Writing in the Dreamstate

11 million pieces of inspiration

2011-11-18T09:06:00.000-06:00

What inspires you when you are writing?

A lot of people have playlists, but I don't listen to music when I write (I can't write with someone else's words in my head). I'm a visual person. Images evoke emotion for me.

Just this past week, a new short story idea caught me. Little pieces started to come together...herbal lore, rural Vermont, a clapboard farmhouse turned restuarant, romance. And kissing. The images were twirling in my head, that ethereal dance before words hit the page.

I posted recently about how turned to different creative pursuits to get past writer's block and opened my own Etsy shop Faerie Lights Studio to get past it. I've been enjoying myself, spending a lot of time looking at the beautiful items people are offering.

Etsy has a lovely feature called a Treasury. You can create a collection of items that you love, things that you want, things that inspire you. It's a visual favorites list. It can be public or just for you. And you can include anything. There are over eleven million items on Etsy. That's a lot of inspiration.

To help those ethereal thoughts find a earthbound home, I created a treasury called Idlewyld Inspirations, full of items that inspire me as I write my new story. I love the photography, the beautiful aura that these artists imbue in their products. I almost feel I'm there...

I wrote over 1000 words last night (very rare for me to write when my family is home), with a pen (unheard of), and then got up in the night to write 500 more (used to be common, but hasn't happened in a while). My block seems to be broken and I have Etsy to partially thank for it, in more ways than one.

So if you are seeking inspiration or an image to represent something in your head, Etsy's a great place to go.

And if you do, pop by Faerie Lights Studio, where I'm selling a new range of Christmas lights and pendants. I'm offering a special discount to anyone visiting from the blog. Just enter coupon code INSPIRE15 to save 15% on any purchase! Feel free to pass this coupon code on to an friends or family.

Have an inspired day!

Creative Pursuits to break through The Block

2011-10-31T07:50:00.000-05:00

I have it. The scariest thing a writer can think of, even on Halloween.

Writer's Block. *cue screams here*

If you've experienced this, then you know how frustrating it is. I have a story I need to write (the magazine editor has been waiting oh-so-patiently for it for months). The story line is plotted, the characters named, the files created. But the words won't flow. It is all stuck, like mud, in my head. Everything I write seems wooden and forced.

I've tried working on different projects. I have no shortage of ideas...they're swirling around like mist in my head (which is better than mud, I'll grant you). But again, the ideas won't translate to words on a screen.

I've been through this before and I know it will pass. But still I sit, facing the computer, playing games of solitaire or running pointless searches on Google. And with each day that ends with a pitiful word count, my self-loathing and guilt grows, the feeling that I suck at this job. The knowledge that if it were a "real" job, I would have been fired by now.

Upon reaching my lowest point, when the day came to an end and I'd accomplished nothing more than beating the computer for a sixth game of Scrabble, I knew it was time to step away from the computer and try a different approach.

I'm sure you've noticed how many writers in this blogosphere are multi-faceted when it comes to creativity. Christina Lee of Write Brained has her Tags-n-Stones jewelry line, and Jessica Bell has her beautiful music. And there have been a ton of links lately to all things gorgeous made by writers, like book purses, library necklaces, and literary recipes.

In addition to being a writer, I also make jewelry. I've been working with jewelry and polymer clay for about ten years now and teach both at the local JoAnn's Fabric and Crafts. In recent years, I've spent most of my time on preparing for my classes, rather than on the projects I enjoy. But when it became clear I needed to refocus my creative energy, I knew just what I wanted to do.

It's taken a few weeks of planning and designing and working until my fingers bleed (quite literally) but yesterday, my little Etsy shop went live: Faerie Lights Studio. I have a dozen necklaces up now, like this one here:

I'll be adding more soon, along with a line of holiday lights, like this:

Maybe nothing will come of all this, but I feel like a weight has been lifted. Deep down, there is a slow burn telling me I should be writing. But that can only be a good thing. Two weeks ago, writing felt like a chore, like an obligation. But now, writing is starting to feel like a need -- a want -- again. Sometimes, we must step away and find beauty and purpose in something else in order to find beauty and purpose in our writing.

What about you? Do you have a creative pursuit to turn to when writing gets tough?

The Point of the Journey is not to Arrive

2011-08-22T07:51:00.001-05:00

It's 7am and I'm sitting in a silent house for the first time in eleven weeks. Finally, after a summer that involved lots of fun but very little working time, I am at my desk with a whole day of writing stretching before me. And what's the first thing I do? Start blogging. Good to know my powers of procrastination did not desert me over the summer.

This was the summer of an epic journey: a train trip from San Antonio to Saratoga. Two children, two trains, 58 hours, 2100 miles. There were family members who thought I was crazy, not understanding why I would choose to take three days to get somewhere I could reach in six hours by plane. I did it because we could and because I wanted my children to learn that the point of a journey isn't always to arrive (hmm...could make a writing/publication analogy here...will resist).

Once on the train, there was no point in worrying about the time or where we were. We had only to sit back and watch the scenery unfold. We moved between our compartment (never underestimate the magic of a bunk bed that folds down from the ceiling), the observation car, and the dining car. At each meal we were seated with someone new and my children met people from different parts of the country, all undertaking the journey for different reasons. We watched the sun go down somewhere in the piney woods and watched it come up again as we passed the St. Louis arch. And down again in Chicago. And up again on the shores of Lake Ontario.

Whenever I fly, I land with a strange sense of temporal distortion, feeling like I've left some part of myself behind. But on this trip, there was a physical transition of time and miles. Granted, when we arrived we were tired and the ground seemed to sway for a day. But it was a journey in every sense of the word.

Upon reaching our destination, we filled every moment of our vacation. In Upstate New York, we went to a farmer's market and bought handmade soap that smelled of fresh strawberries, we rode an antique carousel in a park as a couple were married at the fountain next to us, we visited my 96-year-old grandmother (who remembered us! worth the journey alone...), went fishing with big fat nightcrawlers, and spent hours enjoying the water and breezes of Lake George.

We traveled down to Long Island (again, by train along the Hudson River). We spent a day at the Museum of Natural History, went kayaking on the Sound, ate more mussels than should be legal, learned to throw pottery on the wheel, saw a nesting osprey, and spent a day getting tossed by the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

When we flew home (because I'm not that crazy), my husband asked the children what their favorite part of their vacation was. They said the train trip.

And that is the point of the journey.

And to everyone who has stopped by and commented, and to my new followers, thank you so much for visiting! Now that I'm back at my desk, I'm going to wade through the hundreds of posts on my reader and then start visiting the blogs again...

Judging a Character by a Reaction

2011-07-20T09:02:00.000-05:00

In one week, I will be taking my children (ages 6 and 9) and heading up north to visit family. We're going to go the long way. The VERY long way... by train. That's right, a 46 hour journey from San Antonio to Saratoga.

I got two very different reactions when I shared my travel plans with the family members I'm going to visit.

Family member #1: "Are you sure? You'll be so tired when you get here. Do want some money so you could fly instead? The trains are usually late, you know. Are you sure you want to do that?"

Family member #2: "What a fantastic idea! You are going to have such an adventure. The kids will love it! I love travelling by train."

I bet you could form judgements about the speakers based just on the above reactions. And you'd probably be right. This is why dialogue is so critical in writing... it reveals SO much without having to tell the reader specifically.

Guest Post at The Writer's Salon

2011-07-05T09:44:00.000-05:00

My wonderful critique partner Jacqueline Cangro asked me to write a guest post for her blog at The Writer's Salon. (I meant to link to this last week but things have gotten away from me. Again. Sorry, Jackie!)

So in keeping with my love for all things tech, I've written about the mechanical things you can do as you are getting ready for the big job of rewriting. Check out my post here.

And while you are at it, take a look at the The Writer's Salon, an alternative to formal MFA programs and continuing education classes located in Brooklyn. Each 1-1/2 hour Saturday session is geared to a specific topic. Sessions fall into two categories:

Writing techniques. Here is all of the must-have info you need to succeed at the craft of writing, no matter what genre. You'll learn tips and tricks about writing amazing dialogue, fixes for common plot problems and much more!
The “business” of writing. This is the insider's guide to publishing, including writing query letters that get noticed and the brave new world of e-books. If you have a completed or almost-completed manuscript and you’re wondering what the next step is, these sessions are for you.

It makes me wish I were in NYC so I could attend!

Comparing Documents in Word

2011-06-21T15:43:00.000-05:00

I've revised my WIP nine times. That's right...nine times. Sometimes, I wonder if anything of the original draft remains.

If only there were some way to see how many changes I've made and how the first version compares to the last.

Oh, but there is! (You knew you could count on me for more Word nerdery, right?)

Using Word's Compare Documents feature, you can compare two documents and see the number of insertions, deletions, moves, and format changes. You could also use it find passages that you deleted that you wish you'd hadn't. Of if you have a critique partner that didn't use track changes and made edits directly in your document.

You'll find the Compare button on the Review tab. Here, I've taken an early draft and the most recent (not final, because hey, it's never final, right?) and selected the option to compare them in a new document.

Once you select your original and revised document, you'll see a new document with all the changes combined (marked in the image below with a blue box).

You can select to see the original document (green circle) and revised document (purple circle) on the right hand side. These will scroll in time with the new document.

The red circled area on the left is the reviewing pane. You can put this either vertically, as above, or horizontally, as a long pane below the other documents. The reviewing pane shows the individual changes, plus a count of all the changes made. And since I'm all about the stats, here are the numbers for my WIP:

4983 revisions.

Funny, it felt like more.

Do you ever use Compare Documents?

Getting all random again

2011-06-09T09:32:00.002-05:00

1. My six-year-old daughter asked me to mail this letter. I love her.

2. I received the Irresistibly Sweet Blogger award from Jenna over at Literally YA (thanks Jenna!). She received it from blogger Jenna Cooper. (They're both new bloggers...why not pop over and follow them. Let's show them blogging is still going strong!) Does anyone know another blogger named Jenna I could pass it to? Yeah, I'm weird that way.

3. I won Laurel's Triplicity contest and now have $30 to spend at Amazon. Since I have been on a strict book-buying budget, this is HUGE. My problem...there are so many fantastic books coming out I can't decide. Give me a few suggestions in the comments. PLEASE?

4. Did you know Query Tracker has a forum where you can post and get feedback on your query letter, synopsis, and even your first five pages? All you need to do is register, post your material, and give feedback to other users. I just did this and found it extremely helpful. Generally, the feedback was tactful and constructive (there's always one that could have taken a few extra minutes to word something a little nicer).

5. Last night was one of my worst days as a parent. Tomorrow will be worse. My darling boy has been sick. For seven months. Three bouts of pneumonia, one hospital stay that included four failed attempts to get an IV started, six x-rays, two massive shots of antibiotics in his bottom that left a purple bruise the size of a dollar bill, seven vials of blood drawn, one cystic fybrosis test (supposed to be painless, gave him electrical burns - negative, thankfully), one TB test (still waiting for results), one CT scan (which would tell us if they needed to remove part of his lung -- Thank God, no). And no answers.

My child bore all of this is his quiet, stoic way, saying only "Ouch" and squeezing my hand. Last night we had to tell him that on Friday we will go to the hospital where they will sedate him and stick a camera up his nose and into his lungs to try to figure out what's wrong. I couldn't promise him it wouldn't hurt. I couldn't promise there wouldn't be needles. My quiet child shook for a moment and then burst into heart-rending sobs. He cried as I've never seen him cry. I had -- still have -- no idea how to make him feel better. I look in his eyes and see that silent plea for me to make things OK. I don't know how. And lurking all around this is my own fear of what they'll find. Everything else fades to pale when your child is sick.

6. And yet life must go on. We're going to Chuck E. Cheese today, because pizza, skeeball, and large rat-like mascots can help take the pain away.

Using Word Find to Highlight Common Writing Errors

2011-06-02T05:00:00.002-05:00

I use Word's Find function to search out my writing tics (words like just, but) and filter words (heard, saw, felt, thought, remembered), but I really put it through the paces to help me find faulty sentence construction.

