragraphs on the plane ride there count. They did finish the scene that had been giving me trouble, so yeah, I guess that counts for something but it still isn't much. Tonight... I write!

Distractions

2006-06-25T10:08:00.000-04:00

I have not been able to write s**t this week. This is partly because I'm having trouble with a plot point, which has come from condensing so much. I did some thinking on it while in the bathtub (one of the best places!) and came up wiht some ideas, so hopefully I can get something down tonight and meet my week's goal by finishing chapter two edits.

But the main reason - two, actually - I haven't been able to write is I've been distracted. Tomorrow we're leaving to go on a vacation that I've wanted to go on for ten years. No, I'm not telling you where - those details will come afterward, with a few pictures. The dogs are watching the house, along with a friend who's staying there. (Yes, the dogs are watching our friend.) I've got Dexter loaded up with my vacation reading - see the sidebar. So many good e-books, so little time!

This is has been my other distraction this week:

Yep, I'm graduating. It's a 2006 Harley-Davidson Sportster 883 Low. The picture is dark, but it's a beautiful cobalt blue. I wasn't expecting this until later this year or next, but a deal came along that was too good to pass up, so my husband said, let's get it. One of those serendipitous things - he ran into the salesman he bought his bike from at a crowded sports bar and invited the guy to join him, saving him a 1/2 hour wait. The salesman thanked DH for taking care of him (he comes to the bar sometimes too). DH said, "You can take care of me when my wife's ready for a Harley." Turns out the dealership had just gotten this one in as a trade; its previous owner put a few hundred miles on it and decided he wanted something bigger. The other serendipitous thing: it was exactly what I'd picked out on the Harley-Davidson web site.

We went to the dealership the other day to look at it and try it out. I was scared to death I'd drop it, or that I wouldn't be able to walk it, but I didn't, and I was. It was love at first rumble.

I rode it around the parking lot. When I didn't stop after going around once, DH told the salesman, "Let's deal."

So that's what's waiting for me when we get back from our vacation. Maybe I'll get some writing done while I'm away, surrounded by beautiful scenery.

Or maybe not. We'll see!

Bucket of Ticks: Update

2006-06-19T13:42:00.000-04:00

I got through the Chapter One revisions this weekend, and I'm much happier with it.

I ended up not having to rewrite that much, but mostly re-ordered some events and conversation, and took out one element.

I started by going back to outline the chapter. I outlined this book, but didn't start doing a detailed outline of each scene until Chapter Seven. Doing that with this chapter clarified what it needed to accomplish, and where it was going wrong.

When I finished outlining it, I was surprised to see that my outline left out one whole topic of conversation between h & h - and this was what had been mucking things up in the chapter. By removing this element, I not only removed one source of confusion, I gained an opportunity to increase the conflict between the characters by having the hero withhold this key information from the heroine. Yes, he had a good reason to withhold it, and it makes more sense than him divulging it did.

I also cut out six pages. Not much when I need to cut almost 300, but I knew I wouldn't get much out of this chapter.

That comes next. This week, I start revising Chapter Two - and all but one scene in the current ch. 2 are getting cut. Ditto with the current chapter three and four - they will all get rolled into a new Chapter Two.

So I'll cut out the repetition, boring parts, and unnecessary subplots, and hopefully wind up with a chapter two that has nothing in common with a bucket of ticks.

In Defense of E-Books - MS Reader Rocks!

2006-06-19T12:51:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to blog on this topic for a while, and this post by Jayne Ann Krentz finally made me do it. I don't disagree with Jayne - I think paper books will be with us for a while - but I have to admit I'm surprised that no one has jumped to the defense of e-books in the comments.

I will admit I never liked reading ebooks until recently. I have a nice laptop, but it's not exactly cozy to cuddle up with in bed - which is where I do most of my reading. Sitting at the computer is not where I want to read for pleasure; it's for writing, critiquing, and researching. Reading email and blogs, sure. But not for reading a full novel.

That was before I got Dexter and discovered Microsoft Reader. Yes, I know, it's from the Evil Empire. PDFs and Word docs still weren't much fun to read on the PDA - too much scrolling, and some PDFs won't even reflow to fit the screen. Ick. I don't mind supporting the Evil Empire when their product is this good, and if you've tried ebooks and just not loved them, I encourage you to try MS Reader.

The best thing about MS Reader is it keeps the page turning model for reading, rather than scrolling. To turn a "page" you simply tap a little arrow or press a button (depending on how your PDA or reading device is set up). MS Reader also features "Clear Type," a text-smoothing feature that makes the ebook much easier to read, reducing or eliminating one problem many folks have with reading on screen.

You can take notes without defacing the book - simply tap and a little note square comes up, much like a Post-it® note. You can add drawings, too. Next time I see ebook author Xandra Gregory, I'll ask her to "sign" my ebook using this feature. I've even started doing critiques with MS Reader. I take my CPs' Word docs and save them to Reader format using a free Word plug-in available from Microsoft. I can then read without sitting at the computer, making notes in Word Mobile or in Reader annotations.

Of course there are other cool things about ebooks that you see mentioned almost any time the topic comes up on a writers' forum - resizable text, backlit screen so you can read in the dark, portability (I can fit hundreds of ebooks on Dexter and he still fits in my purse!) and of course instant gratification. No driving to the bookstore or waiting for a bn.com shipment to arrive - just go to Fictionwise.com or your favorite e-book site, buy & download, and you have your ebook in minutes!

Ebooks do have their disadvantages. Some people like the feel of a paper book in their hands. I used to be in this camp too, but Dexter's nice rounded corners and soft-textured plastic gives a nice tactile sensation.

It's hard to read the PDA in bright sunlight, even with the screen at 100% brightness. I don't read in the bathtub but if I did, I would not want to take Dexter in. I am too much of a klutz, he'd be fried in a week or less. If you tend to lose things, a $7.99 paperback book is a lot easier and cheaper to replace than a $400+ PDA. Hard drives fail. Flash cards can get corrupted (though they don't very often). Batteries need recharging, or die altogether.

So I both agree and disagree with Jayne Ann Krentz. I see ebooks and paper books coexisting for a long time, as each has distinct advantages and disadvantages. When I go on vacation I'll still take paperback books - but maybe only a couple instead of a dozen.

The rest will go on Dexter.

Like a Bucket of Ticks

2006-06-12T13:25:00.000-04:00

This past week I started revisions on the first chapter of my WIP #2, the sequel to the ms I'm now shopping.

Oh, and I met an agent Friday night at a local con. The appointment went well, and I must not have blathered too much 'cause she told me to send her a partial. Or maybe she's just nice. She does electronic subs only (through her website) so that's now in her possession and I shall call her...

Agent #10. What, you expected something more clever?

Anyway, back to WIP#2. I dug wholeheartedly into the revisions after I got home from the con Friday night, and it seemed to go well into Saturday. I finished up the bullet points I'd noted on my revision notes, and whacked three pages out of it in the process (not as much as I'd have liked, but a start).

Then I decided to revisit some old contest comments. You see, I entered this ms. in a first chapter contest a couple years ago, when I first started it. In this case, it was more for feedback from judges who had no familiarity with me or the story's predecessor.

And feedback I got. The judges found it confusing. Parts of it lacked conflict, and the chase scene went on way too long. I also started it too late, as opposed to the typical newbie mistake of starting a story before the action begins. I'd started it in the midst of a chase scene, then had to back up to explain how h/h had gotten into the fix they were in.

Some of this I'd already fixed, like opening the story as the action's about to start. But that was just the tip of the comment iceberg.

The judges were all kind in their criticism, and all pointed out things they liked about my writing as well as the places where it didn't work. Unfortunately, there was a lot more of the latter. Some were minor things. A few I didn't agree with. But most of it was right on the $$.

It was almost as discouraging to read the other day as it was the first time. Not because these judges didn't get it, but because they were RIGHT.

This story sucks like a bucket of ticks!

(Well, not really. Though I did polish the chapter before entering that contest, it's still basically a first draft, and those are allowed to suck. Mine certainly do, as this experience reminded me.)

Having allowed myself to do other household chores, goof off and play games most of Sunday, I finally came to a conclusion that night. I got initial scene reworked to where I was fairly satisfied with it. But the rest of the chapter needs to be completely rewritten. For a while, this totally demoralized me, making me think of becoming a professional NetHack player, but then I came up with a plan.

A list. Yep, love lists. I'm going to note everything that needs to happen in this chapter, every revelation that needs to be made, and every emotion this should evoke (lack of emotion was a common thread in the contest judges' comments).Then, time to rewrite.

And after that, the chapter will hopefully only suck like a broken Hoover.

Dramatic Endings and WWE vs. ECW

2006-06-09T08:35:00.000-04:00

My family had a blast last night! We went to see WWE vs. ECW Head to Head live at the Nutter Center in Dayton. This is only the second WWE event DD & I have been to (the first being a house show in January), and the first time DH has been to one that was a major televised event.

The house show in January was great. What made last night's better was we got the whole experience – the Jumbotron, backstage action (shown on the Tron) and even Todd Grisham! Unfortunately, Todd stayed in the entrance ramp, and we were on the other side of the ring, but even at that distance he was as adorable as ever – as was Randy Orton. Matt Hardy even won in his match! (Can I take that as a good sign for my recent, requested submission to Agent #4?)

The best match of the night, IMO, was the Battle Royal between the two brands. For those who don't follow wrestling, a BR is basically a melee – a dozen or more wrestlers all in the ring at once. Wrestlers are eliminated by tossing them over the ring ropes, and the last one left is the winner. Since this match was ECW vs. WWE, whichever brand eliminated all of the other brand was the winner.

After a lively bout starting with ten wrestlers from each brand, it looked as if WWE had the win in the bag when it came down to only Kurt Angle remaining for ECW against WWE's Randy Orton and the giant Big Show. But while Orton celebrated his imminent victory on one side of the ring, Show stepped forward and ripped his WWE T-shirt off... to reveal an ECW tank top beneath! He then flipped Orton out of the ring as easily as turning a pancake for an ECW win.

Yes, this does have something to do with fiction writing. And yeah, I know, professional wrestling is fiction. The outcomes, anyway. The athleticism, bumps and bruises (and worse) are not.

One of my favorite writing craft books is Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass. If you don’t have this book, run, don't walk, and get it. (Or click, don't sit.) While it's more targeted to established novelists who are looking to crack the next level of sales, there are lots of useful tips and techniques for those of us who are still trying to break IN. One of the best regards endings, and is pretty simple:

Have someone change sides.

When Big Show did this, NO ONE saw it coming, and the crowd loved it (other than DD, who wanted WWE to win).

While WWE is usually comical from a story line and almost always entertaining, it's often predictable. This was a delightful surprise, and one that’s likely to pull even more fans into adding ECW to their must-see TV when the new series starts next month, not to mention Sunday’s Pay-per-view.

Don't know about the PPV, but I'll be watching in July. And hopefully we'’ll see more fun surprises from the revived ECW brand!

Bio, Submission and Revision

2006-06-06T15:58:00.000-04:00

I got Agent #4's submission in the mail yesterday. Many thanks to my RWA-chapter buddies who graciously critiqued my one-page synopsis with quick turnaround!

Surprisingly, the bio wasn't that hard to write. I searched the web for articles, and all I found pretty much concurred on their main points (amazing in itself, considering all the conflicting advice this business generates): Write it in third person. Mention any previous publications, lists, awards, or other credentials (summarize or list just the most prestigious if there are many - not a problem for me), and keep it short - a few sentences is enough. I'm pretty pleased with what I came up with (and thanks to Sheri for giving it a quick sanity check!) I don't have it with me right now, but I may post it later. Heck, I may even use it on my Blogger profile.

The one page synopsis was also not as difficult as I thought, though it was by no means trivial. One published author gave me some good advice, which I was glad to see considering I'd already written the synop and had done exactly what she suggested: Begin with a back page blurb-like hook, introduce the conflict, bring in the characters' goals, then add the ending. That's about all you have room for in a one-pager, although one of my critiquers pointed out that if a synopsis is only one page, it's usually OK to make it single spaced, with an extra space between each paragraph. That gave me room to include a little more character development, which was her main suggestion to me. The other ladies who read it also had some good suggestions.

So that stuff all went out in the mail yesterday. With that done, it's now time to dig back into WIP #2, the follow up.

Revisiong the 200,000-word doorstop, including cutting it down to saleable length.

The only way I can accomplish a big task like this is to break it into small chunks. So my goal for last weekend (after preparing the submission materials) was to skim chapters 1-3 and look for stuff - whole scenes, preferably - that I could cut.

I was somewhat apprehensive about this. After all, if they were that easily expendable would I have written them?

Turns out the answer is a big YES. For starters, there were several scenes from secondary characters' points-of-view that were gimmes to cut, as I'd already realized that as long as this book is, most of those subplots would have to go.

Then there were the tea scenes. You know, boring scenes where a character is just sitting and thinking (and often drinking tea) and nothing much happens. I was surprised how many of these there were - just in the first six chapters! In this book, none of these actually involved tea, but there were still several that fit the bigger definition - nothing much happens. So, bye-bye. There were others with two characters sitting and talking - not as bad as one sitting and thinking, but still kinda boring. So out those will go too, though I'll evaluate each one for useful tidbits of information to work in elsewhere before I cut.

What really amazed me was that this task too, was easier than I expected. I managed to review SIX chapters for potential places to cut, and so far am pleased with my list. These six chapters take up almost 200 ms. pages. With the number of scenes I'm cutting, I should be able to get them down to half that, or better. Ideally I could get them down to 70 pages, as there's a big turning point beginning at the end of the now-chapter six - and 70 pages in Courier New = 50 pages in Times New Roman. (I write first drafts in Courier, then submit in TNR unless the agent/publisher/contest specifies otherwise). So for that turning point to come at page 50 would be perfect for those three-chapter partials.

I didn't get a chance to work on it at all last night with DH home and bar paperwork to do, but tonight?

I'm looking forward to digging back into this story.

Proof that this writing business is truly a crapshoot

2006-05-31T15:43:00.000-04:00

We've all heard and read about the ever-elusive luck that may have more to do with if you sell than your writing. Timing. Hitting the right agent's, and/or the right editor's desk at the right time. How your book may be rejected on something as whimsical as the editor's mood, or what else happens to be on her desk at the time. Or maybe your book involves something that's a hot button for that agent - something you had no way of knowing - and as soon as he saw that element, instant form rejection, regardless of the writing skill.

Well, folks it's true, and I personally have proof. You see, I received a very interesting email from Agent #4 yesterday.