Using search strings, I can find all incidents of passive voice construction (was *ing). I can flag participle phrasing to check that actions are not happening simultaneously (more on this below). And finally, to check for repetitive sentence structure (I call it the "I blanked" syndrome... too many sentences beginning with I *ed, like I walked, I jumped, I turned).

To begin, open the Find Dialogue box. In older versions of Word, you can press Ctrl + F to open it. In newer versions, that opens the navigation pane (where you can't use wildcards). You can press Ctrl + H, which will open the Replace Dialogue box. Then, click on the Find tab. Here's what you'll see:

Type in (or paste) your search string in the Find What box. Make sure the Use Wildcards box is checked. Click on the Reading Highlight button and select Highlight All.

This will give you a count of the how many times your search string appears in your document and highlight all occurrences in your manuscript.

Note that once you click in your document (to make edits), it will clear the highlighting and you will have to go through the steps again. Your search string should remain in the box.

Passive Voice
If passive voice is one of your downfalls, this search string:

was [a-z,A-Z]@ing

will show all occurrences of was *ing construction.

Participial Phrases
Take this example: I opened the door, taking the rusty key from my pocket. Obviously, you can't take the key out and open the door at the same time, so this construction must be fixed. For me, my mistakes are usually at the end of a sentence, so the construction tends to be after a comma. So this search string:

, [a-z,A-Z]@ing

finds any phrasing like: I turned, jumping into the breach.

If you use participial phrasing at the beginning of a sentence, you could search on:

. [a-z,A-Z]@ing

which would flag any *ing construction after a period, such as: I turned. Flinging it aside, I vaulted...

Sentence Structure
Since I'm writing in first person, I sometimes end up with too many sentences that begin with "I". The search string:

I [a-z,A-Z]@ed

will show any incidents of I jumped, I turned, and so on. Obviously, it won't catch things like I went, I saw, I read.

So, alternatively, you could use the search string:

. I

which would return any sentence beginning with "I", but only if the previous sentence ended with a period. [That search string is (period)space(I)space]

So there you have it. A couple of ways to use Word Find to reveal your grammatical weaknesses. Any other constructions I've left out?

**And seriously, what is going on with Blogger??? I've been trying to leave comments for days!!!**

What Percentage of Agents have you Queried?

2011-05-26T13:59:00.000-05:00

My posts on How Many Queries Does it Take both had hundreds of hits, the highest of any of my posts. You know what that tells me? That you like numbers as much as I do.

Good, because I've got some more for you.

Maybe you've sent out a TONS of queries and you feel like you've sent it to everyone. But you haven't sent it to everyone (at least, in most cases you haven't). And here's how I know.

Once again, I went back to Query Tracker. At last count, they have 1244 literary agents on their database. This is not a definitive list, but a pretty good one. I searched on agents representing the different genres and took a tally of how many are listed. (Again, not every genre is listed here. QT has more listed but I took just the more mainstream fiction genres.)

Let's say you send out 68 queries (which is what the average number of queries it takes based on the success stories in my post. Disclaimer: this is not scientific, just an snapshot based on a self-reporting website). What percentage of agents representing your genre have you reached?

So if you write literary fiction and send out 68 queries, you have queried only 14% of the agents who represent that genre (as per QT). Granted, if you write in areas like horror, action/adventure or inspirational, 68 queries hits them all and then some. But for the other areas? If you sent out 68 Women's Fiction queries, 24% of the agents may say no, but 76% of agents who represent that genre never see your project.
This of course does not mean you blanket every single agent with queries. You still have to do your homework and choose who might be a good fit. But it might give you some comfort when you think your options are exhausted. There are plenty of agents out there who say QUERY WIDELY!

Your Greatest Critic

2011-05-23T09:14:00.000-05:00

My latest Woman's Weekly story, "Frozen" -- a four-part serial exploring the implications of embryo donation -- is out on the newsstands this month. I just received my contributor copies of the first installment, but the others will take a few weeks to get here. It can be hard waiting for them all to arrive, so I rely on comments from my in-laws in the UK to let me know that each new issue has hit the stands.

The Wallaces have always been super-supportive of my writing. Whenever we Skype or chat on the phone, they always ask me how the writing is going or if I'm working on something new. When I have a serial published, they are the first to tell me they are reading and enjoying it. This time, my father-in-law told me that it is "by far" the best story I've written. My mother-in-law said it sparked a lively discussion in her sewing group. Their praise means more to me than they'll ever know. Today, I sat down at the computer raring to write the next serial, because I felt like I must be doing something right.

We need our critics to make us better. We need our critics to make us feel that we are better. It can be hard to share your work, especially if you are new to this. But it is essential. So if you don't have your greatest critic, get one. It will make you a better writer.

How Many Queries Does It Take? -- The Sequel

2011-05-16T08:31:00.001-05:00

Once again, I've been looking at Query Tracker's Success Stories.
Within Success Stories, some writers provide an interview, where they reveal how many queries they sent before getting their agent. I went through and tabulated the numbers from the last 34 interviews (where the writer answered that question). So here it is, sorted alphabetically by genre...

The average number of queries sent before getting representation is 68. Even throwing out the top and bottom three, the average is still 65. The fewest queries sent was 9 and the most 361(!!).

I did this last year for the same time frame, so if you want to compare, you can go to the original post here.

So do these stats make you feel better or worse? Give you hope or give you a headache?

A quick look at QT Representation Stats

2011-05-11T13:07:00.002-05:00

I went through Query Tracker's Success Stories for the past six months (November 2010 to first week May 2011) and assessed the stats for those indicating an offer of representation.

There were 140 reported offers (where genre was indicated). Here's the percentage by genre:

*Only those specifying a genre were included

And, because I am just that much of a Type-A personality, I went back and compared it to the same period last year.

Here's how they compare, percentage-wise:

*Again, only those indicating a genre were included.

For the 09-10 period, there were 79 offers reported.

Are you surprised by any of these numbers? I'd been feeling like Sci Fi and Fantasy were getting a lot more attention these days and, at least according to this, it seems to be the case. And I'm not sure if the genre was changed from Chick Lit to Women's Fiction in the interim, or if they are different genres.

Obviously, this is only looking at one source. But it is still an interesting snapshot.

If you don't use Query Tracker, go check it out. They have a great blog, a fantastic agent database system, and things like Success Stories to keep you motivated.

Stay tuned for my next May/Type-A extravaganza post: QT's Query Stats!

Visually Mapping Tension in Your Manuscript

2011-05-06T13:53:00.000-05:00

I think we've established I'm a bit of a geek. (If you don't believe me, go check out my posts on storyboarding and statistics). I love what programs like Word, Excel and Writer's Cafe can do for me at the click of a few buttons. If you are a visual person, like I am, there are tons of ways you can use these programs to help you with your writing other than just putting words on a page.

I've finally finished the revision on my WIP (phew!). While it is with my beta readers, I'm going through and polishing it up. One of the most critical elements I'm checking is that I have effectively woven my conflict threads (internal, external, and relationship) through the entire book, building tension to the end. Reading through is one thing, but I find it a bit tedious to take written notes as I read. So it got me thinking: what if there was a way to see at a glance how conflict and tension build through my manuscript? There is!

I'm using Text Highlighting to do this. I've assigned each conflict thread a different color:
Internal- yellow
External -red
Relationships (there are three) blue, pink and green.
This WIP contains a story within a story. This storyline will get a separate highlighting treatment, so for the time being I've highlighted it in black so that I know to overlook it this pass through.

So then I've gone through the manuscript and highlighted each scene of conflict in the appropriate color, like this:

Then, I change the zoom level down to 10% so that I can see multiple pages in the window like this:

It gives me an instant visual of where my conflict threads are and how they weave together. I can start at the beginning and scroll down, making sure I continue to build the tension throughout. I can click on a thread in question and zoom back in so I can read it. At a glance, I can see if there are scenes/chapters without some form of conflict, like this:

See the red-circled area? It looks like I might have a lull so I'm marking that down on my list of things to work on after I get my beta feedback. (I'm not making any changes in this particular document -- I've saved this as a separate file).

It only took me about an hour or so to do this and I think it will save me lots of time in the long run.

Do you have any visual tricks you use while editing or writing?

Fighting First Sentence Fatigue

2011-05-04T10:13:00.000-05:00

That'll do it.

Are you sick of seeing your first sentence every time you open your WIP file? Try this...select your first sentence, go to Text Highlight Color, and choose Black. Tada!

Just don't forget to remove it before you send it out.

The First Sentence

2011-04-27T09:30:00.000-05:00

My first sentence is the first thing I see when I open my WIP file every morning.

I know how many times I rewrote it (probably about twenty) but I can't count how many times I've read it. A dozen? A hundred? A thousand?

And I must admit it is starting to drive me a little nuts. Familiarity breeds contempt.

Maybe I can change the text color to white or highlight it in black so it won't show up.

Is there some way to get Word to open a document at some random point instead of ALWAYS AT THE FIRST STUPID SENTENCE??

What about you? How many times have you read your first sentence? Do you still love it? Or are you getting what I now dub "First Sentence Fatigue"?

Alternative Dialogue Tags

2011-04-18T07:19:00.000-05:00

If you are reading the blogs, you are probably up on one of the number one rules of the craft: Thou shalt only use said as a dialogue tag. This is a good rule, one of the best. Nothing screams amatuer like dialogue that is grinned, smiled, or expostulated.

Except...

There's always an exception. In one of my chapters, the dialogue happens in a dark room. Therefore, emotion and nuance can not be shown in body language. While I had to convey most of the feelings in the actual words that were spoken, I needed a dialogue tag that would demonstrate the physical way the dialogue was delivered.

And that's the second part of the rule. If the tag indicates how the speaker is speaking, then it can be used (SPARINGLY).

Here's a list of dialogue tags that convey physical properties of how dialogue was delivered.

Alternatives to said
Babbled
Barked
Bawled
Begged
Bellowed
Blurted
Breathed
Called
Crooned
Crowed
Declared
Demanded
Drawled
Echoed
Exclaimed
Faltered
Groaned
Growled
Grumbled
Hissed
Hollered
Howled
Implored
Mumbled
Murmured
Muttered
Pleaded
Raged
Roared
Sang
Screamed
Shouted
Shrieked
Snarled
Sobbed
Spluttered
Stammered
Stuttered
Swore
Thundered
Wailed
Whimpered
Whined
Whispered
Yelled
Yelped

But you should probably use said.

Is it ever better to not have a goal?

2011-04-13T13:18:00.000-05:00

We all know the big rules of writing: Get your bum in the chair and set a goal.

The goal doesn't have to be a big one. But it has to be something you can accomplish, something that drives you, shames you, makes you stretch.

When I'm drafting, I aim for the standard 1000 words a day. Some days, I write more and feel good. Some days, I write way more and feel great. Some days, I don't get there at all and beat myself up about it. That's what goals are there for.

But now I'm revising my manuscript (and when I say revising, I mean massively rewriting) and the word count goal just doesn't work. Most days, I cut a ton of words and write a whole bunch of new ones so I can't track my progress by looking at my word count on the bottom of my screen.

So I needed a new goal. I decided to make a list of the new scenes I need to write and the existing scenes that need heavy work. I figured I could set a goal of finishing "X of scenes a day".

My list is a whole page, front and back. FRONT AND BACK! I knew I had a long way to go, but seeing it in black and white has floored me. I am overwhelmed. I'm starting to wonder whether I was better off not knowing. And only time will show whether this new goal will drive me faster than no goal at all.

What about you? Do you always have a goal? Does it change as you move through the stages (drafting, revising). Do you work better with or without a goal?

My adventures in Adventures

2011-04-04T15:25:00.000-05:00

You probably already know about Adventures in Children's Publishing. After all, they have over a thousand followers. But I just found it and can't recommend it highly enough.

Not only does it offer an amazing collection of informative posts (character worksheets, check lists, and the like) and some great contests (today they are offering 13!! giveaways), but once a month, five lucky people get their first 1250 words posted for a month-long workshop, starting with a critique from contributors Martina and Lisa, as well as the other workshop participants and any other followers who want to comment.

I am fortunate to be one of the five this month (my entry is #5 here). I have to say that Martina and Lisa give some of the best critiques I've seen around. When I went through the other entries to add my comments, I found that Lisa and Martina already made my points, better than I ever could.

If you haven't found Adventures in Children's Publishing yet, go check them out. If you want to offer your comments to the workshop entries, I know I (and I'm sure the other participants) would be very grateful. But definitely check out the comments from Lisa and Martina (both on current entries and on the ones from March), because I learned so much just from reading their critiques.

Back away from the Internet connection!

2011-03-23T07:41:00.000-05:00

When I'm writing, I am easily distracted. I'll be working a section and think, "Oh, I need info on Regency fireplaces to write this." So I'll stop in the middle of a sentence, do some research, and then check my email, check FB, check Blogger, read the news. And then thirty minutes are gone. Or sixty.

Many times I've wished there was some way to put a lock or a timer on my Internet connection, so that I couldn't access it at random. But alas, the only solution was to disconnect completely. Not an option, of course, because we must have Internet access sometimes. So I relied on my self control. Yeah, that didn't work to well.

In November we bought a new computer. We decided to get a desktop, since working on my laptop was giving me neck problems. We didn't want anything fancy, just something to run Word and the Internet. We found a great Black Friday deal: nice big screen, keyboard, mouse. You know, the basics.

When it arrived, we plugged it in, fired it up, marveled at the speed. And then we clicked on Explorer button. Nothing. Multiple clicks. Nothing. And then we realized: no modem.

Wha?? Is there a computer built today that doesn't have a modem? Yep. We bought it.

And you know what?

Best. Mistake. Ever.

We bought a USB modem, a tiny little thing that plugs into the front of the computer. Easy to use. And easy to hide. Now, I allow myself an hour in the morning to do my social media stuff. And then I unplug the modem and hide it. I retrieve it at lunchtime and give myself another hour. And hide it somewhere else. If I have to research something, I write it down and do it at the allotted hour.

Productivity returns!

What about you? Do you have to take drastic measures to stop yourself from wasting time?

A great contest... Go Enter!

2011-03-17T10:15:00.000-05:00

Freelance Editor Cassandra Marshall is having her Spring Edit contest. The prize... a free substantial edit for a manuscript up to 100k words!

I. WANT. But I'm willing to share the chance with you!

Cassandra has just launched a new blog for her business, so head on over to Editor Cassandra now to read up on her services, check out her testimonials, and enter the contest.

Wise Words

2011-03-09T08:26:00.000-06:00

Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want something badly enough. They are there to keep out the other people.

- Randy Pausch ( 1960-2008 )

A lesson in building tension and stakes

2011-03-07T16:59:00.000-06:00

I couldn't write today.

I couldn't write because my son has been diagnosed with pneumonia.

My son has pneumonia, which means we may not be allowed to fly to Scotland on Thursday.

We are flying to Scotland on Thursday to celebrate my husband's 40th birthday with his family.

We are traveling 4000 miles to celebrate with the family because one family member is quite ill and we don't know how much more time well will have together.

Sometimes life gives you a harsh example of how upping the stakes can effect the impact of a story. Lesson learned, but frankly I would have rather learned it from a book.

In Praise of Praise

2011-03-02T11:52:00.000-06:00

The lovely Julie Kibler over at What Women Write has a fantastic post today about The Other Kind of Critique. In other words, praise.

Her point, and a great one at that, is how we get so focused on tough critiques to improve our work, that we sometimes forget to embrace the compliments we get as well. At the end of her post, she challenged us to post something about praise we've received. (Go read the whole post here.)

Rejections on partials and fulls can be tough to take, but sometimes a few words in a rejection can offer that little bit of solace, that push to keep going. Sure, maybe its a line, a form letter. But sometimes it isn't. And we should take some joy in that.

I went back through some of my rejections and pulled out some personal feedback:

I love your writing, and the setting and believe you have a great deal of promise.
I think you are a lovely writer.
You have a fantastic manuscript; the details of the house and the intrigue are all fascinating – and it’s well written
The writing is really hard to fault
Your writing is confident and commercial

Granted, none of these got me an offer of representation. But they did make me believe it could happen in the future. And sometimes, that's all we need.

So think about the praise you've received, no matter how big or how small, and let it sink in. Let it wash over you and fill you with warmth and hope. And share your good news, the praise you've received, because happiness grows with sharing.

Loving this community!

2011-02-28T09:15:00.001-06:00

First, I want to open with a link to a contest (not the one I'm begging votes for...that will come at the bottom of this post). DNA Writers, a dynamic group of seven lovely people, is having a contest. You could win gift cards, books, Starbucks, and critiques -- the grand prize is a substantial edit of a full book! Click here and check out these great writers.

Second, I want to say how touched I am by your support for me in the Jane Austen Made Me Do It contest. Thank you for your comments, votes, and especially to Laurel at Laurel's Leaves (she's Poet of the Month over at at Angela Felsted's blog, My Poetry and Prose Place -- go check out her beautiful poetry) for the shout-out on her blog. It's no secret I sometimes find the social media scene a little overwhelming, but it's things like this that remind me why I want to be a part of it. So whether I'm a finalist or not, I feel like a winner. Thanks for that!

The contest ends tonight, with the ten finalists (those stories with the highest number of votes) being announced tomorrow. One of those finalists will be selected to appear in the Jane Austen Made Me Do It anthology, alongside best-selling authors including Lauren Willig, Karen Joy Fowler, and so many more, by Ballantine Books in October.

So if you haven't voted, please stop by the contest to read some fantastic stories and vote. My story "Intent and Intensity" (#74) is a modern retelling of Sense and Sensibility. You can vote once only, for up to three stories. If you like my story, I'd appreciate your vote (because as much as I already feel like a winner, I would like to be a finalist, too!).

Thanks again. For everything.

Lessons from Third Grade

2011-02-24T08:40:00.000-06:00

I have a third grader who doesn't like to read. (I'm a writer and he doesn't like to read, I'm also a chef and he is the world's pickiest child...ah, my little changeling.) His teacher and I have been working hard to help him with his reading comprehension, especially as there are some important standardized test coming up.

His teacher recently told me about some techniques that they use in class so that I can use the same at home with him. One was the prompts for creating a summary:

Sombody...wanted...but...so...then.

I had to laugh. For all the hundreds of posts out there on how to write a summary (read: query) the answer was in Third Grade the whole time.

In Which I am Naive...

2011-02-21T09:25:00.001-06:00

Sometimes, success is about talent. And sometimes it's not.

As I've mentioned, I am participating in a particular short story contest. In this contest, writers post their entries and voting is opened to the public for two weeks. In the first round, voters can vote once for their three favorite stories. The ten entries with the most votes go on to the final judging, with editors choosing the finalist for inclusion in the anthology.

I worked hard on my entry and allowed myself to think that perhaps, just maybe, enough people would read it and like it enough to vote for it and put me in the top ten.

Twelve hours after the contest opened for voting, they posted the voting stats. And I was stunned to see that a bunch of entries had 30, 40, and even 50 votes. The majority, however, had 2-10 votes.

I was absolutely stunned. Could these high numbers really be the result of people who had read all the entries and chosen their favorites? After all, half of the 88 entries went up on the last day. A brief Google search suggested that maybe the high numbers were a result of promotion -- sending out pleas via email, Facebook, Twitter and blogs to go vote for the writer's story. That's not to say those stories weren't well written (most of them are great -- I know because I've read most of them) but I find it hard to believe that that many people had a chance to read that many 5000-word stories in the first hours of voting.

When I saw those numbers, I panicked. I hadn't told anyone about the voting yet. I only had two votes (but in truth, this made me feel good deep down because these were anonymous readers who read and liked my story enough to vote for it.) But in order to have a shot at the top ten, I knew I'd better start selling myself, and hard. So I did.... here, FB, emails, friends and neighbors, and so on.

And it makes me feel terrible. I would rather it be about the writing. I'd like to be in the top ten because my story is one of the best, not because I have the most friends and followers. I know I'm naive. I know that this is representative of the industry -- and society -- in general these days. We all know promoting yourself is key.

Think ABNA. Think American Idol. Popular votes are everywhere. When you open things up to the popular vote, it becomes a popularity contest and may or may not have anything to do with talent. Wonderfully talented people sometimes go unnoticed because they don't have the presence.

But for all my ranting, I am realistic. I still need votes. (But thank heavens they've taken the vote count down, otherwise I'd be watching that they way I watch my comments and followers count!)

If you haven't voted yet, I'd appreciate it if you could head over here, read a few stories and cast your vote by Feb 28. You do not need to register on the site to vote and you can read as few or as many stories as you like. My story is "Intent and Intensity" (#74) and is a modern take on Sense and Sensibility. I really appreciate it. And if you've voted already, a great big thank you.

But I'd also like to know what you think. Do you have any thoughts on popular votes in contests, whether in writing or singing or anything else? Are they a fair way of assessing talent?

Nicole's Bernard Pivot Blogfest

2011-02-16T08:54:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Nicole at One Significant Moment for having this blogfest. I've been looking at the entries and it is fascinating how much you can learn from ten simple answers.

And don't forget to go check out the others here.

1.What is your favorite word?
     Peace. Makes me calm just thinking it.
2.What is your least favorite word?
     Maw...gaping, dripping, foul...just, yuck.
3.What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
     Creatively, someone's superior efforts. Inspires me to try harder
4.What turns you off?
     A 'victim' attitude.
5.What is your favorite curse word?
     For Fuck's Sake, said with a Scottish accent
6.What sound or noise do you love?
     The sound of a creek
7.What sound or noise do you hate?
     The squealing of guinea pigs
8.What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
     Teaching writing at college level
9.What profession would you not like to do?
     Dentist (maybe it has something to do with the maw thing)
10.If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
     They're waiting for you over there....

Fun!!! What a great blogfest. It really made me think about things. I'll be making the rounds of the other entries of the next couple of days.

(And if you have a moment, I'd be really grateful if you could go vote for my story "Intent and Intensity" (#74) at the Jane Austen Made Me Do It Short Story Contest. Thanks!)

Read and Vote and Affect the course of History

2011-02-15T08:23:00.000-06:00

OK, so not really change the course of history. My history, maybe.

The Jane Austen Made Me Do It Short Story Contest is now open for voting. There are 87 entries for you to read through and select your three favorites. And if one of your favorites happens to be my short story "Intent and Intensity" (#74), all the better! (And I can use all the help I can get...I didn't want to canvas but when one story garnered 55 votes overnight, it became clear I needed to start campaigning too).

Ten finalists will be chosen by popular vote and then the editors will select one story to include in the anthology published by Random House in October. More info on it here.

I've been reading the entries and there is some amazing writing out there. And don't worry, if you aren't into the Jane Austen style, there are plenty of modern approaches (including mine) to Jane-era subjects.

Happy Reading (and voting) (for #74) (mine) (go on and vote... now)!

Just Kiss Already blogfest

2011-02-14T07:55:00.000-06:00

Call it fate, call it luck, call it karma...

On Friday, for my new WIP, I wrote my first kissing scene EVER. I've been writing for a few decades now and for some reason, I've never written a kissing scene before. I lead up to kissing, I mention a kiss, but I've never described that delicious building tension of a kiss. Maybe that's what my writing has been lacking!

And since I logged into Blogger to find Christina Lee's and Stina Lindenblatt's Just Kiss Already blogfest runs today, I have decided things are meant to be. So without further ado...

I slipped in to the calming routine of developing, slowly agitating the tray and watching the image darken and come into view. But I was anything but calm. Liam stood behind me, close but not touching. He was breathing deep and even, stirring the hair on the back of my neck. Wrapped around the familiar chemicals of the dark room was the smell of his skin, dusty with a hint of soap beneath it. The only noises were the hum of the bathroom fan, the ticking of the big black timer, and the swish of the fluid across the paper.

Liam took another step closer. If I turned now, I would kiss him. I wanted more than anything to turn, even if it meant the photo in the tray would be ruined. Forcing myself to wait a few more seconds, I slid the print into the stop bath, dropped the tongs, and turned. Liam’s face just inches from my own, washed in the dull red of the safety light.