To recap my correspondence with this agent, I sent him an e-query (as specified in his guidelines) on March 2nd. His guidelines stated turnaround within days, so I figured I'd get the rejection (or hopefully, the request for material) quickly.

By April, nothing. Figuring my query might have gotten lost, accidentally deleted, eaten by gremlins, whatever, I resent it. The resent query was IDENTICAL to the first one.

Three weeks later, I received a form rejection email from him - the same day I received paper form rejections from two other agents.

Well, last night I went to check my email, and saw his name in my inbox. Figuring it was another form rejection, the first email being for the first query and this for the second, I opened it quickly, planning to delete it quickly.

It was a request for the first three chapters.

I guess he wasn't in the mood for a time travel story a month ago, but he is now.

He also requested a one-page synopsis and a bio.

I can do the synopsis. But the bio? What do I say? I'm just an ordinary Midwestern girl with a good, but boring life. That's why I make stuff up. Then again, I write about ordinary Midwestern guys and girls who find themselves in extraordinary situations....

Hmmm, time to get to work!

Check out a fun new blog!

2006-05-30T08:42:00.000-04:00

My cousin, fantasy author Sheri L. McGathy, and some friends have a new blog that I customized for them. I used to do a lot of freelance web design when I was out of work. The Coffeeshop ladies are published in a variety of genres, and are one of the few clients I kept after returning to work full time. They are just getting started but I'm sure they'll have some good articles out soon. So check out Coffeeshop Writers Blog!

I Still Like It!

2006-05-30T08:26:00.000-04:00

Plans changed last week with the writing. I again couldn't get into the outline. No, I had no problems with the computer or the Word file, I just couldn't get psyched up to work on it. Luckily I'd just read on one of my writers' Yahoo groups about other people who were having the same problem, and what some of them had found worked to deal with it.

They called it leapfrog plotting. One of these writers would start her outline, write three chapters - get to know her characters a little, then go back to the outline. She'd outline a few more chapters, then go back to writing, alternating back and forth like this throughout her first draft. I realized I'd lost interest in my outline not because I don't like outlining (I do) or because I no longer wanted to write the story (I still do) but because I didn't know or care enough about the characters enough to push through to the end.

Besides, the last WIP - yeah, the 200,000-word monster - has marinated a sufficient amount of time I'm ready to dig into revisions on it.

So I set the outline aside and took up WIP #1 - the one I'm now shopping to agents - and gave it another read through. The main reason I did this is, since WIP #2 is a sequel to that book, I wanted to make note of anything in WIP #1 that might affect #2.

I noted a few things, but for the most part they were already in my revision notes for WIP #2.

I found the occasional misused homonym or missing word but thankfully fewer than I found earlier in my first three chapters. This did not surprise me.

What did surprise me was how much I still like that book. I blew through it in less than three days, and it's a long book (120,000 words). Even though I knew what would happen and was reading it just for continuity, I found myself wanting to read on when I reached the end of a chapter.

That's a good thing. As many times as I've read this book, a very good thing. Now if only an agent would see it in the same way.

This week's goals are to review WIP #2 on a high level and note where I can make cuts. I can already think of a whole chapter's worth to cut in the beginning of the book. Hopefully I'll be able to find a few more of those.

Focusing Forward at 138 mph

2006-05-22T12:16:00.000-04:00

Sadly, I'm not talking about my writing career here. But I am talking about something else fun that DH and I did yesterday. We went to Kentucky Speedway for the Richard Petty Driving Experience. This was our birthday present to each other (and ourselves), and what a rush! If you like to drive fast and enjoy a thrill (though definitely not a cheap one!), you should check this out. They have the Driving Experience at tracks all over the U.S., so there's probably one near you.

Basically, what you do is sit and watch a video for about twenty minutes, put on a racing suit & helmet - and this year, they also started using the HANS device. Then they demonstrate how to get in and out of a NASCAR race car, what to do in case of an emergency, how to get out. After that you ride around the track in a van where they tell you how you're going to drive around the track later, what to watch out for, where you need to be on the track, where you need to slow down, accelerate, etc. If you paid the extra $, you can take a ride with one of RPDE's pro drivers for three laps. They do about 160mph - waaaaay better than any amusement park ride!

It's also good prep for what comes next: driving the car yourself.

We'd done RPDE before, about six or seven years ago. It was a lot scarier then. Main thing I remember is, for the whole eight laps, all I could do was stare straight ahead. I managed to stay in the correct lane position, but I didn't go as fast as I should have. You follow one of their instructors around the track, and ideally, should be 4-5 car lengths behind him/her (yes, they had a female driver on the crew this year). When you're going over 130mph, 4-5 car lengths is not much.

A guy with flags stands on a platform above the lap line, and as you approach, you're supposed to glance up at him and see if he's flagging you. He waves a green flag on your first lap, and a checkered flag as you're going into your eighth, and last, lap. Those are good. Other flags are not. If you're lagging too far behind your instructor's car, as I was last time we did this, the flagger waves a rolled-up green flag at you. If you're too close to the instructor - and do this for more than a couple laps, they'll wave a yellow flag at you. When we did RPDE several years ago, I was too intent on staying in the right lane position and simply getting through it to notice what the flagger was doing, or even see him. But I knew I was waaaaay behind the instructor, and sure enough, DH told me I got the rolled up flag on several laps.

My goal this time was to not get the rolled up flag at all. And I didn't! DH said I stayed right where I was supposed to.

I saw more, too. Got right next to the wall on the back stretch of the track (it's in a D-shape), just like we were supposed to. I saw the flagger every lap. No flags.

DH, OTOH, got the yellow. No surprise. He was on the instructor's tail the whole way last time we did RPDE too. What's even funnier is, they now slow down if you ride their tail too close like this - so my top speed (138) was higher than DH's (135)! LOL!

I posted to my goals group last night. I met my weekly goal, but I almost didn't. I ran up against a wall in my writing last week. Got to a point in my outline where I just couldn't figure out what happened next. Just like when driving a race car (or any car, for that matter), focusing forward is the most important thing - if I don't have a general idea of what happens down the road, I sure don't know what needs to happen now. But you need to be able to glance at the flagger, too, and see what's going on peripherally.

I needed to push aside my fear of not going the right direction and glance up and aside. Still didn't know how to do this, when I remembered some advice I got at an RWA chapter meeting a few months ago:

Do something totally different.

I've been outlining for a month now. So I stepped away from the outline, and wrote a few pages of the scene instead of outlining it. As I wrote, the answer revealed itself. Just like that.

I'd been so focused on getting the story outlined, I'd failed to see the details alongside the track.

Doing some actual writing - even if just for fifteen minutes - was all it took to get me back on track with my outline and meet my goal for the week.

After we drove, the RPDE folks gave us a sheet that listed our average and top speeds for each lap. Not surprisingly, the speed increased with each one, until the last. I am pulling into the home stretch with this outline. Hopefully I can raise my speed too, and finish it, at least for this go-around.

Then it's back to editing the last ms, and a whole new track.

Plowing Through

2006-05-15T09:30:00.000-04:00

I just read an excellent article by fantasy author A.C. Crispin on goals and how they can help you keep writing when the going's difficult or when life's gotten in the way a little too much lately. This is one of the tips I give on my goals Yahoo group - even if you only get a little done, it's better than nothing - and baby steps are OK! Start with just a page or 20 minutes of writing, and work your way up. You'll be cranking out that goal of 15 pages a week (or whatever) in no time.

I managed to get my four chapters outlined this week, finishing at about 10 last night. I dropped back from my prior goal of outlining five chapters a week, because I knew there'd be a lot going on over the weekend and that's when I get the bulk of my writing done. This week, we're back to five chapters, and I'm going to post my revised book description for feedback on a Yahoo group I recently joined, FantasyWriter. It's moderated by my cousin Sheri and the people there sound friendly and helpful. If you write fantasy (which is what my new WIP is) you might want to check it out.

I just signed up for pitch appointments with an agent and editor for the RWA National conference, and was pleasantly surprised to get an appointment with my #1 choices for both. Last year we were busy at the office the day appointment signups opened up for PRO members, and I didn't get to it until that evening. All the agents were booked, and the only editors available were for category romance - definitely not what I write. I ended up getting an appointment the day I arrived at the conference, from a cancellation. This was agent #2, who requested the full and has now had my ms for 6 months. I'm not real optimistic about hearing back from her at this point, and as I've still been unable to find any sales to her record, I'm not too worried about it.

Next month I also have an agent appointment set up at a readers' conference in Cincinnati. This agent is fairly new but already is developing a nice track record.

So the great agent hunt continues. In the mean time, I'm going to get that query revised and back out there.

Yes, Jim, I'm Forty
On another note, today's the day I catch up with Jim Winter age-wise. I went to a writers' workshop with him Saturday and it was great fun to remind him that he hit that milestone a whole nine days before me. And he's right - it doesn't feel any different than 39.

Until I have to check the next box down under age next time I fill out a form or survey.

Oh well, it's just a number, right? At least until next May, when Jim will be 41 a whole nine days before me.

Wherefore art thou, Outline?

2006-05-10T10:17:00.000-04:00

What do I do when outlining?

I mean, besides take lots of breaks to play NetHack.

Sometimes it's hard. First of all, I have to have the general, overall very high-level story mapped out. This time I tried doing this by chapters, and so far it's helped. It looks deceptively simple but it took me awhile to come up with it (and again, lots of breaks to play games or just lie on the couch.) All it is, is one or two lines describing what happens in that chapter. That's it. But it helps keep me on track when doing the more detailed outline.

That's a bit harder. But once I get into it, I can crank out a scene (outlined, that is, not written) in a half hour or so if I don't get interrupted too many times.

I start by answering some basic questions on the scene - in fact, I have a little template in my Word doc I use for this. Stuff like:

Who's the point-of-view character?
Who else is in the scene?
Where is this scene - indoors or out? Which room? What season is it? What time of day?
What is the POV character's goal for this scene? (That one's really important - I use this as a guide if I get stuck).
What's the obstacle to his/her achieving this goal? (May be overcome in the scene)
What is MY purpose for this scene? IOW, what do I, as the author, want to accomplish here? It may be simply "advance the plot" but I try to come up with something more concrete. This may be something like raise the external stakes or develop the romance. It's usually not the same as the character's goal, by the way.
Then I decide what the characters would be feeling at beginning of the scene and again at the end. This is important; it helps keep you focused on the emotions throughout the writing. Sometimes I don't do a lot of emotion in the first draft but go back and layer it in later, but I do make notes to myself in the first draft so I remember what's needed: [Pump up her fear], etc.
What's the surprise/climax/disaster that should end the scene? The importance of this one should be obvious, especially if it's the last scene in the chapter - this is what will keep the reader turning the pages.

Finally, after answering those basic questions, I'm more into the groove of the story and ready to list the events that happen in that scene, keeping in mind the goal that the POV character is working toward and where I'm headed with it (the surprise/climax/disaster). I like to number these, though that's certainly not necessary. (The other stuff I do not number except for the scene itself, so we're not talking anything like those Roman-numeral monstrosities we had to do in fifth grade.)

Ideally, the outline will prevent me from writing scenes that don't really move the story - you know, the ones I cut out later anyway. It's not as effective at this as I would like, but it does help pinpoint scenes that are likely to get the hatchet - or if I need to cut due to length, the ones that are most expendable.

This type of outline works for me because it's not so detailed that I feel like I've already written the story, yet it keeps me on track and keeps in my mind where I'm going, which in turn prevents me from getting blocked during the actual writing. I also love lists, and working through the events (I've referred to them before as scene bullets) is like marking something off of a list, which gives me a great feeling of accomplishment.

And lets me know it's time for another break and game of NetHack.

Goals, and giving myself a virtual kick in the fanny

2006-05-01T10:19:00.001-04:00

This new WIP is just not coming along quickly enough, and after lots of pondering, I figured out why.

Motivation. Or lack thereof.

And goals, or lack thereof.

I had a goal - to outline my WIP - but I forgot the basics of goal-setting. I wanted to get my book outlined, but didn't have enough motivation - external, that is - to keep going. So I turned to my local RWA chapter for help.

In the past something that's helped me to keep producing was being accountable to others. A lot of people do this through critique groups. But a critique group won't help me when I'm not yet producing pages. Even then a critique group is more a waste of my time - and my CPs' - if I submit first draft work to them because frankly, my first drafts suck. I often get my best ideas for improvement while I'm writing the first draft. When this happens, it's usually something I have to change earlier in the book, so I make a note of the change and keep writing as if I'd already made the change. Therefore my first drafts not only suck they're often disjointed and not super coherent.

With a critique group, I also ran into the problem of having people that produce at wildly different rates. Not to mention the time a critique group takes.

I'm not saying they aren't valuable - if they help you, go for it! Getting feedback from critique partners who will read my material when it's ready - as in, second draft or later - is invaluable. But again, not a viable source of motivation when doing initial writing - or as is the case now, pre-writing.

In the past, my RWA chapter has held "challenges" where whover wants to participate posts their progress on an email loop each week. Others give them cheers when one accomplishes her goal, and encouragement and "you can do it next week" for those who don't achieve their goals. These challenges are typically page-count driven, which is helpful when one is in that part of her WIP, but not so much when one is in revision or pre-writing. And we haven't had one of those challenges for a while anyway.

So I formed a loop myself, with the blessing of our board. The challenge is not to simply produce a particular page count each week but to set a goal - one that's challenging yet within reach. I made an initial post to hopefully inspire my list-mates, and it pointed out what I'd forgotten to do when setting my earlier pre-writing goals:

Make them SMART.

We do this twice a year in my day job. I don't know how I could have forgotten it, but in case you're not familiar with the term, here's a brief recap:

It's pretty simple. When setting your goals, be sure to make them:

SPECIFIC - sure, we all want to get published (or published again). But that's a pretty big stretch. How will we get there? Defining a goal of a certain number of pages to produce is a good start. So is spending a set amount of time writing (just be sure you're writing, not playing (cough-cough) Sudoku or engaging in other online distractors.

MEASURABLE - You need a way to know when you've made or exceeded your goal. Again, the page count comes nicely into play. You could also determine that you want to write up to a certain scene, work through X number of plot points, revise X number of pages.

ACHIEVABLE - Make sure your goal is within your control. Unless you're self-publishing, "getting published" is not within your control. And as much as I wish it were otherwise, neither is getting an agent. Better to choose goals like "send out three queries" or "research 15 agents." "Get more motivated" does not count as achievable. It's a worthy desire - heck, a very necessary one - but it's abstract. Make your goals something tangible (more on that in a minute).