He reached out and ran his hands up the length of my arms, the friction of his rough palms against my bare skin ignited me like the striking of a match. Liam leaned and put his mouth against mine, gently at first, and then harder as he pulled me closer. His lips were anything but rough, moving against mine with a softness that tasted of apples. I lost myself in that kiss, falling into the rhythm of staccato clicks as the timer measured off the minutes.

And when you're done here, don't forget to go check out the other entries. Because there's a lot to be said for kissing.

Why didn't I see that before?

Call for Advice on First Chapters and Opening Pages

2011-02-10T16:21:00.000-06:00

I fell prey to the classic rookie mistake in my first novel: starting the book in the wrong place. Chapter 1 had lots of backstory and not enough conflict. It was, to say the least, a boring chapter.

As I get to work on my next project, I am DETERMINED that I will not make the same mistake. To that end, I started trolling around the interwebs for good posts on first sentences, first paragraphs, opening pages, and first chapters. I've found some great stuff (I am loving Elena Solodow's list of overdone openings from Nathan's first paragraph contest -- I've already thrown out four opening ideas as a result) but I'm running out of steam. I follow 120 blogs and, boy, are you guys prolific! It was taking way too much time to go to everyone's blog and search for posts, so I have a favor to ask.

If you have written a post on openings, or have read a great post on the subject, can you leave a link (or non-linked address, if like me you are useless at HTML tagging) in the comments? Or maybe you can recommend a book that has good coverage on the topic.

I thank you! (And I'm sure the agents who will someday be reading my opening pages will thank you, too.)

Sit down, shut up, and everyone will get a turn

2011-02-07T12:59:00.000-06:00

I work well with deadlines. At the moment, I seem to have a lot of them. Some of them are specific dates, like for contest entries, and others are self-imposed, such as when I'd like to get back to work on my WIP. Since I am a former journalist, editor, and project manager, I'm pretty good at prioritizing my workload. So I have clear of picture of what I need to do: story X, then work on contest entry Y, and then I can turn to project Z, before finally getting to project AA.

Except my brain is not cooperating. Z doesn't give a damn that I am not allowed to work on Z until the others are done. And AA is getting ticked off that it keeps getting shoved back. Y keeps reminding me that it only needs a few hours of my time. My brain is whirling with three different stories. I'm a little worried that there will be bloodshed. X is tough, but I'm pretty sure AA can take 'em. They're all giving me a headache and I am losing sleep. I had a massage today and I spent most of it spinning from X to Z and back to AA.

Do you have this problem? What do you do when you have multiple ideas demanding attention?

Colors for a gray day

2011-02-03T12:04:00.001-06:00

The skies are gray, the grass is brown, the trees are bare. It is 25 degrees here in San Antonio and they're predicting snow. I know that 75% of you are scoffing, saying "That's nothing!" but for a city that freaks out when it rains, snow is like a natural disaster. We might get an inch tonight and they are talking about closing the schools tomorrow. Seriously.

When I'm not writing, I'm teaching jewelry-making classes at JoAnn Craft Stores. While most of the curriculum comes from headquarters, I have to come up with a new "Trend" class every two months. It can be something I have particular interest or skill in, or it can be seasonal. San Antonio celebrates Fiesta in April, with a big parade for Battle of the Flowers. It's a time for pinatas, food, and color. People decorate their houses and themselves with paper flowers, like this:

So for March and April, I'm running a class on Fiesta Flowers. Usually, my designs are more understated. But Fiesta calls for hot, vibrant colors and large, flamboyant decoration, so this is what I made as the sample:

I know it is a bit ~~gaudy~~ showy, but today, when I am desperate for some color, it is making me all kinds of happy. I have some of the extra flowers I've made decorating my desk now.

If it is gray where you are, grab a pretty scarf to wrap around your neck, or make some cupcakes with sprinkles. Find some color to make you all kinds of happy. Stay warm, stay safe, and have a cozy weekend.

It was worth it

2011-02-01T12:14:00.000-06:00

A big thanks to everyone who commented and commiserated on my waiting hell. Glad to know I'm not the only one who has developed a callous on my Refresh finger.

The good news is that sometimes the waiting is worth it. I just received word from the editor that my serial short story "Frozen" will appear in Woman's Weekly starting in the May 17 issue and running in four parts. "Frozen" is the story of Emma and Rick, a couple who, after undergoing IVF eight years ago, must now decide the fate of their frozen embryos.

Now I just have to wait for the magazine to come out!

Not built for waiting

2011-01-27T08:00:00.000-06:00

Writers are the worst people for waiting. At least this writer is. And the cruelty of this business is that it is all about waiting. Waiting for critiques, waiting for responses on queries, waiting for news on partials or fulls, waiting for results of submissions, waiting for publication, reviews, and on and on.

So we have all the time in the world to think things like...

"OK, it's been 56 hours since I clicked the Send button on my submission. I haven't heard anything back yet. That must mean if got lost in cyberspace." or "No news is good news." followed by "No news is bad news."

It should just be waiting. But it isn't. It is dedicated time for our fertile imaginations to go into overdrive.

Two days ago, I sent my latest serial to the magazine editor for approval. And now I have what I call Refresh Syndrome (the main symptom is uncontrollable clicking of the Refresh button on my inbox). I haven't heard back yet.

Key frantic imaginings, which go along the lines of "I haven't heard back yet because the fiction editor must have liked it enough to send it to the editor in chief, who is now reading it. That's a good sign." Which is immediately followed by "I haven't heard back yet because there is something in it she doesn't like and is writing the revision letter." Logic -- meaning the voice that says "It's only been two days and they have other things to do. Relax."-- has no place here.

My husband is a scientist. Scientists have to wait, too. But they don't stand over an experiment muttering to themselves and thinking up multiple scenarios about what is going on, all while knowing that it will be days before they can expect some kind of meaningful results. No, they just make notes and get on with another project.

Waiting requires us to be detached, cool, logical. These are not things a writer is known for. At least not this writer. Yet one more of the bitter ironies of the writer's world.

Everyone needs an anthem

2011-01-24T07:35:00.000-06:00

I've just jumped on Alex J. Cavenaugh's Music Blogfest bandwagon (don't forget to go check out the other entries), but I'm going to break the rules a little bit. You see, I don't listen to music when I'm writing (I have enough words inside my head... adding lyrics just makes it hard to hear them).

I'm going to talk about one song. It's the song that I listen to when this writing business gets really hard (which, of course, seems like most of the time). It's The Climb by Mylie Cyrus (or Hannah Montana).

OK, get the laughs out now. I'll wait.

Done? OK, good. Now I am a thirty-something wife and mother-of-two. I grew up listening to 80s music. I'm married to a former metal head and current electric guitar enthusiast. So I get a lot of stick when this comes booming through the iPod dock at home. (And it happened once when our hip-hop music-producing neighbor was over for dinner).

My reaction? (and I quote...)

Everybody needs an anthem, some piece of music that inspires or speaks to them. And when it feels like you are facing some form of rejection every other day, you take your inspiration where you can get it. Don't diss the Mylie.

So without further ado, here are the lyrics. You be the judge...

The Climb

Mylie Cyrus

I can almost see it
That dream I am dreaming
But there's a voice inside my head saying
"You'll never reach it"

Every step I'm taking
Every move I make feels
Lost with no direction
My faith is shaking

But I gotta keep trying
Gotta keep my head held high

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down
But no, I'm not breaking

I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm gonna remember most, yeah
Just gotta keep going

And I, I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on
'Cause there's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Keep on moving, keep climbing
Keep the faith, baby
It's all about, it's all about the climb
Keep the faith, keep your faith, whoa

Songwriters: Alexander, J; Mabe, J;
© HOPELESS ROSE MUSIC; VISTAVILLE MUSIC;

I haven't figured out how to embed the audio file so I'll give you the music video (just listen with your eyes closed).

To me, this song perfectly captures how I feel about working toward publication. I might never get there but I am so blessed to have the opportunity to try. Hard or not, this is a journey worth making.

The Bridport Prize Writing Contest

2011-01-20T12:19:00.000-06:00

Another writing contest for you...

From The Bridport Prize press release:

The Bridport Prize is the richest open writing competition in the English language - with £5000 first prize for a short story (of up to 5000 words); and £5000 first prize for a poem (of up to 42 lines). The new category of Flash Fiction attracts £1,000 to be won for the best short, short story of under 250 words.

The Bridport is also known as a tremendous literary stepping stone - the first step in the careers of writers such as: Kate Atkinson, Tobias Hill, Carol Ann Duffy and Helen Dunmore.

Anyone can enter - so long as the work is previously unpublished. It costs £7 per story, £6 per poem or £5 per flash fiction and the closing date is 30th June 2011.

Full details are available at The Bridport Prize website. Note that this is a UK contest but is open worldwide.

I like writing contests because I work best with a deadline (I try to enter 3-4 contests a year). And I like this writing contest because it has excellent judges, a low entry fee (just over $10 for a short story), and a great payoff if you win (both monetary and reputation). The competition is tough so it challenges me to send my very best work in. I haven't been short-listed yet but I will keep trying!

So if you are a short-story writer, or need a deadline to get you writing daily, this is a great one to check out.

Jane Austen Made Me Do It Short Story Contest

2011-01-13T08:36:00.000-06:00

Are you inspired by Jane Austen? Love to read her books? Looking for a way to build publication credits? Whether your love to read or write is inspired by Jane Austen, here's a contest for you.

The Republic of Pemberly, an amazing site for all things Regency and Jane Austen, is hosting a short story contest in conjuntion with Laurel Ann Nattress of Austenprose (another great Austen site) and Random House. The winner's story will appear in the anthology Jane Austen Made Me Do It, to be edited by Laurel Ann and published by Random House this year.

Jane Austen Made Me Do It contains more than twenty best-selling and popular authors who have contributed short stories inspired by Jane Austen, her novels and her philosophies of life and love. From historical continuations of her plots and characters to contemporary spinoffs and comedies, the stories encapsulate what we love about our favorite author: romance, social satire and witty humor. Contributing to the line-up are best-selling authors Karen Joy Fowler (The Jane Austen Book Club), Adriana Trigiani (Brava, Valentine), Lauren Willig (The Pink Carnation series), Laurie Viera Rigler (The Jane Austen Addict series), Syrie James (The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen), Stephanie Barron (Being A Jane Austen Mystery series), and the husband and wife writing team of Frank Delaney (Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show) and Diane Meier (The Season of Second Chances). Many Austenesque authors and others from related genres have already contributed to the project. One spot in the anthology remains open for the lucky Grand Prize winner.

To enter, you must submit an original, previously unpublished 5000 word short story of your own creation inspired by, or based upon, Jane Austen, her novels, characters, letters, philosophies of life and/or love. The story can be set in any era and may include romantic and suspenseful elements, but you must stay within the realm of Jane Austen's sphere of social decorum, avoiding profanity, violence or "adult" content. The contest is open to previously unpublished (short stories OK) US residents. Full details are available here.

The contest is open now and runs through February 13. Voting for the Top Ten finalists runs February 14 - 28, 2011 on Pemberley, with the Top Ten finalists announced on March 1, 2011. The Grand Prize winner receives $500.00 and a contract for publication in the anthology Jane Austen Made Me Do It.

Since Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors, and as I spent the better part of a year researching the Regency for my novel, I am definitely entering this. Plus, a shot at publication in a Random House book? Sign me up!

If you like writing short stories, head on over. If you like reading short stories, head on over! There are currently a few entries up for viewing and I'm hoping mine will be there soon. And don't worry, I'll post a reminder when it is time to vote.

I can stop anytime I want to...

2011-01-10T16:33:00.000-06:00

It's been exactly two months since my last post. Where was I? Here the whole time, but staying away from Blogger Dashboard in my own personal version of rehab. Turns out that blogging is generally bad for me.

Back in 2009, when I first started working on my book, I would get to the computer first thing in the morning, check my email, open Word and write for hours. I was organized, disciplined, and treated writing like my job (which it is). Once I reached the query stage, my world opened up and I discovered blogging. At first, it was a lifeline. Reading other blogs helped me feel like I wasn't alone. But once I started following 100+ blogs, and tried to be a good follower by reading and commenting on everything, my productivity was shot. I was spending hours trying to keep up, and feeling guilty when I didn't.

And then there was my own blog. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but my self-esteem is tied way too closely to comments and stats. When I post something, I constantly check back to see who has commented and how many people have visited. And when the numbers aren't great, I feel terrible. And since I've been querying for a year, my ego really doesn't need much more pummelling before I start to sink into a funk.

So for the past two months, I have limited myself to reading. I skim every blog I follow (though most I do still read in full). I rarely comment anymore, though there are a lot of times I want to, even just to let you know I'm still lurking around. I miss posting, because I keep seeing interesting stuff out there (contests, etc.) that I'd like to share. I even write posts in my head (usually when I'm in the shower). I worry that this post is going to be like a drink for an alcoholic.

So once again I'm going to try to find a balance. I'll need to see how many times I check my stats this week. I'll stop lurking and make a few comments. I'll limit how much time I spend on Blogger.

I'll take it one day at a time.

Breathing and Book Clubs

2010-11-11T12:20:00.000-06:00

We're having a breathless sort of week in my house. For months, my son has been struggling with his asthma and last week, a chest infection has sent him spiraling downward. This week alone has seen ten hours in doctors offices, one chest xray, seven prescription drugs to be taken daily, and at least ten breathing treatments a day (including throughout the night). And to top it off, my husband is away all week (a twice-yearly experience that always makes me want to send flowers to all single moms and military wives I know because these women deserve medals for doing it solo all the time).

Yesterday, we spent three hours at the doctor's office as our pediatrician did her best to keep us out of the hospital. I love love love our pediatrician, one of those fabulous doctors who takes the time to talk to you and never makes you feel like she's just thinking about the next patient she has to see.

After popping in to the exam room to check on our progress, Dr. B spied my copy of Sara Gruen's Ape House (loved it, by the way -- not as much as Water for Elephants, but only because WforE is one of my all time favorite books). We had a great chat about books and exchanged some recommendations. She also told me about the book club she belongs to. I must admit that as she was telling me about it, I felt like a high school wannabe, fairly desperate to join this group of cool kids.

A group of sisters created Buttery Books, a book club that does themed book club parties, complete with recipes, etc. You can check out their website here. I love their selection of books and the recipes and ideas are great. You can also contribute your own ideas and suggestions to their site.

If you go visit, I'd love to hear what you think.

Time Rewind*

2010-11-07T08:50:00.000-06:00

I've never been a fan of daylight savings. It throws me off for days and I hate losing an hour of sleep, whether in reality or in theory. And it is safe to say that this year was the worst clock change ever.
At 5:00am on Sunday morning (or 6:00am, depending on which clock in my house you were looking at), I was awakened by a loud crash and the sound of breaking glass. I immediately sat up in bed, heart pounding and knees absolutely weak, thinking for sure that someone was breaking into the house. What freaked me out even more is that my husband didn't even move. I swear, that man could sleep through an air horn held to his head. I kicked him (literally) a few times and whispered "Did you hear that?" to which he replied "Huh?"

I jumped out of bed, realizing that the phone was in the other room, that my children were sleeping upstairs, and that I had nothing I could grab as a weapon. So, armed with the only heavy thing I could find -- a copy of Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" -- I crept out of the bedroom and into the living room. My husband finally got up and snuck up behind me, almost getting himself Manteled in the process. While the smart thing to do would have been to turn the light on (thereby surprising any possible intruder), we stumbled around in the dark trying to find who or what made the crash. And finally, we discovered what it was.

This:

Our Wall Clock

Apparently, my husband had come home from a work party late Saturday night after I was already asleep. He decided to change the clocks before retiring. He changed the wall clock and replaced it on the wall, but managed to miss the hanger on the back. It took approximately four hours of ticking for the clock to slide off the end of the nail.

Next year, I'm going to skip daylight savings all together and just keep my own time.

*This is a repost of a post I did back in March. Last night, I forbade my husband from touching our new clock.

Unh.

2010-11-01T14:59:00.000-05:00

I had grand plans for November. I was going to start writing WIP2 (the month is a coincidence; I'm not participating in NaNoWriMo), finish another serial for the magazine, do a whole bunch of freelance work, start exercising, drink less, and eat better.

Um...fail fail fail fail fail fail.

First problem? TOO. MUCH. CANDY.

My son has a nut allergy, so we buy a mixed pack of candy that's safe for him and when he comes back from trick-or-treating ("guising" in British parlance, a term that I just love), we swap the off-limits stuff for the safe stuff. Which means we now have a big bowl of Butterfingers, Reese's, Snickers... all my favorites. I had two for breakfast. Plus one more with my third cup of tea. And a few afer lunch.

And speaking of lunch, that brings us to the second problem. I went to my husband's work place to get my flu shot and we decided to go to lunch after we got our jabs. We ended up at Babe's Old Fashioned Burgers. Big, drippy, loaded burger with a side of real onion rings and a large unsweet tea. Yummm... But now, unh.

I'll write tomorrow. And exercise. And eat better. But for now, I need a nap. Afer just one more Twix.

No Success Seems Big Enough

2010-10-29T17:06:00.000-05:00

I opened my mailbox yesterday, pulled out a big envelope, and ripped it open to find this:

Which contains this:

It's the first part of my three-part serial "Continental Drift" starting in the 2 November issue of Woman's Weekly in the UK. My first thought was, of course, HOORAY! because people are reading my stories.

But my second thought was worry, followed by lots of self doubt. Why? Because they didn't mention the serial on the cover. Usually, when a new serial is starting, they flag it on the front, like in the upper right hand corner of this cover:

"Continental Drift" was one of those stories that didn't come together easily. In fact, I had to rewrite once for my satisfaction, and twice for the editor's. So the neurotic, insecure writer in me started to worry that it wasn't good enough to mention on the cover.

"Maybe the editors didn't like it enough," I said to my husband (who, to his credit, managed to keep a straight face rather than give me that you writers are crazy look I sometimes get.)

"They liked it enough to buy it," he reminded me. "Look, they described it as 'haunting'. That's good, right?"

"Um, yeah..." I said. But it didn't stop me from thinking that maybe they only bought it because they were desperate. Or because they felt sorry for me having rewritten it a couple of times.

I consider myself a confident, positive person. I don't doubt myself in other areas of my life -- I feel confident as a parent and as a partner. In my professional capacity as an editor and later, as a food scientist, I didn't worry about my abilities or my accomplishments. No, the doubt I experience seems to be limited to my existence as a writer. I think I will always doubt whether I have any talent, even when there is evidence that someone thinks I do.

But at least I'm not alone. In her post The More Things Change, Kiersten White shared how even when you find success, you don't always feel successful. I'm sure there are a lot of writers out there saying the same thing.

What about you? Are you more insecure as a writer than in other roles in your life? Why is that? Is it because writing is more personal? Makes us more vulnerable? Is it because success in writing is so public?

Because we can all use a laugh...

2010-10-22T06:00:00.002-05:00

One of the big reasons I miss living in the UK... the BBC.

Enjoy

Cat Magnet

2010-10-21T09:26:00.000-05:00

Seriously. I must be a cat magnet. Back in June, my son and daughter came running into the house screaming something about kittens and our shed. We went outside to discover, lo and behold, these little creatures:

A feral cat, part-Siamese by the looks of things, had a litter of kittens underneath our shed. My children were delighted, my husband and I less so. We were about to leave on a 3-week vacation. I had visions of the mother, driven by hunger since we wouldn't be there to feed her, abandoning these kittens. The image coming back to find a pile of dead kittens (worst case scenario) or the idea of these kittens growing up feral and then breeding more kittens (not much better case scenario) kept me up at night. Thus began a round of phone calls trying to find somewhere to take them so they could be adopted out.

Fortunately, two days before we were going to fly to Scotland, I found someone who would take them. The trick...we had to catch them first. By this point, the mother had done a good job of teaching the kittens to be afraid of us. After a whole day of stalking and capture attempts, we caught two. That night, the mother stole off with the remaining four. We took them to the Cat Lady (my kids' term), with my children crying bitterly the whole time.

Last week, we saw three of those same kittens behind the shed again. I don't know what happened to the fourth. Judging by the hissing and the speed with which they took off, I think the mother has done a pretty good job of making these kittens feral, too.

Two days ago, we heard crying out in front of our house. I opened the door to find a skinny little black and white cat. Unlike the kittens, he was sweet, well-groomed and affectionate. I figured he was lost and would find his way home again. Nope. Yesterday, he cried at my door all morning, so I finally put some food out. He wolfed it down so fast it brought tears to my eyes. In the afternoon, he was still hanging around so as soon as my children got off the bus, we proceeded to walk the two miles around our neighborhood trying to find his owner. The little cat followed us the whole time, plaintively meowing. No luck.

Then, we loaded him into the back of the car (with no cat carrier, I trapped him under the laundry basket weighed down with a couple of hand weights) and drove to the nearest vet to have him scanned, hoping he was microchipped. Nope. I asked the vet tech what we could do. She told me they could take him off our hands, but it would cost $200 for vaccinations and boarding. Yikes! She gave me a list of shelters and I bought a few cans of food and brought him home. He is now living on my porch while we figure out what to do.

Unfortunately, my son is asthmatic and is allergic to cats. This has not stopped my children from naming the cat Justin (??? -- we could understand it if he were a long-hair but ????) and begging us to keep him. My husband and I are debating as to whether we could take the chance that it won't affect my son's health, or whether it could stay as an outdoor cat (I worry about the major roads that run near our neighborhood, or about the summers when it is 100+ degrees).

[There's supposed to be a cute photo of Justin here but Blogger's messing with me. Again.]

Justin is currently outside, lounging on my sun chair. He is grooming Tuna Medley from his whiskers, oblivious to my desperate attempts to find him a loving home. Anyone near San Antonio in the market for a cute cat?

New Idea for Promoting Your Book? Um... no.

2010-10-13T07:36:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't seen this, Yahoo ran a photo and article on Tuesday about a writer throwing a book at President Obama while he rallied in Pennsylvania.

Here's the photo and an excerpt of the article written by Brett Michael Dykes of YahooNews.ca

Attention-seeking author hurls his book at Obama

Yes, the publishing industry is reeling these days, but surely authors can find less disruptive ways to promote their newly published works than hauling off and throwing a copy at the president of the United States.

But you know what they say: There’s no such thing as bad publicity. Something like that thought probably crossed the mind of the unidentified man who hurled a paperback at President Obama at a rally at Philadelphia’s Vernon Park over the weekend. Mark Knoller of CBS said that the Secret Service has interviewed the author, whom they described as an "overexuberant" Obama supporter who merely wanted to make sure that the president had a copy of his book. The determined scribe said he meant no harm but exercised horrendous judgment -- and that was apparently good enough for the Secret Service, which didn’t seek charges against him. After agents with the service questioned the man, they saw to his release.

Neither the man nor the book has been identified as of this writing.

I may be overcautious but I think it's best if you DO NOT include this technique in your promotion plan when sending queries to agents or editors. Besides, it didn't really work because you can't see the title of the book!

Getting random all up in my head

2010-10-08T08:14:00.001-05:00

* The temperature has finally dropped here in San Antonio. Sort of. It is in the 50s at night, which makes me want to break out the gourds and autumn leaves to decorate. BUT, it is still climbing into the high 80s during the day. So putting out the autumn stuff just feels wrong.

* My son, after 8 years of food aversions and extremely picky eating, has finally turned a corner. We've had three months of Occupational Therapy to help with the food and sensory issues and I can't believe how well it's worked. Wednesday, he ate AN ENTIRE MCDONALD'S CHEESEBURGER! I almost wept. He's gained 4 pounds in three months (which is almost as much as he's gained in year). Last night, we all ate the same dinner (and it did not involve pizza). I hold out hope that I might actually start enjoying cooking again (which would be good, given that I am a chef).