REALISTIC - I'd love to write 300 pages this week but y'know, with the day job, the family and such, it's just not going to happen. Make your goals challenging, but not out of reach. If you're not sure what's within reach, start small, and work up. When I first started writing, I wrote TWO pages a day. Later, when my RWA chapter started with our page count challenges, I shot for 15 pages a week, and worked up to 20 over the course of that challenge. The next one, I started with 20 pages a week and ended up writing 25 by the end of the challenge. So I know I'm capable of that most of the time.

TANGIBLE - means it's something you can see, hear, touch, etc. Like pages produced, queries sent, revisions completed. If your goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable and Realistic, they're probably Tangible, but it doesn't hurt to give yourself one last check.

Here is a good article to sum this up. Note that I am not endorsing the site nor any of its products - I know nothing about them - just the article.

My goal of "get my WIP outlined" was not specific, measurable, or tangible enough. So here is my new, SMARTer goal: I want to complete my outline by May 31. My rough map of my WIP contains 24 chapters at the moment, and I've outlined four of them. So to meet my goal for the month, I'll need to outline five chapters a week. I did four last week, and that was with goofing off Thursday night and Friday night, which are normally writing nights for me.

I also need to send out three more agent queries, but I want to rework my query letter first so that's also on my list for this week. Finally, I have a chapter to critique for my oh-so-patient CP.

And, it's time for a new progress bar!

If anyone has an inspiring quote to share or additional advice on setting - and reaching! - those goals, please post it!

Me! Times Six

2006-04-25T22:54:00.000-04:00

I've been tagged by Sharon to tell six things about myself.

1. I mostly lurk on the 'net, and I'm the same way in person. I believe I'll learn more by listening, and sometimes I just don't feel I have anything to say, but the #1 reason I'm more of a listener is because if I don't speak, I won't say something stupid. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

2. I wrote my first "book" at the age of seven. It was in a mini-spiral notepad, about my friend who lived down the street from me, sort of a fairy tale.

3. I was an English major in college until my parents pressed me on what I planned to do with it, job-wise, and convinced me to change majors to graphic design. I did and I've never regretted it. I took a minor in creative writing. Senior year, I wrote four or five chapters of a novel. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was a fantasy romance.

4. I actually like my day job.

5. Most weekends, I would rather stay at home, write, and play computer games than go out to DH's bar. Pathetic, aren't I?

6. I like to stand out from the crowd (this is hard to do when you're 5'0") but just a little. In college I wore a top hat around campus. When most of my peers were into alternative music, I was into classic rock. When peeps my age were buying minivans, I bought a sports car (not red, though). Now most peeps my age listen to classic rock or country - I listen to techno-industrial. I still like my top hat, though I seldom wear hats at all 'cause they give me a headache.

Wait, that's more than six, isn't it? Oh well. As for tagging, a couple of my RL friends and blog buddies have recently posted memes in which they didn't tag anyone. So I'm not going to. But if you read this and want to play along, please do! I'm still a better listener/lurker than talker.

Is This Some Kind of Record?

2006-04-24T22:19:00.000-04:00

The two rejections in the mail were from Agents #5 and 7. I'd pretty much written of Agent #4 as a no-reply-rejection... Wanna guess what I found in my in-box when checking my email?

Yep. A form email from Agent #4, bringing my grand total to THREE rejections in one day.

The others were pretty much long shots. This one, I didn't think so much, so now I'm a bit more bummed.

Maybe someone should just shoot me now?

Or not. This only brings up the total to six. Hardly a lot.

Still, I'd planned to work out, do some outlining on my new WIP. Instead I'm taking the night off to pout. And watch Shawn Michaels get the crap beat out of him on Raw. After which he'll of course come back for the win against Vince and Shane McMahon.

I keep telling myself that JK Rowling was rejected many times before she sold. So was Stephen King. One writer in my RWA chapter had a book rejected 42 times before a small press took it on! And it was a fantastic book! She later sold it to a big NY house when the small pub went out of business.

And I keep telling myself the following:

It only takes one!
Six R's is nothing. Miss Snark says to submit to 100 before giving up.
You can't sell unless you submit.
Each R is one step closer to "Request"
It's good practice for getting lousy reviews.

Lots of published authors I know say it's easier to sell than to get an agent first. However, I don't think what I have is something that would be easily sold w/o an agent, as opposed to a straight romance, for example. So I'm still trying the agent route first. Then maybe editors, and query agents with the next project.

I've already chosen the next three agents on my list to whom I'll send this work. They queries will go out later this week.

Oh, and if you or anyone you know can beat my daily record, I'd love to hear about it!

Well, That Sux

2006-04-24T17:41:00.000-04:00

Two rejections arrived today, both form letters. Oh well, they were both long shots. Thankfully, it's nice weather out, and I'm in a good mood so it's easy to brush off. One was from a query-letter-only agent, the other from an agent who wanted the first fifty pages right off. His card said, "This is not something I'm interested in working with," which to me sort of sounded like, "Ew, don't let me get my hands dirty," but I know it's just a form letter. Nothing personal, so no offense taken.

Digging into the Agents spreadsheet to see who next to send to, reminding self that "It only takes one..."

Feed Characters! Fight Plot!

2006-04-24T12:26:00.000-04:00

Insaniquarium isn't running very well on my WinXP system. It keeps telling me to insert the original program CD, I do, click OK, and the box reappears. I emailed Popcap's tech support and they've responded with a link to a patch, so will try that next time I get the urge to procrastinate.

In the meantime, my game glitch is not a bad thing. I've figured out one thing in Karen Wiesner's 30-Day method that isn’t working for me. Like all writing advice, even advice you think is good, you should always use what works, and toss what doesn't. Trying out new ways is always good, as long as you remember the above.

What wasn't working for me was writing down every character action, reaction, decision, and revising of goals. Her method here follows the old scene-and-sequel way of writing, which overall doesn't work for me. For those unfamiliar with the term, scene basically refers to action, and sequel to character reaction, reflection, and decision on what to do next as a result of the prior action. Sequels have a dangerous tendency to turn into "tea scenes," or passages where there's nothing going on besides a character sitting and thinking, or having a discussion with another character about what they're going to do. It kind of reminds me of a common convention in textbooks – spend the first few pages of a chapter talking about what you're going to discuss, then discuss it. I always skip these sections, preferring to just jump right into the information (both as a reader and a writer). In my fiction, I prefer to just have the characters do what their thing, and if introspection or discussion is needed, either give it a very brief mention and get on with it, or work it into the action itself.

Once I recognized this, I still needed a basic framework on which to begin building my outline. I dug up notes from a fantastic workshop I took at the RWA National conference a couple years ago, Discovering Story Magic by Robin Perini. (Note: this is awesome, sensible stuff – if this workshop ever comes to a conference near you, GO!) Much of their method is similar to Weisman's – start by getting to know your characters. I'd already done that, so I moved on to plot, using a slightly modified version of what Robin and her partner teach.

I made a table in my Word document, with a box for each chapter. I started by filling in my plot turning points. Then I filled in the rest, getting ideas from my character worksheets whenever I wasn't sure what to put in a particular square. Of course this wasn't that quick of a process – it took most of the weekend. It went something like this:
1. Sit and stare at computer screen for ten minutes.
2. Write something in a square.
3. Sit and stare at computer screen, then play a game of sudoku. (Or reinstall Insaniquarium for the fiftieth time and Feed Fish! Fight Aliens! some more.)
4. Sit and stare at computer screen for ten minutes.
5. Repeat the above until all the blocks are filled.

It worked! I got my 24-chapter story framed out. It might end up being 20 chapters, or 30 (Dog, I hope not – my chapters are long!) but I at least have the basics down. Next: begin detailed outline of Chapter One!

After I reinstall Insaniquarium. With the patch.

Feed Fish! Fight Aliens!

2006-04-21T13:41:00.000-04:00

I should be writing. Should have been for several nights this week, when instead I've spent several hours Feeding Fish, Fighting Aliens!

I guess I should clarify. That's my latest computer game addiction, otherwise known as Insaniquarium. DD bought the deluxe version a few weeks ago and I made the mistake of installing it on my computer for "when I needed a little break."

You have a nice, relaxing virtual aquarium on your computer, with cute little goldfish (they call them guppies) that conveniently turn green when they're hungry. Click, and food appears. (If only it were that easy in RL! Sure beats going to the grocery store!) You feed them a few times, and they grow. As they grow larger, they drop... Money!!! You use the $$ to buy more fish, better and more food, and eventually pieces of an egg that when completed, takes you to the next level.

But the best part is the aliens. Every so often, a nasty creature transports into your fish tank and tries to gobble up all your fishies (and if they get them all, you lose). Oh, and your fish will die if you don't feed them in time, too. But those aliens... you click-click-click on them because your pointer has magically turned into a futuristic shooting weapon! Cool! Bang-bang-bang - boom! The alien disappears, and leaves you a nice diamond for your trouble! So much easier than trying to pull some plot from my tired brain for my story!

IOW, I've been procrastinating. I love my story - it's been banging around in my head for a good two years now, waiting for me to finish my two time travel books so it can come out. Now that it has its chance...

It doesn't want to.

I've gotten the characters pinned down well enough... well, the main ones at least. And I love them! OTOH, a couple of the secondary characters are challenging me. But that's not so bad.

What's bad is that each plot element I'm having to yank out like... hmm, my brain is too fried from writing software documentation at work all week to come up with a fresh way to say, "like pulliing teeth." But that's what it's like. Don't tell me to sit down and just write. I've tried the "by-the-seat-of-the-pants" approach and it soooo doesn't work for me. I'm a planner all the way. Must be my software development nerd side. The more up-front planning put into a development project, the more smoothly the actual development will go, and the better its chance of being completed on time, within budget. I fully believe a novel is the same way, at least for me.* The better and more detailed my outline, the easier it is for me to do the writing. I'm trying to improve on this with the new book in hopes that not only will the writing go better, I might actually crank out a 100,000 word book from the get-go instead of writing one twice that long that has to be hacked and slashed.

So what's the problem, you might ask?

A while back I bought Karen Wiesner's First Draft in 30 Days. A very good book, and I strongly recommend it, whether you're a plotter or are just looking for a way to use your writing time more efficiently. I was already well into the second of my time travel books, so I applied some of the information but not the initial prep stuff like the character questions, and basic overall plot. I looked forward to trying them out with the fantasy novel.

OK, I'm at work right now and need to go back to writing documentation (another rant in and of itself), so I'll continue this later. And hopefully won't blow too much time tonight Feeding fish! Fighting Aliens!

*If you're one of those people who can just sit down at the computer and bang out a story without gobs of pre-planning, lucky you! My way is far from the only way. It's just the only way for me.

I am Midnight

2006-04-20T13:15:00.000-04:00

Posting this because it's cool. Accurate too, except for the experimenting with lifestyle part. I like my boring-ordinary lifestyle just fine, thank you.

You Are Midnight

You are more than a little eccentric, and you're apt to keep very unusual habits.
Whether you're a nightowl, living in a commune, or taking a vow of silence - you like to experiment with your lifestyle.
Expressing your individuality is important to you, and you often lie awake in bed thinking about the world and your place in it.
You enjoy staying home, but that doesn't mean you're a hermit. You also appreciate quality time with family and close friends.

What Time Of Day Are You?

Discovering New Authors

2006-04-17T12:30:00.000-04:00

I've been lame. No posts for a whole week. I could use the holiday and the funeral (DH's grandma) as excuses, but I've always believed there's no such thing as an excuse, just a reason. And my reason was simply that I didn't feel like blogging. But I'm back, and here to talk about - what else? - books. Not mine, for once. (No links today, I'm being lazy.)

I've discovered some fantastic new authors (or at least new to me) in the past year. Not through ads, booksignings or other standard promo - and certainly not through little giveaway items, though I often snag those when I see them. I've discovered these new authors through free books.

Every year at the RWA National conference, several of the publishers host mass booksignings where the books are all FREE. I went crazy at my first conference, grabbing probably four or five dozen books, half of which I still haven't read. I wasn't discriminating. I got in every line, got all the authors' signatures, and got every book I could that looked remotely interesting. Last year I was a little more choosy and came home with only about half as many books (half of which, again, I still haven't read!) though all of them were more in line with my typical reading tastes - paranormal romances, a few contemporaries, a few historicals, a few romantic suspense. I bypassed the light romantic comedies and the straight mystery/suspense (with the exception of Heather Webber, who's a chapter sister and whose books I love and would gladly pay for). Then there are the giveaways all conference attendees get, even if you don't go to the publisher booksignings - the goody bag everyone gets, and the books on everyone's chair at the luncheons.

I have discovered some awesome authors this way. I was thrilled to see Susan Kearney's The Challenge in our goody bag - this was one I'd seen talked up on the loops and had already planned to buy. OK, so this wasn't a completely new to me author - I'd read her Harlequin Intrigues years ago and kept them.

I began reading that night. I wasn't disappointed. I bought The Dare, the sequel to The Challenge, when I saw it in a bookstore a couple months later, and was oh-so-happy to see The Ultimatum, her third book set in the same universe, in the grocery store last week (where it ended up in my cart). So through a free book, Susan Kearney is now one of my automatic buy authors.

Another fantastic free book I picked up at the conference last year was Echoes, by Erin Grady. This was one of, if not THE best book I read all year. She has a new one out this month, Whispers. I haven't been to a bookstore lately, and have too many books on the TBR shelves already to order it online, but I've been keeping an eye open for it at the grocery store. (Do you see a pattern here? It'd be cool to see my books on the shelves at B&N and Wal-mart someday, but where I really want to see them is KROGER.) But if I do run across it, you can bet I'll snag it - fast.

The book I'm reading now, The Waterlord by Dawn Thompson, is one I snagged this way (yep, you guessed it, while grocery shopping again, only this was at Meijer). I didn't even have to look at it to know I wanted it, because I read and LOVED her last book, The Ravencliff Bride. I got that book for free too, only at an RWA chapter meeting. A chapter sister was recycling some books she'd read, and Ravencliff was one. I grabbed this one like one of my dogs grabbing a steak -- I'd read the first fifty pages of it when it was entered in the Golden Heart. It was one of those few entries I'd have loved to have more of to read. It didn't final, so when I read of the sale in the First Sales column of RWA's magazine, I was very happy for the author. I loved the rest of The Ravencliff Bride and I'm enjoing The Waterlord as much if not more. Dawn Thompson is now another automatic buy for me.

Where am I going with this? I guess just to say that, should luck smile on me and make my book hit the right agent's desk at the right time, then the right editor's desk at the right time, and actually get published, I hope they give away lots of free books (or give me lots of author copies to do so myself). Bookmarks do not make me buy books. Booksignings do not make me buy. And giveaway trinkets sure as heck don't. Free books DO. This is promo that might be pricey, but it works. And that's what matters, doesn't it?