* My daughter, now six, must have read some "Being an Effective Listener" text somewhere because she now rephrases EVERYTHING I say to her. Last night's exchange -- Me: I bought you some new dresses for school. DD: You mean you went to the store and picked out things for me to wear so I'll look nice for my teacher? She does this all the time. The technique is supposed to make a person feel validated and understood. It doesn't. It's driving me crazy.

* My husband's family has just had some potentially devestating news involving the big C. We're reeling from this and, in truth, it's all I can think about this week (hence, this weirdly random post). I lost my father to a horrible battle with cancer four years ago so I'm really struggling, trying to put those memories aside so that I can be positive and supportive for my husband. It's hard.

* Because of this family development, it looks like we are going to be travelling back to Scotland sooner than expected. Which means that I've had to put aside the novel and get to work on another serial to help pay for the trip. I just wrote the first chapter of my WIP on Tuesday and was starting to get my groove on, so...meh. I'm so not feeling the love for the serial right now, but it's got to happen.

I don't usually post personal stuff (especially a strange list of disconnected thoughts). Even now, it feels weird to put so much of myself out there, but my brain is whirling so much I can't think of anything else. And although I know I don't have to say this (because you are all warm, wonderful people who already do this), I'll just leave you with one more thought:

Cherish the people you love. No one knows what the future holds. Don't wait to share time with your family and friends. Share it now.

Pantserfail

2010-10-04T18:41:00.000-05:00

Remember when I said I was changing teams from Plotter to Pantser? Yeah, well, I lied. Boy, did I lie.

Because I'm guessing that Pansters don't make spreadsheets like this when working out their characters:

I don't know...maybe they do (hey pantsers -- do you?). But I'm fairly certain they don't do this:

This is a screen shot of the Storylines program from the Writer's Cafe software, which uses virtual index cards that you can move up, down, all around. You can have multiple plot lines. I use it for the main and subplots (blue and green) and to keep track of my "hit points" or important moments or ideas in the story (that's the red line), my relevant research (purple line), and emotions (orange lines). Key scene cards are blue and the acts are denoted by the black markers at the top.

What can I say? Try as I might, I couldn't work by the seat of my pants. I just like my spreadsheets and charts too darn much. I need them. I feel more comfortable when I have a road map for my journey. And after today, I feel more energy than fear, which is a good thing. So I'll hand back my temporary Pantser membership card. Thanks for having me! Maybe I'll join you again some other time.

Personality Type of your Character

2010-09-30T16:20:00.000-05:00

I've been deep into researching my characters for my new project. Since my story explores the genetics of personality (in other words, which personality traits are inherited and which are more affected by environment), I've been spending a lot of time reading scientific journals, reviewing study data, and exploring psychological testing. I feel like I've been learning a new language.

In the course of researching, I came across a few web-based versions of the Myers-Briggs personality test (based on research by Karl Jung). This test breaks down personality into four main categories:

Whether you get your energy from inside or outside sources (Extraverted or Introverted)
How you taking in information (Sensing or iNtuitive )
How you make decisions (Thinking or Feeling )
How you operate on a day-to-day basis (Judging or Perceiving)

Based on these categories, there are 16 personality types. For example, ESTP means Extraverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving and describes someone who is outgoing, perceptive, likes concrete problems to solve, and bases decisions more on logic than intuition.

I thought it would be interesting to take the test, answering the questions the way I thought my MC would answer. By reading the summary of her personality type, it gave me a little more parameters for her development. Although I would never develop a character based soley on this, but I did feel a bit more tuned into the psychology of my character (incidentally, she is IFSJ which means she is introverted, feeling, sensing and judging).

If you are interested in trying this out (either for yourself or your characters):

Similar Minds has a number of personality tests, including a short version of the test Jung here
The Personality Page, which has a lot of info, including career and relationship info relevant to the types. There's also a test, perhaps more complete than the free tests you can find) which is $5 per test.
A easy-to-use grid of learning styles based on the 16 types from SUNY Oswego here

If you do give this a try for your characters, it would be great if you could stop back and report whether you found it useful.

My Kingdom for a Mentor

2010-09-28T08:21:00.000-05:00

In the past few weeks, I've seen a number of bloggers (self included) who have commented that they would pay an agent for career advice. If you watched the bidding for the agent meeting items in the Do the Write Thing for Nashville, it's pretty clear that people will pay a lot for some one on one time with an agent.

As writers, we are lucky that there are some great agent blogs out there to help us navigate through this increasingly-difficult industry. But what we're lacking is personal guidance. Yeah, we want to the agent to get us the book deal. But what we -- or at least, I -- want is an industry professional to help us decide what moves to make to help get that writing career.

There are a few reputable agents out there who do this, but not many. It does beg the question of how a writer would distinguish a 'real' agent from a predatory one. For myself, I would want advice from an active agent who has legitimate sales to good publishers, not someone who sets themselves up as an 'industry expert' even though there are no numbers to back up the claim.

But how would it work? How would an agent decide who to mentor? Would it work like a lawyer who accepts a case and charges by the hour (I think we're talking some big numbers too, like $200 per hour?) That puts us back into a new version of the query wars -- an application (complete with writing samples and a list of ideas) for consulting services. That would still leave people out in the cold, because you are looking at a whole new slush pile.

So what's in it for the agents? Many agents say they see queries for books/writers that they love but can't sell, so they have to pass (there's no money in it for them). But if they are earning income by helping a promising writer to develop their career, it could be a long-term payoff. The AAR says that agents cannot charge reading fees, but there is nothing in there to say that they can't charge consulting fees.

I'd love to hear your take on this. Would you pay an agent by the hour for some mentoring? How much would you be willing to pay? Do you know of agents who do this? Or agents who've talked about this? If you have any links, put them in the comments and I'll include them here in the blog.

And in the absence of mentoring by an agent, we have turned to mentoring each other, which is one of the amazing things about this wonderful blogger world. If you haven't already, go check out The Bookshelf Muse's 1000 followers contest. She's offering to be a mentor!!!!

Blogfeast, San Antonio style

2010-09-23T07:42:00.000-05:00

I hadn't planned on posting today but I found out about Angela McAllister's Food blogfest and just couldn't resist. Why don't you head over to Angela's and check out the other entries -- guaranteed to make you hungry!

But before you go, here's my own entry, taken from "La Luna," the serial short fiction that ran in Woman's Weekly in the UK from August 10-August 31. The story is about Serina, the chef/owner of a restaurant on San Antonio's Riverwalk.

Soon she was weeping over piles of chopped onions, though she smiled broadly and hummed “Celito Lindo” in absence of the mariachis. The pork simmered in its red chile sauce, raising a fragrant haze in the kitchen. She lost herself in the preparation, soaking the dried corn husks, roasting peppers, grating the potato-like jicama for the slaw.

When the meat was ready, she began making the tamales. She spread the fluffy corn masa on the softened husk, topping it with a large dollop of shredded pork, and rolling it together so the meat was enclosed like a prize within the package. She tied it shut with a strip of corn husk and started on the next. Though pyramids of tamales grew before her, it would take her another hour to finish them all. With the back of her hand, she brushed away a loose strand of hair and stretched her back, remembering the tamaladas at Christmas time, the traditional tamale-making party where her mother and aunts and grandmother would roll up their sleeves and make hundreds of tamales for the holidays. She smiled to think of the contests to see who could make the most, the laughter when someone was caught out for skimping on the filling or splitting a husk. In face of those memories, Serina’s kitchen seemed very empty, the only sound the rain pinging on the metal vent above the stove. She shoved the pang of loneliness away and continued her tasks, stopping only briefly to flick on the radio to drown out the silence.

The group arrived early, shaking the rain of jackets and umbrellas. Serina noted immediately the absence of any women in the party and chided herself for feeling relieved; she’d secretly feared Eric would bring a date. Once the guests were settled with their drinks, however, she almost wished for the presence of another woman to dilute their attentions. The men – some very young, some older, all charming – were quick to wink, touch her arm, even pat her hip as she walked by. To occupy their hands and thoughts, she quickly brought out the first course of squash soup with roasted corn and poblanos, crowned with a complicated nest of tortilla strips.

The wine began to flow and with each course – chile-fried Gulf oysters, mesquite-grilled prawns on jicama-mango slaw – the men grew louder and more effusive in their complements. At Eric’s pressing, she bent her own rule and joined them in a glass of Argentine Zinfandel, as red and rich as liquid rubies. When the tamales were unwrapped like gifts at Christmas, the men broke into applause and Serina finally fled to the kitchen, her face aflame and heart afire from pleasure of a meal so well appreciated.

What can I say? I love the food of San Antonio!

So now go check out Angela at Jaded Love Junkie and all the other entries. I'm going to do the same, but first I need some breakfast. All this food talk has made my stomach rumble.

Switching Teams

2010-09-21T06:00:00.002-05:00

I had years to stew on my first novel, The Shadow Scribe. Decades actually. I would say that I had about 50% of it written in my head before I ever put it on paper. I knew the characters, the setting was crystal clear, the plot defined. I considered myself the ultimate plotter, with every chapter outlined before I ever started writing.

In contrast, my new idea is just that -- an idea. My plot diagram is complete (I use Aristotle’s Incline which I learned from Robert Ray’s The Weekend Novelist but I also like the Screenplay Structure method) but when I try to outline it, I find myself writing things like “stuff happens here.”

I know that it is the kind of story that can only evolve as I write. Which means that I am about to have my first experience as a pantser. GASP! Some nights, I lay awake paralyzed by fear. What if I can't write it? What if it fizzles out?

But I also have moments of real optimism. I have no preconceived ideas of exactly how this story will go. I know my first novel is weaker because I could only imagine one way to write it. While I’m nervous about switching teams from plotter to pantser, I’m excited too.

There are lots of posts out there on plotters vs pantsers (like this excellent one by Roni at *Fiction Groupie*) so I’m not going to get into the definitions. But what I want to know is: Have you ever switched teams (plotter to pantser or pantser to plotter)? Do you ever wish you were one instead of the other?

Am I for real?

2010-09-16T07:00:00.006-05:00

Last week, when I sat down with my son’s teacher to discuss the upcoming year, I mentioned that since I worked from home, I was available to help in the classroom if she ever needed it. “What do you do?” she asked. “I’m a writer,” I replied, cringing a little because I feel like I’m lying when I say this. Her eyes lit up. “Really? That’s excellent. We’re doing a whole unit on authors and writing right now! Maybe you could come talk to the class?” And even though I felt like a total fraud, I said I would.

Am I scared? Hell, yes.

Not only do I have to control twenty 3rdgraders for thirty minutes, but I have to face that room full of nine-year-olds and act like I’ve got some reason for being there. I feel like I’ve got to prove to them and the teacher that I’m legit.

Sure, I’m a core contributor of fiction for a magazine and I do some non-fiction content development (and these things help pay the bills), but so far, the book thing hasn’t happened. And for some reason, I find it difficult to believe I’m a real writer in the world’s eyes because I don’t have the agent, the book deal, the name recognition. In fact, I've stopped mentioning that I'm working on a novel because I don't want to deal with the "When's your book being published?" issue.

So my question is this – when does a writer become a “real” writer? When you get paid for something? The first time you get something published? When you quit your job to write full time? When you make sacrifices so that you can write?

Do you tell people you are a writer? What's the reaction?

And on another note, if you have any suggestions for my 3rd grade debut next week, I’d love to hear them. I plan on showing a photo prompt, and then going around the room letting them take turns giving me characters, setting, problem (conflict), the events, and the solution. When we’re done, I’ll read their story back to them. Thoughts?

What to write, what to write...

2010-09-14T07:00:00.019-05:00

I stressed a lot about what my next novel project would be. I have no shortage of ideas – actually, it’s just the opposite. My ideas run the gamut of genres, including YA, MG, historical, paranormal, women’s fiction, sci fi, and literary. And as we all know, some genres are a tougher sell than others.

Every agent and writer blog out there will warn you against writing to pursue a trend, or even to pursue publication. They all say that you should write the book that moves you and write the best version of it possible. Great advice, to be sure.

But I do think there is something to be said for picking your projects wisely. For instance, most editors and agents are saying that the vampires are played out. So would it be wise to start a vampire novel now, knowing that by the time you finish it, the market will have moved on? If that is what you are compelled to write, then do it. But don’t expect that professional success with that book will be easy (granted, nothing about this business is easy).

Maybe you’ve heard the expression, “Marry for love, not money, but have the sense to fall in love with a rich man (or woman).” I think this applies to writing, too. If you want to be a professional writer, I think you must look at your projects pragmatically. All things being equal (meaning if you have three projects in mind that you are equally passionate about), you should pursue the project that has the most commercial viability. In the end, a book is a product and you want to produce a product people want to buy.

I write because I love to, but I also want to make a career out of it. So this is where the stress came in. I went round and round trying to decide which project had the most commercial promise. (I swear I would pay an agent right now to give me career advice on this subject!) I made pro and con lists, bored my husband stupid with endless speculation, traded countless emails with a writer friend, and lost a lot of sleep before finally coming to a conclusion.

In the end, passion for the story was the first criteria, and market was the second. I hated making the decision (I always second guess myself) but I feel good about it now. I can tell you I decided to pursue the literary fiction project, but beyond that I'll not say anything else about it yet. I'm not trying to be coy, just a little bit superstitious. Once I get past the research stage and into the writing, I'll be more comfortable talking about it.

Any thoughts on choosing a project based on commercial viability? Did you consider the markets when you started on a project?

The Blame Game

2010-09-09T07:40:00.000-05:00

As you may have read yesterday, I had a bit of a crisis where my editor came back and asked me to change the ending of one of my story segments. I spent a good part of the day pouting because it was one of the parts that I thought really worked.

But then I reminded myself that I am a professional writer, which means that I am NOT ALLOWED to fall back on that idea that if a reader doesn't think something works, then it must be the reader's fault. I'm sorry, but that thinking is for amateurs.

Let me repeat that, because I think it is a critical idea that separates good writers from bad:

If your reader doesn't understand something in your story, it is YOUR fault as the writer, not their fault as the reader.

If you reader doesn't think something works, it means you have failed to communicate motivation, action, something. Just to make things complicated, sometimes what a reader says doesn't work isn't always the problem. They just know something is wrong, but can't put their finger on it and may give vague feedback that doesn't always make sense. This is where having savvy critique partners (who are writers, not just readers) who can put it in the language of the craft is essential.

For example, a reader may say "I didn't like it when Jane jumped out of the car." What didn't your reader like? The action? The timing? What Jane said when she threw herself out? Your knee-jerk reaction might be "But I can't cut that scene! It's critical to the action!"

When the problem is verbalized by a writer, it becomes clearer. "I don't think you've clearly shown Jane's motivation to jump out the car." Suddenly, you know how to fix the problem -- no, wait -- you know how to make your story BETTER. Your reader was right.

Remember, this is not the blame game. You cannot blame the reader for your mistakes as a writer.

The good news is that if you can accept this truth, it shows that you are a good enough writer to identify and fix your issues.

A cry for help

2010-09-08T11:25:00.001-05:00

Remember how I mentioned that I blog because I want to find critique partners and beta readers? (I promised to do a post on that when I my WIP was closer to that stage.)

Remember how I posted on the importance of cliffhanger endings in a serial?

Yeah, those two things just came crashing together.

I just got the word on my latest serial from the editor: they love the writing, but don't like the ending of part 1 and want me to change it.

I don't quite agree with the assessment but recognize that the editor knows her market best and therefore will do as they request. Trouble is, I'm having a bit of trouble breaking away from what I've written and seeing it in a fresh light.

So, I'm desperate for a critique partner like RIGHT NOW.

The story is written for a British woman's magazine, target audience of 30-60 year old women. There are three parts, around 11 pages each. I am seeking someone with experience in writing (and of course, reading) women's fiction to read it and give me some feedback that might help me think in a new direction. I was hoping for feedback fairly quickly.

As this is on spec for a publication, I am unable to post it. I have, however, added a new tab that has one of my shorter pieces (The Way to a Man's Heart -- 1700 words) that ran in the same magazine a few years back. Take a look... if you like my style and might be willing to help me out with some feedback on the new piece, drop me an email and we can discuss the details further. I will be happy to return the favor sometime (I am a former editor and have critiqued quite a bit).

Thanks!!

Commenting on Comments

2010-09-07T08:01:00.000-05:00

It's official. I've doubled my follower count in four days. Now I'm feeling performance anxiety!

There are several posts on comments today (go see Jenn's at Unedited or Elana's), which tells me this is a subject that people think about A LOT. I've been thinking about it too and I decided it is best for me to be upfront and honest about how I deal with comments on my blog, so that everyone understands how I work.

I read EVERY single comment I get on my blog. Twice actually. I get them in my email inbox and I look at my blog (way too often). Frankly, my self-esteem is tied a little too closely to how many comments I get. If I don't get any, I shrivel a little bit and wonder why no one likes me. If I get a lot, I feel like making an Oscar speech (You like me! You really really like me!).

I don't email responses to commenters. I know that maybe I should but I spend too much time on email and blogging as it is (at the cost of writing) so I have to draw the line somewhere. I don't respond to every single comment I get. I don't expect every blogger to respond to my comments. To be honest, I find the long lists of individual replies can get a bit tedious for both the readers and the writer and it feels a littled forced to me.

I try to leave general responses at intervals in the comments so people know I'm around. And I sometimes respond to individuals if what they've said needs a response. I do try to visit and comment on the blog of anyone who comments at mine.

I have made one change to my process, though. Up until today, I didn't list my email on my profile. I do now. Sometimes, I'll read a post on someone's blog and it makes me want to have a deeper, non-public conversation, like by email. Usually, I lack the guts to reach out and contact the person (afraid of rejection I guess? Or I feel like I'm crossing a line?) If you ever want to discuss anything with me -- like writing or querying (especially stuff like rejection which I don't really talk about on a public blog even though I have LOTS of experience with it), please email me. That's why I'm here.

Comments? Do commenting expectations stress you out as a blogger? Have you ever stopped following a blog because you felt abandoned in the comments section?

So I opened my inbox and found...

2010-09-06T11:32:00.000-05:00

When we last left our hero, she had 56 followers. She opened her inbox and found it flooded with comments from lovely new blog friends. And when she returned to her blog, found she had 108 followers!!!

And that's about as much writing about myself in the third person as I can stomach.

That's right. In three days, I have gained 52 new followers. And it is all thanks to the fantastic KarenG at Coming Down the Mountain. Karen, thank you so much for hosting the Blog BBQ. I've got so many great new followers and I am now following lots of new interesting blogs. I'm sure I speak for everyone reading this when I say you have done us all a great favor by helping us connect.

I'm working through my new list of friends and promise to visit everyone who's joined me here. It may take a little while but I'll get there.

So, wow. 108. That means I'm going to have to step up my game here. More regular postings. And maybe even a contest to celebrate. More details soon.

I am in awe of people (like the incomparable Elana Johnson) who have hundreds and even thousands of followers. I must admit, I don't aspire to this. I know that for people writing YA, blogging is an essential tool for connecting with readers. I don't write YA and therefore I honestly don't think blogging will help me connect with thousands of potential readers (some, yes, but not to the level of YA).

I blog for a few very specific reasons. At first, I blogged because I thought I was supposed to. And then I blogged because I got a little obsessed by it. And now, I'm blogging because I've met some great people and want to form relationships with other writerly types. One of my main goals for blogging is to find some good crit partners and beta readers (a post on that is definitely in the works). I'm also about to start a new project and I think blogging about my process as I go may help me to crystalize my thinking.

Think back to when you started blogging. What were your reasons for blogging? Have they changed since you started? This isn't a rhetorical question...I'm genuinely curious.

Anyway, thanks for joining me. And keep watching this space for contest details...

When we last left our hero...

2010-09-03T08:05:00.000-05:00

Endings are important. This is a universal truth, right? But I'm going to step out a limb and say that the how your chapters end is more important than how your book ends. Why? Because while the end of your book impacts how the readers think about your book in total, it is how your chapters end that will keep your readers reading.

As novelists, we all want to write the book that has the reader saying over the watercooler, "I was up reading until 4 in the morning! I just couldn't put it down!"

My day job is writing serial fiction for a woman's magazine. Each story is three or four parts, 3800 words each. Each part must end in a way that makes the reader want to come back for more. The stakes are high here. The reader has to be so drawn in that they will think about it all week, go to the store, and shell out a few more bucks for the next issue so they can read what happens next.

The cliffhanger (named for the 1930s episodic movies where the hero was literally dangling from a cliff when the credits went down -- check out the Wiki link here) is so important for serials that I write the endings first. When I pitch a new idea to the editor, it is the overall story and the part endings that I pitch. Because if the endings don't work, the serial won't either.

This is a valuable technique for novelists. Every chapter needs to end in a way that makes the reader want to turn the page. Unfortunately, I learned this too late for my last project, where I structured that novel so that each chapter ended when my MC was going to bed. Looking back now, I see that was just an invitation for the reader to put down the book at the end of a chapter. The last thing you want is for your reader to say, "Nothing exciting is happening now, so this is a good spot for me to stop reading."

You don't have to leave your characters dangling off a cliff at the end of each chapter. Not every cliffhanger is mortal peril. It can end with a choice, a question, the prelude to a fight...anything has your reader wondering -- or even better, DEMANDING -- to know what happens next.

And that's why endings are..wait... excuse me a minute, there's an email in my inbox. I don't believe it! It's...

What does our hero find? Tune in next blog post to find out!

Word Paint Blogfest

2010-08-27T13:58:00.000-05:00

I haven't participated in a blogfest in a long time, but I was really drawn to Dawn Ember's Word Paint blogfest. The following is an excerpt from my current serial-in-progress "Continental Drift," a story where a recently-widowed woman drives across country to reconnect with a group of friends from college.

I stopped the car at a small sign announcing the continental divide and learned I was standing on the line that marked where the rainfall would drain – to the west it drained to the Pacific, to the east, the Atlantic. So now if I cried, my tears would be going to a different ocean. I decided right then and there that Pacific was salty enough without my contribution, so I would permit no more to fall.

When I got back into the car, I found myself refreshed, able to keep driving despite how many miles I’d done. The setting sun painted the sky with a wash of reds, purples and golds. Watching it through the massive windscreen, I felt as though I was sitting in a movie theatre seeing it on the big screen, though I doubted film could ever capture those colours.

I drove until chips of stars blazed across the indigo sky. And though it felt like a betrayal of the beautiful state to sleep in some generic hotel chain, it was the only thing I could find. The commonness of the hotel was excused, however, when I enjoyed my morning coffee while looking at the blushing mesas.

Several more hours driving brought me to Arizona, where beautiful painted cliffs rose just inside the state line. I prepared myself for more beauty but I soon passed beyond the painted cliffs into the desert proper. The Arizona desert was not what I expected. At first, the stark beauty was breathtaking, all sharp silhouettes and shades of earth that designers covet. But after an hour, my senses rebelled. I was raised among the green trees and gentle slopes of the northeast. The desert landscape was too alien. Hard white skies stretched above, shimmers rose from the endless grey road, and heat transmitted through the roof, the windows and up from the ground through the car until I felt like I was in an oven. All those things went supernova in my head until a razor-sharp headache pierced the centre of my brain.

The drive went on for hours until I could stand it no more. I finally pulled into the car park of a motor lodge, a throwback to the Fifties when Americans thought of road travel as fun and wanted to take their time getting somewhere. When I stepped out of my mobile living room, the heat was so fierce that the inside of my nose burned, my mouth went dry, and my sandals sank half an inch into the molten blacktop. I was clearly a fool to enter Arizona in August.