What turns YOU on to a new author, and makes him/her into an auto-buy?

Not Such a Nitwit

2006-04-09T12:03:00.000-04:00

Well, after all my angst the other day over my query letter, I pulled it up today and looked over what I sent, and...

I did not even mention PRO in my query letter. Duh!

I also want to clarify that I don't think all epublishers are "crappy," nor does Anna G. She responded to another blog reader's concern by saying that there are crappy epublishers and good ones; there are also crappy print publishers. She didn't say how she defines this. Me, I'd define a "crappy" publisher as one who does little to no editing, takes just about anything, and produces laughable cover art. There are also good books put out by crappy publishers, and crappy books put out by otherwise good publishers.

So I'm not such a nitwit after all. I did mention RWA in my query letter, as well as my chapter afiliations (who cares?) and the fact that I was a newsletter editor for my local chapter for a while. (Again, who cares?) So though I'm not such a nitwit as to think an editor or agent would care that I'm a PRO member, I still have the dilemma of what to include on the "about me" section. I do feel better, though.

Query Quandary

2006-04-06T20:28:00.000-04:00

One more thing to stress over in my query letters

According to Anna Genoese, the paranormal romance editor at Tor, RWA PRO* does not matter to editors, and from her blog posting, it sounds like it makes you look like a nitwit to even mention it in a query letter.

Ack! Of course, it's mentioned in mine.

And I just mailed out another query letter today. Will Agent #9 think me a nitwit?

This brings up the whole issue of publishing credits/bio info, and what to do if you don't have squat.

Here's what I have:
1. An ebook published by a "crappy e-publisher" (as Anna G. put it in one of the comment threads in the above-linked blog post - and yes, the company that published my book could certainly be considered "crappy" so that's no criticism of Anna)

2. A feature article in a respectable technical journal, Lotus Domino Advisor Technical Journal, February 2002.

That's it. Not much in the way of publication credits.

Like Dean says, the whole query process really is like looking for a job. You never have enough experience until just after you need it.

For the record, being RWA PRO means one thing: I've completed at least one novel, and I've submitted it to at least one agent or editor. That's all you have to do to get the PRO designation. OK, so completing a book and actually submitting it means you've done more than 90% of the other people who say they want to write a book, so that's certainly something to be proud of. But that's just something for yourself. I certainly didn't think it was anything more, and now I'm wondering why I included it in my query, feeling stupider the longer I think about it.

Which brings up yet another question. Is it even worth mentioning that one belongs to an organization such as RWA?

I've heard several agents and editors on panels say that it is worth mentioning (though Anna G. doesn't think so). Basically the thinking is, that if you belong to a writing organization like this, you're availing yourself of a lot of opportunity to learn about the industry, romance in particular, in addition to learning craft. So I'll probably leave it in, but cut it down to a simple mention.

So what else do I put in the "about me" paragraph you're supposed to include in a query letter? I don't currently mention the e-book. I also don't mention the tech article, as from what I've read and heard, this has little bearing on my ability to write fiction.

So if anyone has any suggestions or opinion of the PRO thing, I'd love to hear them.

In the meantime, I guess I'll delete the mention of PRO from my query letter and hope that the agents who still have my materials are willing to overlook that bit of nitwittery.

*This is not to minimize the nice perks that come with the PRO program, like special email loops and a slightly higher spot in the pecking order when it comes to signing up for editor and agent appointments at the national conference.

Just for Fun - iPod Meme

2006-04-06T08:34:00.000-04:00

This was too fun and too funny to resist - and I'm a techie geek so it's perfect for me. I found it on Diana Peterfreund's blog.

Put your iTunes/iPod on shuffle.
Say the following questions aloud, and press play.
Use the song title as the answer to the question.
NO CHEATING.

I don't have an ipod or iTunes, so I used my Windows Media Player playlist. Also I'm at work, so I just read the questions silently. We're weird enough here in the Fishbowl without ME talking to myself.

1. How does the world see you? "Contact" by Evil's Toy. Contact to what? Does this mean I might finally sell a book?

2. Will I have a happy life? "Risen" by KMFDM. Hmm, sounds positive.

3. What do my friends think of me? "Dirty" by KMFDM - ROTFL! I swear, I bathe every day! And no, I don't write erotica!* Even so, I know my mom will definitely think "dirty" if she reads my book.

4. Do people secretly lust after me? "Witness" by KMFDM. Hmm, I don't know what to make of that one. Did I mention that WMP doesn't do a very good shuffle?

5. How can I make myself happy? "Epicentre" by VNV Nation. Yes, I do have plenty of stuff besides KMFDM in my music library! Not sure what to make of this one either.

6. What should I do with my life? "D.I.Y." by KMFDM. LOL! In this case, it doesn't stand for Do It Yourself, but it makes absolute sense that way!

7. Will I ever have children? "Love As Blood" by Icon of Coil. Already have all I want - one. And yeah, there's been both love and blood involved.

8. What is some good advice for me? "Shallow Nation" by Icon of Coil. Huh? Does this mean I should be writing fluffier stuff?

9. How will I be remembered? "Megalomaniac" by KMFDM. ROTFLMAO!!! Who, me? Maybe in the worlds I create.

10. What's my signature dancing song? "Living Dead Girl" by Rob Zombie. Another LOL!

11. What's my current theme song? "Megalomaniac [XXII Mix]" by KMFDM. What is the deal with this megalomaniac stuff? I swear, I am a quiet and relatively unassuming person. Heck I don't even want to be team leader here at work.

12. What do others think is my current theme song? "You Just Died" by Icon of Coil. Am I THAT quiet and unassuming?

13. What shall they play at my funeral? "Torpedoes" by MDFMK. Hmm, not bad. Especially the line that says, "Don't stop, you can sleep when you're dead."

14. What type of men do I like? "Disobedience" by KMFDM. Again not bad. My DH is definitely the Bad Boy type.

15. How's my love life? "Thrillcapsule" by Icon of Coil. Yeah!! Never a dull moment with my DH, that's for sure - and that's my standard answer to "How do you put up with him?" which I get asked fairly often even after 12 years.

Too fun! No tagging, but I'd be interested to see what you get should you care to try it. And I swear, I have almost 400 songs in my WMP library, and at least half of them are by groups other than KMFDM and Icon of Coil (though those are two of my favorites).

* I personally have no problem with erotica, and have plenty of respect for those who write it well, but "dirty" is my mom's opinion of it and I was just speaking with her, so that's how the connection came about.

Will. Not. Die.

2006-04-03T22:57:00.000-04:00

That's the answer. The question? What do Matt Hardy and my book have in common?

Matt lost on Wrestlemania last night, and my book got another form rejection today. Neither was a surprise, but still... Grrr.

Mini-rant: I HATE when agents want ONLY a query letter, NO sample pages. Come on, can't you even glance at five pages? Three? I really don't understand why agents refuse to do this. Give yourself a chance to not love my writing, OK? If an agent specifies that they want a query letter only, no sample pages then that's what I send. But still, I HATE being rejected on the basis of a query letter alone. Plenty of good writers can't write a decent query, or so I've heard. How they sell, I don't know, but it was probably through an agent they've met personally, through a referral, or through an agent who took sample pages with the query.

I honestly don't believe my query letter sucks, and the agent in question definitely represents what I write. Which most likely means either my premise sucks, or they don't want to take on any more time travel right now, even though their web site specifically lists it in their interests.

This R was harder to take than the last one, partly because I didn't think it was as much of a long shot, but mostly because it makes me question what I'm doing even more. I can totally understand "just didn't love it." I don't judge tons of contests, but I've judged enough to quickly recognize this in my own evaluations.

OK, I'm done ranting. It's not a big deal - really. This is only the third R I've gotten. (Of course, it's only the third query I've sent too.) If I run into this agent, I'll be nice and professional, and not hold it against them.

In the meantime, I have Agent #4 to requery, and a new agent to submit material to. Agent #4's web site says they respond to ALL queries, and that they try to reply to e-queries within a few days. It's been a month. I should have heard something by now. This was another e-query/no sample, so it should have been a quick reject or request.

At least Agent #9's guidelines only say "query with SASE" - since it doesn't say NOT to send sample pages, I'm sending five.

And waiting for the next R - which could stand for Rejection... or Request?

Cool Tools and Info

2006-04-01T20:26:00.000-05:00

I've run across some cool web sites as I started doing the pre-writing for my new book.

For starters, I hunted down some new wallpaper art for my computer. I like to have something there that looks like a scene from the current WIP. The new book is a fantasy story, set in a post-industrial, parallel universe. I did a Google Image Search, and found some absolutely stunning fantasy artwork at INetGraFX - it's definitely worth a look! They even have downloadable 1280 x 1024 resolution images, perfect for wallpaper, so I snagged this one for my use:

I hope the artist doesn't mind that I colorized the picture - the original artwork's warm golden tone didn't fit my book, but with a little Photoshop variation, it's now perfect - or as close as I'll get without creating something myself.

A significant part of my last WIP took place in an uninhabited forest, in late fall/early winter, so this is the desktop I had for the past couple of months:

I don't remember where I found this one.

I then started working on character worksheets as suggested in Karen Wiesner's First Draft in 30 Days. I've always done some sort of character sketches. The ones she uses are relatively simple, don't take a great deal of time to fill out, and don't focus on inconsequential stuff like what's their favorite color, favorite food, etc. (These things may be useful to you, and if they are by all means use them, but considering my problem with story length, I need to keep out anything that doesn't impact the story.) Her website provides a few downloadable, sample worksheets, however, they'll be most useful if you have the book. I highly recommend it, and am hoping it will help me stay focused enough to write a 100,000 - 120,000 word novel on first draft rather than a 200,000 worder that has to be chopped to bits in revision.

I then went back and looked over some excellent character development material presented by Laurie Campbell in some of the RWA PRO email workshops. I've never read any of her books but I plan to. Her workshops are fabulous! If I get the chance to take one in person, you bet I will.

One tool Laurie discussed in her workshop was Enneagrams. Some people like Meyers-Briggs diagrams, archetypes, or any of other myriad personality profiling tools available, but I find Enneagrams more helpful than anything in narrowing down a character's personality, strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. They break down nine basic personality types, which apply to both male and female. Each type can be exhibited in honorable ways, or taken to an unhealthy extreme - useful for developing villains. The Enneagram Institute has tons of great info, including a sample quiz you can take for free to get an idea of where you fall. I tested equally as a Type 4, 5 and 6, LOL! I wonder if that means I'm a well-rounded person?

Next stop, worldbuilding. I'm going to start with Patricia Wrede's Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions, which look like an excellent way to get me thinking down the details of my fantasy world.

Looking for story ideas? My daughter found a very cool website the other day, looking for the source of an abandoned pile of bricks she and her friends found on the former railroad property behind our house. It led to Forgotten Ohio, the website of Andrew Henderson, author of Forgotten Columbus and one of the authors of Weird Ohio. Some very, very cool places and strange stories there, plenty to get a paranormal romance writer's mind going - especially one who loves Ohio history. Oh yeah, we found the bricks, too.

I. Can't. Stop.

2006-03-29T23:08:00.000-05:00

I wasn't going to do any writing this week, at least nothing formal.

But tonight, after DH left for the gym, I started a character worksheet. I couldn't help it. I've been letting the new story bang around in my mind, but not much is gelling. I need to start making notes - something!

I guess this is what it means to be a writer - when you Can't. Not. Write. Something.

What to do on my week off?

2006-03-27T10:44:00.000-05:00

I'm taking a week off from formal writing activities. After finishing that doorstop, I feel mentally - and creatively - drained. So far, here are the plans:

Use the gift certificate from DH to get a massage (no Happy Ending, thank you)

Watch the new Beavis and Butthead DVD collection I bought in celebration

Schedule a couple of medical screenings - just routine wellness stuff, nothing major. Keeping the body healthy helps the writing.

Read more - usually it takes me two weeks (or longer) to read a novel. Because of my own writing, my reading time is usually limited to a half hour or so before bed. I'm talking something like a standard 80-100,000 words, not a tome the size of The Stand (or my book) - those take a month to read.

Get my critique partner's latest chapter back to her in a reasonable time - definitely this week

I also signed up for a programming class at my local community college, which starts tonight. This is for the day job, in which I'm (slowly) working toward an A.S. degree in Computer Info Systems. I already have a BFA, so all the general stuff was taken care of then. Just the computer stuff is left, four classes including this one. I like my day job, so that's OK.

Of course, who knows which of those things will actually get done. There's no way I can just not do anything writing-related, nor do I really want to. At the very least, I want to do a lot of thinking about the next book, which I want to start outlining next week. I'm re-reading Karen Weissman's First Draft in 30 Days, a fantastic book which is really about outlining but a more disciplined approach than I've been using. My hope is to be able to write a 120,000 word book in the first draft, as opposed to a 200,000 word behemoth that needs to be hacked to bits. Finally, this will be the first time in five years that I'll be working on something totally new - totally new characters, new situations, new world even. It's a romantic fantasy. Or fantasy romance, I'm not yet sure which will get more empasis.

To that end I'll need to work on worldbuilding too. I want to get Orson Scott Card's Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction sometime this week. If you have any other suggestions for worldbuilding books or resources, please comment!

IT'S FINISHED!!!

2006-03-26T22:17:00.000-05:00

Finally, I typed "THE END" on my current WIP!!! I want to do the Daffy Duck dance. I thought about telling strangers in the grocery store. (I didn't, of course.) I've been working on this book for over two years. And it's finally Done.

Well, not really. This is just the first draft. Next comes cutting, research, cutting, revisions, cutting, then polishing. Did I say cutting? Cuz this sucker came out to - wait for it - 884 manuscript pages.

Yeah. Almost NINE HUNDRED PAGES. Barely 500 words shy of Two Hundred Thousand Words. This book doesn't need paring down. Can I borrow a chain saw?

After all that - THEN it goes to critique partners - the first round ones.

So it's a long way from REALLY being finished.

But it's at least one step closer!

Let the Rs Begin!

2006-03-24T18:59:00.000-05:00

I received my first rejection today, from Agent #6. This agent wanted a five page sample along with the query, so at least she had a chance to not love my writing.

I'm not that bummed about it. Really. This one was probably the longest shot of the bunch. Sure, I would've loved to work with her, but there's always Agents 4, 5, 7 & 8... oh, and Agent #3 again! I found her doing an online Q&A a couple weeks ago, and asked if it was cool to requery after getting a form R, because I'd significantly tightened the ms. She said, sure! I've also improved my query letter since I queried her. The new one sounds a lot more interesting, so who knows, it could get a request.

I'm also going to requery Agent #4. This agent accepts e-queries only, and stated on the agency web site that he responds within a few days if he's not out of town. Well, it's been three weeks. I'll give him another week, then re-send. Emails do get lost. Gremlins eat them, they disappear in the ether.

The form R was a little easier to take after having read Jim Winter's post about his reading material - which includes my book - he even compared me to Lynn Viehl! And said: "Dear agents, take this book. Go thou and and sell it."

Yeah!

But I Don’t Feel Published

2006-03-22T23:08:00.000-05:00

A lot of authors are blogging about their first books this week. The book I’m currently working on is my fourth. The one I’m shopping to agents is my third.

The second will never see the light of day. But the first...

I guess it’s time I came out about it.

I was an e-book author.

I say “was” because my book went out of contract two years ago and has not been available since. I was published, once. My book sold all of two dozen copies.

A couple months ago, an RWA-chapter sister reminded me that I’m published. My response? “But I don’t feel published.”

Don’t take this the wrong way. E-published is real published, assuming it’s with a royalty-paying, non-subsidy publisher, which mine was. But my book never felt real-published to me. Maybe it was the sales (or lack thereof), I don’t know.

I wrote my first book in 1999. Nothing to Hide is a romantic suspense with a paranormal element (empathic hero). I queried Harlequin – it was targeted to their Intrigue line – in February of 2000. Got a request for the full one week after I sent my query.

Two months later I got a form rejection. (As well I should have.) I was comforted by the fact that I didn’t have to wait a year or more for it, as many writers do. And heck, my only goal when I’d started writing it was simply to see if I could finish something. So I’d gotten much further than I thought.

At the time, I didn’t know of anyone else who took romantic suspense of less than 90,000 words, and my book was only about 75,000. (How hard that is to imagine now! )

I let it sit. Started to work on a couple other things, one of which I never finished, the other of which was the abortive beginning of the ms I’m now shopping to agents.

A year later, I got that first book back out. I thought it was good. I thought it should be published.

So I queried an e-publisher. A royalty-paying, non-subsidy e-publisher who’d been in business since 1996 and is still around now – no small feat in today’s business climate.

Almost right away, they asked to see the whole book.

A month later, they emailed me a contract.

I was thrilled for a short time, but made myself forget about it, and concentrate on my current WIP. After all, they’d told me my book wouldn’t be released until the following April (this was in July of 2001).

I designed the cover myself, hoping to accelerate the release, or at least to ensure the cover art wouldn’t be the cause of a delay.

They liked my cover and used it.

The book still didn’t come out until June of 2002.

Between the time I signed my contract and the book was released, several things happened:

The dot-com bubble burst.
I got laid off from my job.
The promise of the e-market was starting to sour.
Distributors who’d carried e-books were no longer doing so.
My publisher found Amazon’s business model unprofitable for them, so they stopped selling through Amazon.
The e-market was also maturing, and it was becoming apparent what kind of books that market wanted: erotica and erotic romance.

Romances like those readers could find on bookstore shelves didn’t sell well as e-books. In fact, I believe e-books’ time still hasn’t come*, other than for erotica/erotic romance.

My publisher had started to pick up on this last fact too, and between the time I signed my contract and the time my book was released, they’d changed their business focus to reflect this, and the books they promoted the most aggressively were the erotic romances.

My book contained only one love scene, and it was more sensual than erotic. So my book sold all of two dozen copies. After two years, my publisher released me from my contract,** along with several other authors who were no longer submitting new material to them and whose work wasn’t selling.

I was OK with this. I understood the publisher’s reasons for changing their business focus. And by this time, I realized Nothing to Hide wasn’t that good of a book. I mean, it had tea scenes*** for dog’s sake!

OTOH, I still don’t think it was a bad book. It got some very nice reviews, several of which are still up on the ‘net. It even finaled in the EPPIEs.

So that’s the story behind how I once was published, now I’m not. I guess the main reason I consider myself as unpublished is because this is not something I can use as a publishing credit when querying agents or editors. If it had decent sales, it would be.

What it comes down to is I lost patience – with learning craft, and in submitting. I wanted an easy way to publication and I got it, for what it was worth.

Which isn’t a whole lot.

If you’re considering e-publishing, don’t let me dissuade you. I’m not dissing the medium. But do research your publishers carefully, and know their markets – as in, their readership.

* I do think it will come, as technology improves and becomes less expensive. But who knows when?

** This is when it’s actually a good thing to have designed my own cover – if I wanted to sell this book myself, the cover is mine. Other authors who were released and wanted to sell their own books had to get new cover designs. I designed a few of them, when I was freelancing between full-time jobs.

*** Scenes where a character is doing nothing but sitting, sipping tea, and thinking. Yawn.

Blogs and the Readers who Love Them, Part Two

2006-03-17T18:19:00.000-05:00

What I Skip in a Writer’s Blog, and What Makes Me Stop Reading

There are some topics I don’t care to read, others I simply don’t find interesting.

DISCLAIMER: These are just my opinion. There’s nothing wrong with any of these topics, if that’s what you enjoy reading. They’re just not what I enjoy. I'm posting this here because there have been a lot of blog posts elsewhere about what readers are looking for in a writer's blog.

Political Rants. They're OK only if they're really funny, and of course, that's highly subjective. If I want political rants, I'll read a political blog. Which I don't.
Cut-and-Paste Book Reviews (of other people’s books, not reviews of your own book that you’re excited about, those are cool.) I’m all for discussing books. The review posts I skip are the cut-and-paste variety where I see the exact same review posted on a dozen different blogs. Yawn. At least give me your own take on it. And please, read the book first. Now if there’s something to be learned, craft- or industry-wise, or if you have a strong opinion of an aspect of it that works particularly well (or poorly), then I'm all ears - er, eyes.
Ramblings about your TV show(s). A near second is music. I watch very little TV, that’s one way I find time to write. My musical tastes are unusual at best, so I can’t relate to most music posts either. But again, if you relate it to writing, then that can be interesting. I can’t remember if this was on a blog or if it was an RWA chapter newsletter article, but one author did a neat write-up analyzing the conflicts and character development in Lost from a craft perspective. I don’t watch the show, but I enjoyed the article. Feel free to skip my posts about WWE – though I'll try to relate them to writing. (Hey, WWE is fiction, after all!)
Disparaging posts or comments about other writers or publishing professionals.* OK, I probably won’t skip these, I enjoy gossip as much as the next person. And if identities are kept concealed, and there's something to be learned, that's all the better. Personal attacks on others* are IMO, unprofessional - and if an editor or agent happens to stop by, unprofessional is not what you want to be.
Excessive whining. I'm talking about the unprofessional, "woe is me, this business sucks so bad" variety of whining. I am not talking about never being negative. We all feel negative from time to time. This falls into the Writer’s Life category of stuff I find interesting, as in, how you deal when you’re sick and want to write. Or how even though you’re multi-published, you still feel the same old doubts and fears—plus new ones. That’s not whining, it’s reality, and serves to show that you’re still human to suffer the same insecurities, and that the worries don’t go away once you’re published.
Beefcake photos. I like hunky guys as much as the next girl. But I do most of my blog reading at work (while waiting for slow software processes to run). I work in a big room with ten other people, and this is not appropriate for the office.

And what makes me stop reading?

Excessive memes. A meme every now and then is fun. When three out of every four blog posts are memes, I quit reading. And I don't usually remember to go back.

DISCLAIMER #2 – I may break my own guidelines. Who knows? If you don’t like what I blog about... well, that’s the beauty of the Internet. Something else is just a click away.

What do you like – and not like – to read in a blog?
(My thanks to Kelly, who answered this question before I asked it! )

*I’m not talking about scammers here. Dirtbags who prey on people’s dreams deserve all the disparaging comments they get and then some.

Blogs and the Readers who Love Them* Part One

2006-03-15T19:00:00.000-05:00

It's time to get the blog more focused. I'd been tossing the idea around, but a post on A Newbie's Guide to Publishing on "What Makes a Good Blog" made me take a better look at my blog and ask myself some questions.

J.A.'s post includes a list of 12 things that make a good blog. I agreed with all of them except #9, "Keep yourself out of it." I don't believe a blog should be all business, but there are some blogs I check out once and don't return to because there's too much of the personal stuff that's irrelevant to me. (I'm talking about writers' blogs, not blogs that are supposed to be personal, such as Diary of a sxKitten.)

So I analyzed. What do I like in a writer's blog?

Publishing industry information. Information is power. As an unpublished writer, I can use all the help I can get! Check out my blogroll for some starters. And if you know of some good ones I’m missing, please leave a comment! Reading blogs is an addiction, and I’m always looking for more fodder.
Other writers’ process – I like to read about how other writers go about getting a book down onto paper (or hard drive), whether or not they outline and how much, what they’ve found that works for them and how they found out.
Writing craft — I always love reading articles with tips to improve my craft and tools to add to my toolbox.
Opinions on the industry, books, books in the news.
Writer’s Life – how other writers balance all the demands on their day, especially those who must juggle their author hat with a mom hat, a full-time worker hat, and others. Again, an area where I’m always looking for helpful suggestions!
A little personal info. I don’t think a writer’s blog needs to be all business. Most of us are readers too, and as a reader, I enjoy getting a little glimpse inside the life of the writer behind the blog/books, particularly when interspersed with the other stuff I like. There are a couple blogs on my blogroll of writers who, like me, have day jobs in the IT field. I enjoyed Grumpy Old Woman’s recent relating of certain aspects of her day job to writing, and I like Dean’s occasional thoughts on his job as a database developer.
RSS Feeds (or Atom feeds). I use Bloglines to keep track of my blogs. I follow several dozen, so going to each one individually just isn’t practical. Bloglines sees which blogs have been updated since my last visit and collects them all in one place. Sadly, every now and then I find a blog I want to follow, but doesn’t publish a feed. I usually don’t remember to check it myself.
The occasional meme. Once in a while, a meme is fun. Too many is... well, a blog from which I unsubscribe.**
Regular Updates. Every day is nice, but not necessary. Once every week or two is adequate. Less than that, what’s the point?

Next post: What I skip in blogs

*With acknowledgement to my friend Jim Winter, who has an entire category of posts on this topic.

**Unsubscribe meaning I remove it from My Bloglines and therefore don’t continue to follow.

Semantics, and Word of the Day

2006-03-14T16:13:00.000-05:00

One of my Bloglines subscriptions is Dictionary.com's Word of the Day. I like words. It's okay, I'm a writer, I'm supposed to like words. Most of the WOTD's I either already know, or they're so esoteric I would not use them in my fiction writing, as aiming your book at too high a grade level is one sure way to decrease its readability and thereby reduce its liklihood of selling. But that's another rant.

Today's Word of the Day amused me:

crapulous: sick from, or marked by, excessive drinking.

It's one of those words that does not mean what it sounds like - as in, I would have expected it to mean "full of crap."

We have lots of crapulous patrons at DH's bar, several this past weekend, in fact. Only he calls them "satisfied customers." Semantics, I say.

We prefer our clientele to be crapulous outside, but sometimes they don't make it.

Sometimes one of the Fishbowl peeps writes a Word of the Day on our whiteboard. These are not necessarily words you'll find in any dictionary. Current ones (which have been there over a week) include:

Nerdvana

Farfrompukin (the opposite of crapulous)

No Wonder I'm Brain-Dead

2006-03-12T22:16:00.000-05:00

I was going to write a clever article about something that other writers might actually find useful, but I forgot what I was going to write about. Completely forgot about it.

I just counted back over the material I wrote today, and it's sixteen pages! Now, I realize some people crank out this much every day, several days a week, but it's a lot for me, especially considering that this writing all happened in between shopping for a birthday gift and groceries, doing laundry, ironing (not much, TG), being sociable to my husband, who was home before and after taking DD to her cousin's birthday party, and spending some time with DD after DH went to the bar (the one he owns, though it's not open on Sunday).

Twenty pages is the most I've ever written in one day. I once did a Book-in-a-Week challenge sponsored by my local RWA chapter. It was right after I'd been laid off of my previous job, and after six days of cranking out the pages like this, I felt drained and like a hermit.

But, my output this week wasn't so hot, so I was determined to make up for it and reach my weekly goal of 14 scene segments. I did it! The bad thing is, these fourteen scene segments totaled up to 34 pages - a tad over my average of 2 pages per bullet. But that's how averages work, considering last week's output was less than 2 pages per scene.

I also added two bullets - one existing segment that needed broken into two, because of a POV change that also involved a change in place, and a new one I think will add to the book. Overall, I'm happy with what I've accomplished this week.

Writing: Halfway to the Goal

2006-03-05T09:35:00.000-05:00

Writing progress on the current goal so far:

36 scene segments done

2-1/2 chapters done

12-1/2 scenes

50 pages

So far, that's better than I'd hoped, especially the page count - it's considerably less than my estimate of 2 pages per scene segment. To people struggling to make a page count, that might not seem like a good thing.

To me, who struggles to get a story within a reasonable length, it's a very good thing.

I've made it to the black moment. It will probably need to be enhanced quite a bit on revision--one problem I have with endings is they tend to be rushed in my first drafts. Later I go back in and draw them out to add suspense, pack in more emotion, and hopefully, make it more satisfying. So that's probably one reason why these segments went so quickly.

The rest may not be so easy. After the resolution, I have a lot of tying up to do -- two books' worth. The bullet points in my outline are now a whole paragraph long, not just one sentence, as were most of the ones I worked on this week.

Submissions update
I have packets ready to go in the mail tomorrow for Agents 6, 7 and 8. Have not heard back from Agent 4 yet, but didn't expect to since it's a weekend.

I have my picture of Matt Hardy ready for when the e-rejection comes, though of course I'm hopeful. Rejection or no, I keep reminding myself that it's a guarantee that I won't gain representation if I don't submit.

Writing: Negativity

2006-03-03T18:38:00.000-05:00

Thinking about yesterday's post, it occurred to me that it might sound a bit negative. Waiting for the rejection, preparing myself to "get back in the ring" and so on. Being negative was not my intention. Let me explain.

First, I haven't heard back from Agent #4 yet, but I've been psyching myself up for it all day, just in case.

Well, that's not really true. I've thought about it several times today, between working. But not all day.

I keep telling myself that it'll be a form rejection. Or worse, a simply hit reply, with one, terse line:

"No thanks, not for my list."

Or even more to the point:

"No thanks." Or just "No."

That way, anything else is a step up, even if it's a politely worded form rejection.

Don't get me wrong, I think my work is worth representing - and certainly worth a look at a partial, but I'm just trying to be realistic. I know the odds of receiving a form rejection are much greater.

By psyching myself up (or perhaps I should say, down) this way, the rejection won't be such a letdown when it comes. It'll be easier to shrug it off, and think, Oh well, there's always Agents 5, 6, 7 and 8.

All I'm doing is expecting the worst while in the back of my mind, hoping for the best.

I think I've written a darn good book. It's one I'd want to read if someone else wrote it. It's one that, so far, I haven't tired of reading, and that's saying a lot considering how many times I've read it.

So here's to hoping for the best while expecting the worst. It's really not negative.

Writing: Fear and Perseverance

2006-03-02T21:23:00.000-05:00

Fear
I've put it off long enough. My cousin Sheri graciously volunteered to proofread my first three chapters - and returned them the next day - so, having run out of excuses, I finally sent out my queries to Agents #4 and 5.

Agent #4 accepts only email queries, so he got an email, sent out last night. His guidelines state that he responds within 48 hours, so I'd better be prepared for the rejection fast. To help my mental state, I taped up a printout of Matt Hardy, my poster boy for persistence, above my desk.

Matt gets beat up almost every week on Smackdown! but every week, he always gets back in the ring. It's one of the reasons he's so popular: in the face of adversity, kicks to the face, and multiple ~~fake blood~~ forehead wounds, Matt Hardy Will Not Die. He's pretty cute, too, heheh.

Agent #5 instructed to send a query with SASE, so he got snailmail query. I'm all for following instructions. If an agent takes both e- and snail- queries, s/he'll get paper from me. Miss Snark explains the reason why, and as a web designer who's studied web usability, I think she makes a good point. People tend to read faster onscreen than if something's on paper. I'd like to give my work the best shot possible.

I plan to send three more out Monday. Agent 6 wants five pages. Agents 7 and 8 want up to fifty pages. I haven't had a chance to print anything out, so I'll prepare their packets this weekend. Then I'll continue my research to narrow down the pool of agents to see who will be the next ~~victims~~ recipients of my awe-inspiring query letters.

Perseverance
My community, in conjunction with the local school board, chose twelve "words of the month" in an effort to build "character" in the school kids. The guidance counselor and high schoolers talk to younger kids each month about what the word means, why it's important, and why it's a good quality to develop in oneself. (DD hates these programs.) Last month's word was Tolerance. Guess which word struck me in the face when I flipped my school calendar to March yesterday?

Yep. Perseverance.

Now I ask, is this a coincidence? I mean, the day I finally get my s**t together and send out the first queries since I've pared my book down and feel it's truly ready for prime time.

Makes me go hmmm....

In the meantime, I'll continue working on WIP #2. Oh, and look up at Matt Hardy every now and then.

Writing and Other Stuff: Meet Dexter

2006-02-28T23:09:00.000-05:00

I ordered it last Tuesday, and it came Friday. My new writing companion and more!

This is my new PDA and fold-up keyboard. I put a book in the photo to show how small they are - yes, it's a standard mass-market paperback (one I'm thoroughly enjoying, btw).

I'd considered getting an AlphaSmart or Dana to take my writing on the go, and I know many people who love them. I've even tried friends', but I was never sure enough I'd want to write with one to buy one. With a four-line screen, they really aren't suitable for editing, and I spend as much time, if not more, doing editing than writing.

Then I saw a chapter sister at an RWA chapter meeting using a PDA and keyboard. Too cool!

It had never occurred to me that you could use these puppies for serious writing. But I asked this woman about her setup and she loves it -- with the instantaneous bootup and small size, she's good to go to write a paragraph whenever her kids give her a few minutes.

Now I've always held out on getting a PDA too, because then I would have to admit that I really am a true nerd. But nerds are cool. The guy who sits beside me at work has a PDA and he loves it. He's always taking it to meetings, sitting there tapping away looking like he's being the ever-serious employee taking copious notes when he's really playing games. I was envious. (Actually, he does take copious notes during meetings, but plays games while waiting for the meeting to begin.

Then there's the fact that I'm going on vacation this June, plus the RWA National conference this summer - plenty of time in airports and on planes. I have a fantastic laptop, but the darn thing weighs over 12 pounds - which gets heavy really fast when you're lugging it through an airport.

So I bit it and and bought a PDA, and the more I use it, the more I like it. The main reason? It's not just for writing.

It's an MP3 player. I loaded up about 3 CDs worth of music onto the extra 1GB memory card I bought with this thing. Room for plenty more, and the playlists are a lot easier to manage in Windows Media Player than on a tiny MP3 player's screen. (Though it is cool getting music from something the size of a lighter.) The sound is as good as from an MP3 player too -- Dexter even has a tiny speaker if I want to subject someone else to my music Bwa-ha-ha!

It's a GameBoy. Well, not really - I mean, you can't get Pokemon for it, but you can get cool mobile games from places like ~~crack.com~~ Popcap.com. I bought a five-pack of games from Pop cap. I've already logged the high scores on them all.

It's an e-book reader. Jury's still out on this one. I loaded a couple of e-books onto it, but haven't really started reading them yet. I did try a PDF e-book, and learned that it wouldn't reflow to fit the tiny mobile screen. I would have had to scroll horizontally on every line - painful! What's really bad is I can blame no one but myself - this particular e-book was one I prepared for a freelance design client! LOL Guess I learned something. I tried a Word e-book too. Better, but required a lot of scrolling. I'll have to give this one another shot when I'm done with the two books in the blog sidebar. It would be nice to take a dozen books on this with me on vacation, instead of a bag full of paperbacks.

It's a means onto the 'net. I haven't tried the PDA's wireless capabilities yet, (for the nerdy and curious, we have good old fashioned Ethernet in the Nerdy Girl household) but this guy came complete with mobile Internet Explorer and email. That will be nice because I believe there's free wireless near the hotel where the RWA National Conference is being held this year.

What about the keyboard? It's cool. It's tiny. Again, note the size beside the mass-market paperback. Luckily, my hands are small. My typing is even suckier on it than on a regular keyboard but I'm getting used to it as I write this blog entry. (Yes, I'm using the PDA now, as DH is currently enmeshed in a tournament on PokerStars.net. Sigh.) The keyboard's much less hand-cramping than writing longhand, which sometimes I do. It's not as convenient as a laptop, or AlphaSmart, as it requires a flat surface and the PDA has to be positioned properly for the keyboard's infrared signal to reach it. But again, that's just taking a little getting used to.

You can also hand-write on a PDA, which is fantastic for line editing!

What did it cost? Check them out at Dell.com. This is the middle of the road model, the Axim x51 520mHz, with 64mb RAM/128mb ROM. I paid $72 extra for a 1 GB Compact Flash card, which can also be used in my digital camera. The keyboard was an additional $40 plus shipping. So, bottom line, it cost a good bit more than an AlphaSmart but less than a laptop. Good buys can be found on ebay too. The guy who sits beside me at work just got a new Sony Clie with integrated digital camera, and he paid less than $200.

Oh, and the name. I've never felt compelled to name a computer before but this little thing kept whispering in my ear. So okay, it's Dexter, kinda like the Pokedex, I guess.

I got a whole scene written today, part of it at work, and part on Dexter, plus this blog entry. If all my PDA wants is a name, I can't argue that.

Writing: Which Literature Classic are You?

2006-02-27T12:51:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know, another meme, but this one's too cool! I swear, I will have a real post about my latest new writing toy in the next few days. Until then...

J.R.R. Tolkien: Lord of the Rings. You are
entertaining and imaginative, creating whole
new worlds around yourself. Well loved, you
have a whole league of imitators, none of
which is quite as profound as you are.
Stories and songs give a spark of joy in the
middle of your eternal battle with the forces
of evil.

Which literature classic are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Other Stuff: I've Been Tagged!

2006-02-26T10:10:00.000-05:00

I've finally been tagged for a fun meme! Sharon tagged me for this one.

Five Guilty Pleasures

WWE. I love both Smackdown! and Raw, and going to my first live event was an incredible rush! Buff guys in tight pants, action, adventure, and drama - what's not to like?

Driving fast. I love driving down a curvy road I know well enough to whip around those curves! Always in the car, not on the motorcycle.

Video games. I can blow a whole evening--heck, a whole weekend!--on Pokemon or Legend of Zelda. I'm still working on Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness on the Gamecube. I don't let myself play unless my writing for the week is done or DH is on the computer.

The Ohio State Fair, especially the food. Especially deep fried Snickers bars. Does this one even need an explanation?

Reading blogs at work! It's become addicting enough that I can't keep from checking up on them on the weekend at home, too.

I'm tagging sxKitten.

UPDATE: At Kelly's request, here's a picture of the ultimate, decadently yummy/unhealthy State Fair food, deep fried Snicker's bars!

Sharon summed it up pretty well in the comments, only on me it goes to the belly. So rich I can't even eat the whole thing - fortunately, DD is there to share!

Other Stuff: Which Simpsons Character Are You?

2006-02-24T12:56:00.000-05:00

ROTFL! And here I thought I'd be Marge. But maybe it's appropriate, considering I own a bar. And live with a guy who burps enough to make up for the burping I don't do.

You Are Barney

You could have been an intellectual leader...

Instead, your whole life is an homage to beer

You will be remembered for: your beautiful singing voice and your burps

Your life philosophy: "There's nothing like beer to give you that inflated sense of self-esteem."

The Simpsons Personality Test

Writing: Slow and Steady

2006-02-23T20:16:00.000-05:00

I'm a slow writer. I've known that for a while, but it's really hit home this week after reading a couple of other blog posts on the subject.

Folks who can crank out a book in a month amaze me, especially when I've read their work and know it's not crap. Even during the two-year period when I didn't have a full time job, I was still hard-pressed to write 2,000 words a day. Now, I'm sometimes hard-pressed to get that much in a week.

If I have a good, solid outline and don't run into any stupid hang ups like, "well, why can't he just hitch a ride? Why does he steal?" I can produce a good 4 or 5k a week. But that's pushing it too.

I'm not complaining. I realize this is still more than plenty of others produce. I just wish I could work faster.

This week has been an educational one, with tracking my progress by scene segments instead of pages. My goal was to write 12 segments a week. I've already written nine this week, and it's only Thursday. (I might even crank out another one before I go to bed tonight!) Part of this is because my book is winding up to the climax, and the scenes here are short.

The other part is that pacing myself by scenes, and parts thereof, is freeing. I'm not worried about producing pages, just getting the story told. Looking back over my WIP, I see that I've produced 13 pages this week. Again, respectable, even going by pure page count.

My book will get written, bit by bit, as a gerbil chews a cardboard tube.

This one just happens to be a jumbo wrapping paper tube.

Writing: Weekly Wrap-up

2006-02-19T20:48:00.000-05:00

So far, so good. I like the new measurement system. Yesterday and today, I wrote five scene segments for a total of nine pages. Comes out to slightly less than my estimate of 2 pages per segment.

This week, the goal is to write 12 scene segments. If I keep up this schedule, I'll have the draft finished in six weeks - April 2.

Hmmm. If I make it, maybe we'll get Wrestlemania to celebrate.

Blog Stuff: Playing Dress-up

2006-02-19T19:30:00.000-05:00

As someone who specializes in customized web sites/applications, using a pre-built template, no matter how well designed, just goes against my basic nature. The old design was one of Blogger's templates, but I still had to modify it a bit.

Most web designers I know (including myself) tend to maintain their own web sites much like mechanics maintain their own cars -- it comes after paying work, if at all.

The basic black design was OK, but I've been toying around with this one for a while. I like the text styles and sizes, so I left them as they were on the template. Moved the blogroll down, as it's getting rather long. (Reading other folks' blogs is my latest addicition.) When I actually have something to put on an author web site, this is the base design I'm planning to use.

I figured it was time for a name change, too, since I find I'm not blogging about WWE very often, and haven't blogged about motorcycling in months (hard to ride when there's snow on the ground. And not very pleasant when it's 8° outside). I'll still write about those things if the fancy strikes me, but I find the easiest thing to write about is... well, writing. The focus on that is likely to come across a little better should an agent or editor decide to check out the blog upon receiving a submission from me. (Yeah! I wish! LOL)

So here it is. It's new, and yet the same. Hope you like.

Writing: Next Steps and Goals

2006-02-17T18:22:00.000-05:00

I've spent the past week focusing on finishing my outline, all the way to The End. Now it's time to break down what I have left to do (way too much) and come up with some goals, baby steps to achieve them, and a hopeful timetable.

At this point, I have remaining:
- 7-1/2 chapters
- 25 scenes
- 75 bullet points

In a bit of explanation, my outlines consist of a page for each scene, where I detail some basics (POV character(s), setting, timeframe, etc.) then make a bullet point list of events.

One thing I noticed during the last new writing challenge was that on average, a bullet point came out to about two pages.

Yep, my book that is already waaaaaaaay too long, needs approximately another 150 pages to reach The End.

I'm going to go for it. Write what needs to be written, then hack and slash mercilessly. Hey, it worked before.

But this time I want to measure my progress in something besides pages. I'm thinking scenes, or better yet, bullet points -- let's call them scene segments (because that sounds much more writerly and glamorous than bullet points). I'm hoping that this will curb my tendency to verbosity -- the other thing I learned about my writing habits during past challenges that focused on page count, was that I'd sometimes draw out a scene longer than it needed to be because I was trying to meet the day's page goal.

Based on my experience with the past two page count challenges, I can write about 25 pagesa a week. Based on my estimate of 150 pages, this will take about six weeks. I can live with that. But since I want to do bullet points, I'm going to set the goal at 12 bullet points per week. Some are less detailed than others, so if I get more done, great.

Time for a new progress meter!

Other Stuff: Valentine's Day Thoughts

2006-02-15T10:27:00.000-05:00

Considering that romance figures prominently in my books, I guess I should comment on Valentine's Day, now that it's over.

DD says, "I hate Valentine's Day." This scares me a little, that she's only ten and has already developed this level of cynicism. I didn't actively hate Valentine's Day until I was at least a couple years older.

Which I did, until I met my Sweetie, the one to whom I'm now married. As one of my perpetually-single college friends said, "Valentine's Day is great for those who have a Valentine, and makes the rest of us feel like s**t."

Since meeting DH, I've graduated from "I hate it" to just "It's a stupid holiday." DH agrees, so our presents to each other are usually, "You don't have to get me anything." We do at least exchange cards. His card to me involved bodily-functions humor regarding chocolates, and yes, I found it funny.

Agent Jennifer Jackson had a great post about Valentine's Day on Romancing the Blog the other day, which pretty much sums up my opinion of it as well.

My idea of a good "gift": Yesterday, DH went to the pet store to pick up gerbil food for me. The gerbil food was not the gift, him going to get it was, especially considering DH does not like gerbils. He even called me while he was there to make sure he was getting the right kind of treats.

To me, that's true love.

Other Stuff: Currently

2006-02-15T09:08:00.000-05:00

Had to do this meme. Fun!

I got this from Sharon's blog:

current clothing: Red, fake suede suit. Guess it would've been more appropriate yesterday, but oh well.
current hair: Down, as almost always. (Stuff in my hair gives me a headache)
current mood: Sluggish(It's before ten)
current refreshment: Green tea
current annoyance: People yapping in the Fishbowl
current avoidance: Work
current smell: Nothing. I have a lousy sense of smell.
current thing you ought to be doing: Um, work?
current thing or things on your wall: None, at least over my work area. There are project schedules elsewhere, all of which are hopelessly out of date.
current IM/person you're talking to: No one at the moment, but I was talking to Fishbowl Girl S, about the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
current jewelry: Wedding ring.
current book: Star Quality by Lori Foster, Lucy Monroe and Dianne Castell.
current worry: Hoping Fishbowl Guy J finishes his next task soon so I can hit a deadline.
current favorite celebrity: Randy Orton
current obsession: Writing. Always (I copied this verbatim from Sharon, 'cuz it's true).
current love: DH (Ditto the above)
current longing: Nice weather, so I can ride my motorcycle.
current disappointment: Book I was reading before SQ. I set it aside.
current lyric in your head: "Regret" 2004 mix, by Icon of Coil
current music: Whatever's on my MusicMatch Jukebox (from my own CDs that I ripped)
current favorite book: Oh man, I have no idea. There are so many good ones!
current favorite movie: Beavis & Butthead Do America
current wish: To get an agent and SELL my two time travel books.
current happy thing: Getting lots of outlining done last night.
current undergarments: Something that DH likes that's also comfortable. No, you don't need any more details than that.
current desktop picture: At home: a forest scene that could be from the current WIP. At work, on the laptop: My motorcycle. On my workstation: the album cover from Presto by Rush.
current plans for tonight/weekend: Tonight - outline at least two scenes and do some more work collecting tax stuff (ugh). Weekend: Visit my grandma. Finish outline.
What are you currently doing? Answering this quiz

Writing: At Work

2006-02-11T20:41:00.000-05:00

Despite my excited 100 Words! the other day, it's frustrating how long this darn book is taking me to write. Yeah, it's long. Yeah, it's complex. Yeah, there's way too much yet to do. Yeah, I fart around playing Sudoku way too much.

Anyway, in an effort to gain a little writing time, I finally broke down and took my WIP to the office, to work on during lunch, having read that other writers, some of whom are published, do this.

I took it Tuesday, too, and ended up sitting in my office with the other Fishbowl people*, not doing any writing. I plugged my flash drive into my laptop. That's as far as it went.

I felt weird. Embarrassed. What if someone came up and started reading over my shoulder? Considering I work in a big room I share with ten other people, chances of this happening are good to very good.

Not that I don't want people to read my work, I just don't want anyone reading my first drafts. Hell, those are painful enough for me to read. And looking at anything over my shoulder, be it work stuff, writing, or just what I'm surfing on the 'net, is one of those knee-jerk things for me (unless you've asked me a question and I'm showing you how to do something) - it drives me nuts and annoys me. So the plan was to take my laptop into an unused conference room or office. I just never got up.

We went out to lunch Wednesday, and Thursday too. I was invited to go out Friday. I declined, and yes - took the laptop into that unused conference room.

I got a good bit of outlining done. I was happy! I went home feeling like I'd accomplished a lot, since I accomplished some work (you know, the stuff I get paid to do) and writing.

Now that I know it doesn't feel weird, it feels good, I'll do this again.

*Some of us call our big project room "The Fishbowl" because there are three big picture windows facing a walkway, through which people often stare in at us.

Writing: 100 Pages!

2006-02-09T23:12:00.000-05:00

100 Pages!

I met my BIAM challenge goal tonight! Two more pages written = 100 pages in a month - my goal!

Now I have to figure out my next goal. I like the idea I came up with the other day, of tracking by scenes, or parts of scenes, completed instead of pages. Now I just have to go through my outline, flesh it out, and figure out how many scenes remain.

I outline in bullet points for each scene. A review of my recent pages shows that a bullet point averages two pages. So, I'm thinking I can set my daily goals of being one bullet point Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, four on Thursday and Friday, and five or six on Saturday and Sunday.

Trouble is, there are still some details I need to work out before I can finish my outline, and therefore finish my plan (and my book). Like how to set things up so my heroine has to make the most difficult choice she's ever made. The choice is easy, I know the two sucky options she gets. Setting up the situation is the challenge.

With that, it's time for bed. Tomorrow is soon enough for goals, and I can always hope a solution to the situation will come to my subconscious tonight. It usually doesn't work that way for me, but one can always hope...

Everything: What Matters to Me

2006-02-09T11:25:00.000-05:00

Found this cool gizmo at Paperback Writer's blog. It will scan your blog and make a word cloud out of the common words. You can tell which wrestlers are my favorite, LOL!

Writing: BIAM Challenge Wrap-Up

2006-02-07T22:41:00.000-05:00

My local RWA chapter started a "Book in a Month" challenge on Jan. 9, and today sent out the wrap-up email. "But it's only the seventh! Can we have until the ninth?" I replied. Although we're calling it "book in a month" its real purpose is to set an ambitious goal and crank out the pages to meet that goal. My goal was to write 100 new pages on the WIP.

As of today, I've written 96 pages since Jan. 9. I wrote my two pages today. By Thursday, I'll have met my goal. My book has grown into a behemoth of over 700 pages.

And the story's still not done.

These "crank out the pages" challenges are good in that they get me to produce. But sometimes, I think I draw out a scene more than I should, just to get the pages in, compounding the length problem I already have.

Time to figure out a new goal. Perhaps one of finishing scenes, as opposed to pages. I would love to get this draft finished by this time next month.

We'll see how it goes. Any suggestions for getting me there are welcome!

The Great Agent Search Update
I got my query letter back from the last critiquer I sent it to. She and another writer friend had some excellent suggestions. I've gone back over and incorporated some of them, and I think the letter is ready for prime time. Now I just have to get the ms back. As riddled with typos and stupid errors as the last one I sent out was, I'm not willing to chance sending this one out until I get it proofed by someone who hasn't read it a dozen times. A couple of the agents I'm getting ready to query want the query letter only, but I want to have at least the first three chapters ready to go right away if I get a request.

A girl can dream, can't she?

Writing: The Great Agent Search Begins

2006-02-04T23:15:00.000-05:00

How much info is too much info?

My friend Jim Winter was discussing How Much to Tell in his blog. He's gearing up for The Great Agent Search too. Should one give the gory details about agent queries and rejections on a blog?

My take is only if you can do it in a somewhat professional manner, or at least don't sound too whiny or juvenile. I've mentioned my early efforts in TGAS, but don't mention any of the agents by name. Heck, they know you're querying others. (You are, aren't you?) I put a little *pout* after getting a form rejection from Agent #3, but that was the extent of my whining. Instead I try to focus on "What can I learn from this? And what are my next plans?"

Even a form letter can be telling. I hope that latest one was telling me, "For a new writer, forget trying to sell something as long as 135,000 words!" because I fixed that. The book is now 118,000 words. But yeah, for the most part, form letters suck. I understand why agents use them - I'd do the same if I had as much stuff to wade through as they do.

I'm preparing query letters for Agents 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8. They all want something different.

Agent 4 wants the first five pages with the query. Agent 5 wants a synopsis and three chapters with the query, and takes email but prefers post. Agent 6 wants a 1-2 page query only. (I came up with something special* for him, inspired by J.A. Konrath.) Agent 7 wants three chapters, but didn't mention synopsis, so I'm only sending the three chapters. Oh, and the query and SASE, of course. Agent 7 says no email queries. Agent 8 takes only email queries and -- here's what intrigues me about him: likes work that is "not easily categorized" and "settings and time periods that haven't been done a great deal." How about a time-travel novel with romantic elements? Set in contemporary and early 20th century America?? (Ric Flair "Whoooooooo!") Agent 8, I'm your girl!

Though I'd be happy if Agents 4-7 express interest, too!

* Mr. Konrath has an interesting, "non-traditional" query letter sample on his web site. It's part of his free "How to get an agent and get published" PDF booklet.** One of the items in his non-traditional query was a one-page teaser from the book, like the single page that's often in the front of a paperback romance. I like that. That way, I can send Agent 6 a sample of my work without breaking the guidelines, and give him a chance to "just not love my writing" instead of just rejecting my query.

** I'll have to check out Mr. Konrath's books, thriller/mysteries with alcoholic beverages as titles. Not only do his books sound good, but as a bar owner, the titles intrigue me.

Writing: Brain Dead

2006-02-03T22:52:00.000-05:00

I've written two pages tonight. I wanted to write four. It's eleven pm and I'm already ready for bed. Mentally and physically.

I wrote two pages last night. I wanted to write four. I had to work late, and had to bring work home, too. No big deal there, it doesn't happen very often, so I don't mind. It just cut into my productivity for my writing, that's all.

Tonight I just feel brain dead. Not unusual for a Friday. I wrote my two pages before I let myself turn on Smackdown. Only missed 15 minutes of it. I did my workout while I watched. Gave myself a star on my calendar for doing it.

Afterward, I sat down to write.

And just didn't feel like it.

I hate it when that happens.

That means I'll have 17 pages to write this weekend instead of 15 to meet my 25/week goal. Hmmm, maybe I will go write...

Other Stuff: Color Quiz - Very Cool!

2006-02-03T09:52:00.000-05:00

...and frighteningly accurate!

WHITES are motivated by PEACE, seek independence and require kindness. They resist confrontation at all costs. (Feeling good is more important than being good.) They are typically quiet by nature, they process things very deeply and objectively, and they are by far the best listeners of all the colors. They respect people who are kind, but recoil from perceived hostility or verbal battle.

WHITES need their quiet independence and refuse to be controlled by others. WHITES want to do things their own way, in their own time. They ask little of others, and resent others demanding much of them. WHITES are much stronger than people think because they don't reveal their feelings. WHITES are kind, non-discriminate, patient and can be indecisive, timid, and silently stubborn. When you deal with a WHITE, be kind, accept (and support) their individuality, and look for nonverbal clues to their feelings.

What Color Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Writing: Judge a Contest Today - You'll be Glad You Did

2006-01-29T22:26:00.000-05:00

This week, I finished judging seven entries for RWA's Golden Heart contest. For those not in the know, this is the flagship contest for unpublished romance novels. Preliminary judging is peer review (i.e., anyone who's a member of RWA can judge), but final round is judged by agents and editors.

I've never entered the Golden Heart. Never had anything done and ready to go at the right time, and the book I have in that state now might not be considered enough of a romance by some to be worth plunking down $50 just to be DQ'ed. (If I'm going to get DQ'ed for anything, I at least want it to be for bashing someone with a folding chair!)

I like judging the GH, and other contests. It's a great way to see what your competition is, to see how far you've come (when you get entries that need more work) or how far you've yet to go. Though GH entries are longer (they're each 55 pages, up to ten of which may be a synopsis) than most contests held by RWA chapters, it's easier and less time-consuming to judge because you don't have to give feedback. In fact, you can't. All you do is give each entry a numeric score from 1 to 9, based on how well you think it fits the description: "Excellence in unpublished romantic fiction." This is the third time I've judged. Usually I get a range of reading experiences -- some entries that made me angry that I didn't have a whole book, some that are a struggle to finish, and some in between -- works that weren't bad but didn't quite hold my interest.

This year I had none of the first type, and five of the seven fell into the middle. If nothing else, it gave me a real feel for what editors and agents go through when reading slush. For each entry, I knew within the first two or three pages whether it would be a struggle to read, or something I wanted to finish. I read each entire entry because I committed to doing so when I volunteered to judge. But you can bet that if I was a busy publishing professional with a crates full of these things, I wouldn't have. Nothing personal against the authors, I just have too much to do and too little time. If that's my competition, I don't have much to worry about. However, I doubt it is. For starters, RWA members have at least passing knowledge of craft, whereas agents and eds get plenty of crap from folks who don't have a clue. OTOH, they also get much better stuff than what I read last week.

Contests are a crap shoot, the GH more than most. Last year I gave one entry a nine. I couldn't stop thinking about it after I read it. It even made me cry, not easy to do with this jaded, non-sentimental biker girl. And it didn't even final. It really all comes down to taste, and landing in the hands of enough judges who truly "get" your story.

Kind of like the publishing business as a whole.

'Nuff for now. Back to outlining! (And making my picks for WWE Fantasy!)

Writing: Weekly Wrap-Up

2006-01-29T22:19:00.000-05:00

I wrote my 25 pages this week - yipee! I also got some more work done on my outline, but not enough to sustain me through this week if I don't do more. That's OK, I can do it! (Have to think positive, here).

I also drafted an agent query letter, and sent it to a critique partner for review. I want to start actively querying agents, but not until I get my manuscript back. Jim Winter has it at the moment, giving it what he calls a "go/no-go" - a very high level critique with typos, grammar boo-boos, and missing words hopefully found. After I found so many of these last month when I did my hack and slash, there's no way that thing's going out without another proofread by someone besides me.

Oh, and I finished one other big task this week -- designing Jim's new web site!

Writing: My Favorite Advice

2006-01-24T23:19:00.000-05:00

"It's OK to write crap."

In a first draft, at least. That one's gotten many pages written that otherwise wouldn't have been. And oddly enough, when I go back over the material later (weeks, or even months), I often find it's not that bad. And thus, tonight, I managed to eke out three pages in the hour since DH left for the gym. Cool!

Now, since I outline and know what's going to happen ahead of time, "crap" to me, is writing riddled with adjectives and adverbs, that will (hopefully) later be changed to make use of stronger nouns and verbs; writing that has weak or cliched emotions (or sometimes just a note: [Fear in Tony]). Or my "crap" may gloss over the emotions altogether, or not give the reader enough of a clue as to why a character's doing something. That's OK, that too is something I can go back and fix.

On a related note, thriller author J.A. Konrath had a great post about writer's block on his blog a few days ago. Good article, and one I have to agree with. When I'm blocked, it's usually a lack of motivation in me, or not enough planning for that particular point in my story (hence my "endings suck" issues). But the real gem in this post is in the comments (If you go to his blog, scroll down to the third comment, which also relates to Mr. Konrath's opinion of writing without a plan):

When people write about whatever strikes their fancy, the story is usually crap.

But when you're constipated, crap is welcome.

This was not a good thing to read at work! I had just taken a drink of water, and good thing I'd already swallowed it, or I would've spewed it all over my laptop keyboard! Hmm, how to explain that one to my employer?

Writing: Weekly Progress

2006-01-23T08:16:00.000-05:00

I made my 25 pages this week - barely! I need to get back to writing my detailed outline. That's the only thing that made my goal achievable this week, and I'm close to being out of outline.

I also need to write two pages on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and four each on Thursday and Friday. My last two weekends haven't seemed to be my own, and the reason is because I left almost all my writing to do then.

If I can figure out how to manage my time better, I can do this.

Wrestling: Smackdown Thoughts

2006-01-20T20:52:00.000-05:00

JBL and the Boogeyman - ROTFLMAO!!! I missed it last week, when Boogeyman bit the growth off of Jillian's face-- Ewwwww! But I'm still LOL! Boogeyman and JBL will fight at Royal Rumble. That might be worth the price of admission alone. Except that Boogeyman's matches are usually over way too fast.

I'm surprised Randy Orton didn't make an appearance during Booker T's gloatfest. And when do we get to see Orlando Jordan's boyfriend? (This from an article on fhwrestling.com.)

They showed video from Batista's bicep surgery last week. I did not need to see that. Seeing the doctor and Batista talk about what they did was cool. But seeing the surgery itself - too graphic and bloody to show on a family network at 8:45 on Friday night.

I wonder if Batista will be smaller after his hiatus, considering WWE's new no-drugs, no-steroids rule?

Mark Henry's theme is excellent! Cool industrial riff. I want to hear more. Speaking of which, I wish WWE would release their theme songs on another CD - or better yet, MP3 downloads. That way, I could buy all the cool metal tunes and skip the rap.

Mark Henry vs. Rey Mysterio - I am typing as I watch. There's no way Rey Mysterio will lose, unless they pull something else to put him into Royal Rumble. He's too popular not to be on the PPV.

Later- Mysterio did lose, but I still think he'll get on Royal Rumble - just not as the #1 contender for the Heavyweight Championship.

Randy Orton is such a hottie.

Sometimes WWE is better than a cartoon. Randy had Orlando Jordan in the corner, then when he went to rush him, Jordan stepped aside and Orton drilled himself on the corner post. (It was much funnier than I wrote.) At least Jordan's actually fighting a decent match - not tapping out after 23 seconds.

LOL - Booker T. whacked Jordan with a crutch while Sharmell distracted the ref - classic Booker/Sharmell/Randy style! (And where's Cowboy Bob been lately? Usually he does this for Randy, but Booker did owe the Legend Killer one. Or a few.) Hee - nice surprise entrance by Chris Benoit - who really got hosed out of the championship.

Diva Krista interviewerd Daivari before his match with Kurt Angle. What's up with the glasses and the pseudo-librarian look? Euh. 'Course, no one's as cute as Todd Grisham.

Kurt Angle's song is the worst one to get stuck in your head! LOL at Davairi yelling "No, he sucks!" Then Mark Henry shows up, with his cool music and tramp Melina. Of course, her interference and cheating got Angle DQ'ed, (and Melina herself Angle-slammed) leaving me wondering why she'd come to Daivari's defense? Turns out he's signed on as Mark Henry's manager.

Hey, with Batista out for the time being, I guess they have to come up with something for Melina to do while waiting for a ruling on her accusation of sexual harassment against Batista.

Oh, and WWE Fantasy starts up Monday. I know who my Smackdown picks will be!

Writing: Another "Try Something Different"

2006-01-18T23:31:00.000-05:00

Do it first. I received that advice in a workshop I took a couple years ago, that I still find useful. This is one of those witticisms that made sense at the time, but kind of slipped off my radar since then.

Yesterday and today, I put it to use.

I can't write when DH is around. He watches TV in the den where I write, talks to me (and sometimes expects a response), makes phone calls - in short, too much distraction to write. I don't like to tell him to go somewhere else - he's home little enough as it is with a business to run. So I write when he's at work.

He doesn't go to work on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesdays until late, like midnight. Typically, I don't write on those days. But yesterday, he left to run some errands. I had to type a school paper for DD, and also had paperwork to do.

I wrote a page of my book first, while DD was writing the stuff she needed me to type. Then I did the paperwork.

Today, I had bills to pay. I wanted to work out, since I didn't get to yesterday. So I did. After I wrote a page. Then I returned to the paperwork, a web site update for DH's business, and reading email. (Oh, yeah, that's a big time cruncher for me, too.) It wasn't quite bedtime, so I wrote another page after that.

Not bad for a day I didn't expect to write at all.

So if you're having trouble finding time to write, try Doing It First. Or do it when you have the chance. The other stuff can wait. Then you'll feel that much better when you accomplish it all!

Writing: Little by Little

2006-01-16T23:41:00.000-05:00

I'm trying something different this week. That was my advice from Saturday's meeting.

Ever since I went back to a full time job after my two-year layoff and hiatus, Mondays have pretty much been shot. Meaning, no time to do anything for me, including writing. I get home from work, fix dinner, clean it up, then there is the weekly bookkeeping for my husband's business. And now, I am trying to work out six days a week - my workouts are short - 30-40 minutes a day - but it all adds up. Then there were dozens of checks to enter, stamp, and add up for a deposit for my RWA chapter - I'm the treasurer, and it's membership renewal time. So, by the time I get all that done, it's time for Raw. Today, I didn't get done until ten, halfway through Raw. Afterward, it's time to get ready for bed. Forget writing - I'm usually a little wired (mentally, anyway) from watching Raw and getting into my story is a lost cause at eleven PM Monday night.

But yesterday I decided the something new I wanted to try was to write every day, even if it's only one page or fifteen minutes (whichever I hit first). I used to write almost every day, even when I had a job before the layoff. Of couse, I also wasn't working out and rarely cooked, maybe that had something to do with it.

So tonight I got ready for bed as soon as Raw was over, let the dogs out, then opened up my story.

One page took about fifteen minutes to write.

Yes, I did it! It wasn't even that hard. Maybe because the scene I happened to be up to was a fight scene - and what more suitable to write after watching wrestling?

Now I just need to figure out how to get my hero out of that Master Lock. 'Cuz where he is, there's no Edge or John Cena to come running in to knock him loose.

Writing: Motivation for Me

2006-01-14T23:06:00.000-05:00

...as opposed to my characters. They have plenty of reasons to do what they're doing. Bad guys after them. They'd better run, or else...

Our local RWA chapter featured a motivational speaker for our program today. Actually, she called herself a "creative coach" but she was basically a motivational coach who caters to artists, writers and musicians as opposed to corporate business people.

One of the exercises we did was to copy down an affirmation from a list she provided - an affirmation that particularly spoke to us - then write down our own writing advice - what we'd tell a good friend who was suffering writer's block. Then we had to pass the card to our right. Whatever was on the card each person received, was an affirmation to repeat to oneself, and advice to follow.

For the advice, what I wrote was: "Just write. Something. Anything!" What I got was, "Try something totally different." I'll have to remember that one next time I'm blocked. Once I go through my papers from the meeting, it's getting tacked up on my bulletin board where I can see it every time I sit at the computer.

What was funny, was one person's advice was: "Blog." And the person who received it had no idea what it meant! But I do think it's a good idea. Sometimes, like now, I may have trouble writing a page on my WIP. But a blog entry is no problem. It goes along with my own advice, "Something, anything." The simple act of writing can often get one started again.

Oh, and FWIW, I have written four pages in the WIP today. I was hoping for more on the lines of nine, but I'm fighting off a headache and really need to go to bed. Not a good frame of mind to write a major action scene, which is where I'm at now in the WIP. I definitely set the goals too high this week, between my cold, going to WWE last night, and having the RWA meeting today. But four pages is better than none. My characters can narrowly escape their pursuers tomorrow.

Wrestling: First Live Event!

2006-01-13T23:56:00.000-05:00

DD & I attended our first live WWE event tonight! It was a RAW house show, and it was AWESOME - AWESOME - AWESOME! (DH went too, but he's been to them before.)

When we got there, the event had just started. It was Gregory Helm vs. Val Venis. Helm is as cute in person as on TV - and like most of the time on TV, he lost. Our seats were three rows up in the arena seating on the side of the ring. On the floor, there were about six rows plus an aisle between our section and the ring, so we were pretty close. It was something to see the superstars up that close, too.

Some differences between watching on TV and being there were immediately apparent:

Body slams onto the canvas are much louder and more dramatic!
House show = no commercial breaks!
Everything seemed smaller, not being cropped so the area of interest (the ring) neatly fits your TV screen. The space between the ring and the spectators was also smaller. This might've had something to do with the venue, which holds only 6 or 7 thousand people. (One exception was Big Show. He is as huuuggge in person as on TV if not more so!)
Everything seemed to happen much faster! All the moves and the ring action, plus the show overall. I couldn't believe when they announced the main event that it was already almost over!
No commentators, though Coach put in an appearance to plug Edge, LOL. One heel promoting another!

They did still play their parts, engaged in some blathering and verbal bashing, just like on TV. Chris Masters put down our hometown (but then, so do a lot of people who live here). Then he got beat by Kane, who narrowly escaped being put into the Master Lock. Triple H still did his water-spray. (One of my better photos!) Carlito spit apple - when Shawn Michaels kicked him in the back, LOL!

Anyway, we got to watch a couple of guys I hadn't heard of, go into a tag team match against Snitsky and Tyson Tomko. The new guys were cute. And I can't remember if they won, LOL.

We also got to see a match for the Women's Championship - Trish against Victoria. Like on last Monday's Raw, Mickie James interfered and got Trish DQ'd - thus, she retained the belt.

The Shawn Michaels/Carlito match was my favorite. Those guys deserve Emmys for their performances. Lots of arguments with the ref, with each other, lots of good moves. I am reading in Shawn Michaels' book how his goal every night was to put on the best show possible for the fans, to give them good moves and a great performance, regardless of who's supposed to win, and he truly lived up to that tonight. And of course, we still got to see him get Sweet Chin Music on Carlito, though it wasn't until several good moves later that he got the win!

Big Show and Triple H put on an exciting match too. My favorite was the part where Show threw the ring stairs into the ring, and almost clocked HHH over the head with them - then HHH whacked him in the butt with a folding chair! Triple H won, which made DH happy (he's his favorite).

Then Edge came out. Ironically, the best pictures I took were of him. Amidst much booing, he blathered on about his championship win on Nude Year's Revolution, and how John Cena interrupted his and Lita's "sex celebration" this past Monday night by giving Lita the FU. So Cena came out (to mostly cheers) and those two went at each other for a good match in Cena's bid to get the belt back. Several times, Edge looked like he was trying to weasel out by leaving the ring, but Cena dragged him back down the walkway and into the ring again. It ended predictably, with Edge losing by DQ and therefore retaining the title.

When we left, DH asked DD what she thought.

"AWESOME - AWESOME - AWESOME!" she said.

Other Stuff: If We Were Pokemon

2006-01-12T22:25:00.000-05:00

My favorite way to waste time in the winter is Nintendo. (Specifically, Gameboy Advance or GameCube.) DD got Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness for Christmas, and I have played quite a bit last weekend when, thanks to a nasty cold, I didn't feel like doing anything else, including sitting at my computer.

It occurred to me that if I were a Pokemon, I'd be Psyduck, because Psyduck always has a headache, just like me.
	DD would be Slowpoke, because that's the speed at which she moves. (Unless it involves her friends coming for a sleepover.)
DH would definitely be Koffing, because of his Foul Gas attack. DD and I found a card that had this on it and were LOL.

As a side note, I wrote five pages today! After not writing anything for a month, that's something to be happy about!

Writing: A New Challenge

2006-01-11T22:05:00.000-05:00

My local RWA chapter is hosting a "Book in a Month" challenge, which started this Monday. Most of us won't be writing a whole book in one month, though some of us proved it could be done in November's NaNoWriMo. My goal is to write 100 pages on WIP #2, which will hopefully contain THE END.

Luckily, I've gotten my reluctant muse to take a few breaks from watching WWE 24x7 to give me some hints at what's to come, and I've almost got enough to finish my outline for the rest of the book. Doing this will go a long way toward me meeting that goal.

I did not start writing on Monday, the day the challenge started. I had bills to pay, paperwork to go over for DH's business, and of course, WWE Raw to watch. This is a typical Monday for me, so I usually don't write on Mondays.

I did not write yesterday, either, as DH was home watching TV in the den.

I do not plan to get any writing done on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday for this reason. However, DH went to the gym early tonight, so I made use of it, getting....

ONE

page written on my challenge.

Hey, it's better than nothing.

Normally, I get a lot of writing done over the weekend. This weekend, however, is mostly spoken for. Friday night, we're going to see a live WWE show! (Whoooo! And on the card is Gregory Helms - my fave Raw hottie next to Todd Grisham!) Saturday is my local RWA meeting, which includes a board meeting prior to the regular meeting, and 1-1/2 hours of drive time. But I wouldn't miss it. So wish me luck for the rest of this week. I'll need it!

Other Stuff: Phrase of the Week

2006-01-09T13:42:00.000-05:00

"That's crap."

Yes, that's the Phrase of the Week, coined by my very own Dear Daughter.

It has many uses, including any situation where WWE's Carlito would say, "Dat's not cool." Such as:

In Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness, when you use a water attack against the Ground-type Pokemon Quagsire - and it does nothing because he's also a water-type Pokemon with the special ability water absorb! "That's crap!"

Kroger is out of blueberries, which DD eats by the crate (so it seems): "That's crap!"*

I went to Kroger on my lunch hour and returned at one, only to find out there was a team meeting, leaving me no time to eat my lunch: (thinking to self) That's crap.**

I guess DD likes this phrase because my mom doesn't like her to say "that sucks." Never mind that grandma doesn't like the word "crap" either. (Somehow, "that's poop" doesn't have quite the same ring.)

Or maybe, that's crap too.

Oh, and I was going to put some links in this article because links are cool, but our network here at the office? That's crap. (Couldn't even get a page to come up. And of course, they block sites like Gamespot.com. Can't imagine why.)

* However, a new truckload arrived while I was there and the nice lady I asked about them earlier caught me as I was going into the checkout line so I could get some!

** I found out a few minutes later that I'd not read the meeting invitation carefully enough, and the weekly team meeting had been moved to 2:00. (Usually, it is at 1:00, if they have it at all) Dat's cool.