Drifting in a heat-induced haze, I soon found myself in a room that reeked of dusty potpourri but was as cold as a refrigerator. After downing three glasses of lukewarm water, I pulled the roadmap from my bag and spread it on the bed. The country was bisected by a grid of folds so worn that the paper was cobweb thin. I uncapped a black fibre pen and methodically started colouring in Arizona, making it black from edge to edge. I decided right then and there that if I ever do the cross-country drive again, I would find some route that did not include this state. When I ventured out to dinner at the diner across the car park, my breath came short and my shirt was instantly damp where it touched my skin. But the sky was lit up with a sunset of mythical proportions and I forgave Arizona briefly for its evil summer.

If you haven't seen this blogest yet, go check out Dawn's blog and follow the links to the other entries. And if you are participating in the blogfest, my plan is to visit you all over the weekend. I can't wait to read your Word Paintings!

But you knew that

2010-08-13T13:17:00.000-05:00

I'm in the process of working on my latest serial for Woman's Weekly. In "Continental Drift" a young woman who lost her husband a year ago drives from New York to Los Angeles to reconnect with a group of friends from college. I found writing Part 1 easy - the words just seemed to flow as she drove through the southern US and worried about starting her life over. Part 2 was trickier as I found it difficult to introduce the old relationships in enough detail to stay within the word count (I've got 3800 words per part).

When I finished part 2, I did something I've never done -- I sent the first draft of parts 1 and 2 to the fiction editor for her feedback. Usually, I finish all the parts and do a final polish (I wouldn't call them final drafts because I know there may be revisions). But this time, I felt I needed to hear from the editor that things were working.

While I was waiting for her feedback, I tried to work on part 3. And it just wasn't happening. The words wouldn't come easily and the words that did come were the wrong ones. I told myself it was because I was hot and tired (our A/C packed it in on Monday and for two days and nights it was 91 degrees in my house), because the kids were hot and tired and cranky, because I was too busy following WriteOnCon (great experience!).

I got the feedback this morning. The editor wrote that the writing was "exquisite" (I tell you, that wonderful woman is what keeps me writing some days!) but that the plot was "unfocused." This is not what I wanted to hear, of course, but it wasn't surprising. In fact, it was obvious.

Part 3 wasn't working because I hadn't established a clear plot through 1 and 2. And I knew it. I didn't want to admit it, but I knew it. Otherwise, I wouldn't have felt the need to send it in early. I wouldn't have had trouble finishing it. I had a hunch and, if you read what Jen at Unedited said about hunches today, you know what that means.

So has this happened to you? Have you suspected something and then your betas/critiquers/readers called you out on it?

What do I do with this?

2010-08-05T20:28:00.000-05:00

Seriously. This is not a rhetorical question... What do I do with this information?

My new four-part serial short story "La Luna" began in Woman's Weekly (a UK magazine) this week. As I posted last Friday, the editor wrote about it in her Editor's Letter, which I didn't see until yesterday when I received my contributor's copies. Here's what she wrote:

So... OMG! (and I don't use that expression lightly, because, honestly, I just can't pull it off.) Seriously, this magazine has a circulation of 350,000 every week and a readership of 570,000. So even if only half the readers take a look at the contents page, that means almost a quarter of a million people just read my name and really nice comments about my story.

Now aside from the fact that this gives my ego a boost it could really use after all the rejections that come from querying a novel, there has got to be some way this can work in my favor, right?

I've posted this on my web site (if you haven't already checked it, go ahead and look -- I've got a stat counter and it makes my day when I get visitors). But I'd love to hear from you marketing experts if there is something else I should do to with this development. Should I mention it in my query letter? Include a hardcopy of this page when I send out paper copies? Hire a skywriter to reproduce it in vapor? Get over myself because it's not that big of a deal?

I'd love to get any suggestions people have. Remember, there's no such thing as a bad idea! Thank you in advance for your help.

What are you waiting for?

2010-08-04T13:50:00.000-05:00

We all know that writing is all about waiting: waiting for feedback, waiting for agents to respond, waiting for editors to respond. I'm used to waiting, but I'm not very good at it. I seethe and suffer inside. And though I know it is counterproductive, I lose sleep, I lose concentration, I lose my mind.

And these days, it seems all I am doing -- in every aspect of my life -- is waiting. So I'm going to vent a little into the ether.

Things I'm Waiting For:

Response from agent with full manuscript.
Response from agents with partials.
Response from agent queried with a referral.
Responses to THREE job applications.
Mortgage refinancing paperwork.
Go-ahead from hubby (who manages our finances) to attend Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers conference
The school year to start so I can get some real work done.
Cooler weather
Apology from hotel after disastrous spa weekend
Shoes I ordered from Ebay
Return call from body shop about the huge dent made by non-note-leaving driver in Old Navy parking lot

Yeah, feels like a lot.

So how about you? Anything you are waiting for that's driving you nuts? Come, join me!

Feel Good Friday

2010-07-30T12:17:00.000-05:00

I received an email from the fiction editor, Gaynor Davies, at Woman's Weekly. My four-part serial "La Luna" hits the UK newsstands next week (10 August issue) which is exciting enough. But Gaynor also told me that the editor is mentioning my serial in the Editor's Letter that appears on the Contents page! Gaynor didn't tell me what the editor wrote but said "I'm sure you'll be pleased with what she says" and went on to thank me for a "lovely" story.

Yay!

And then she went on to inquire about the progress of my next serial. Um... I better get to work!

How about you? Any good news or happy feelings you'd like to share?

You have to have a goal. Do you have a goal?

2010-07-23T13:40:00.001-05:00

I'm just about breaking my arm from patting myself on the back today. And the reason? I wrote 1000 words today. Now, this normally would not be a huge accomplishment for me. On a good day, I'll knock out 3000 words. But I haven't had many good days lately. In fact, I've barely written a word in six weeks.

I have several reasons (excuses) for this. The primary one is that my kids are home for the summer (seriously, 11 weeks for summer vacation??? Give me the UK system any old day -- 6 weeks!). This is a big problem for me as I am a bit of a prima donna when it comes to my writing time. I need a good hour to faff about before getting my game face on and then I'll write for a solid three or four hours. I cannot do that with the Prince of Dinosaurs and the Drama Queen dancing about. Even sticking a movie on buys me only two hours and that means they're finished just as I'm deep into my zone.

The second is that I'm still querying, which is really breaking me down. I am not patient and I am not an optimist. It is a debilitating process for me.

And the other reason is that I don't have a goal. Strangely enough, it isn't enough that I have an editor ready to cut me a check when I finish my current serial. Without hard dates to work toward, I flounder.

Things have to change.

So here are my goals (because posting them here means I've got witnesses):

I am committing to finishing my current serial by August 15.
If I finish a second serial by September 1 (and that's a big if), I will use half of that payment to attend a conference this fall.
I will get my new WIP underway starting September 1, with the goal of finishing my first draft in November.

This means I need to cut through the paralysis that querying seems to put me in, work out some new writing practices that let me work in less than ideal conditions, and actually start writing again. And I need to get my gameplan together.

So that's where you come in. I'd like to find some crit partners for my new WIP. I know that my first novel suffered for not having the right kind of readers and that is a mistake I will not repeat this time around. So if you or someone you know is interested in forming a new group, please let me know in the comments (or send me an email). This WIP is commercial fiction, although I am comfortable working with writers of other genres. I'm happy to provide some writing samples so we can see if we're suited (obvs, it won't be from the WIP because I haven't written it yet!). I'll be ready to start exchanging chapters in September.

And the next thing, can you recommend some good conferences this fall? Location is not important (I'm in Texas). I'm looking for some exposure to other writers as well as editors and agents, whether through pitch sessions, workshops or informal opportunities. I'm thinking Backspace in NYC in November, but I'm open to any suggestions.

Thanks very much to anyone who can help me out on either of these suggestions. And, bonus points to anyone who can identify which movie my blog post title came from.

And thanks for reading this. I know I've been absent for a while and it feels good to be back.

The things we shouldn't do as adults

2010-07-14T09:14:00.000-05:00

As a woman of a certain age, contemplating a certain major birthday coming up next year, I'm painfully aware of how things don't work quite the same as they used to.

Like clothes. Honestly, get out of the junior section. Those clothes just aren't made for women with hips.

Like my body. I'm not going to say anything here because it is too depressing that I'm already starting to notice this.

Like recreation and entertainment. Over the weekend, we took our kids to a minor league baseball game with the boy scouts. We were having a great time -- we ate popcorn, we drank $6 beers, the kids tried to catch foul balls. And we were really amused when one of the fathers was asked to participate in the bat race in the middle of the 6th. Do you remember bat races? That's when you stand a bat up on the ground, put your head on the top of it, spin around it ten times, and then try to run in a straight line. All very funny.

So the time came and our man stepped out onto the field in front of a crowd of 6000. He and another man (also of our age group) completed their spins and headed for third. Except our friend veered to the left, fell down and hit the fence in front of the dugout, striking his head on the fence post. The crowd thought this was hilarious. When he rejoined our group, this man was seeing double and his whole left arm was numb and tingling.

We found out today that after they game, they went to the emergency room because he was having major trouble moving. After xrays, a CT scan and an MRI, they diagnosed a fracture of his C6 verterbrae. He will be in a neck brace for the next 6-8 weeks and may be facing surgery. All for a silly bat race.

So note for the future: leave kids' games to the kids.

Can you say 'Genre' with a British accent?

2010-07-01T11:46:00.000-05:00

The majority of advice I've seen on how to decide what genre you write in is to look at the shelves in a bookstore or library and see where your book would fit. Generally, I think that's pretty clear advice.

Right up until today. I just got back from the library in the small Scottish town where I am staying on vacation. And the shelving system completely threw me off. Here were the categories for fiction:

Family Saga (large sweeping romances and ???)
Modern Woman (mostly chick lit, but also narrative memoir, misery memoirs, some romance, some historical -- got a bit confusing)
Modern Man (lad lit? Crime, suspense, thriller -- lots of crossover)
Crime (duh, yeah, can't get confused here)
Adventure (covered both suspense and thrillers)
Unknown (this is paranormal and included both fiction and non-fiction)
Teen (YA, graphic novels)
Sci Fi (this included fantasy)
Romance (strictly Mills and Boon, which is the UK version of Harlequin - think small paperback)
General Fiction (historical, literary, classics)

I had to ask the librarian how they decided where to put things if it crossed over (such as a YA book about vampires, which incidently were in Unknown, not Teen). She told me that it often came down to who was shelving the book. If there were two copies of a book, they would split them and put one in each area. So something like Michael Crichton would go in both Modern Man and Adventure. Anything they had trouble identifying went into General Fiction (the leftover section, if you will).

Based on these categories, where would you put your book?

Inspiration

2010-06-24T16:37:00.000-05:00

My novel THE SHADOW SCRIBE began as a short story in a "Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy" course I completed in my senior year of college (and to be honest, I'm surprised I earned an A in that course because my short story was neither science fiction nor fantasy). It was the story of a woman who started telling a story in her sleep. Because it had a strong historical element, I set the story in Boston, which was the most historical city I knew at the time.

Shortly after I graduated, I packed up my wordprocessor (one of those crossover Smith Corona typewriters that had a 3 1/4" floppy drive) and went to Scotland on a 6-month student visa, intending to really live. And then write all about it. In six months, I never wrote a word. But what I did do was meet the man who would someday become my husband. I knew right away he was "the one" and he must have had similar feelings (even if he wouldn't admit it) because he brought me home to meet his parents. He grew up in a small village outside Edinburgh. We took the train to the town and walked to his house.

And we came to this:

Which opened to this:

Which finally led to this:

That's right. That's the house my new boyfriend brought me to. An absolutely gorgeous Georgian house in the Scottish countryside. Actually, I'm in that house at the moment, eighteen years later. I'm in the room on the second floor on the right end.

Walking into the house for the first time, I was not only completely intimidated, but I was totally in love. With the house. OK, the guy too. But as an American, I'd never encountered a place like it. And it was someone's house. Home, actually. Two parents, five kids, pets, antiques, piles of laundry, squabbles, and stuffed to the brim with knick knacks and more love than I'd encountered anywhere. Christmas at the house was amazing, as was our wedding reception.

I started having fantasies -- and serious discussions -- with my husband about maybe buying the house someday when his parents retired. Talk about an amazing place for kids to grow up (acres of gardens, woods, and a canal at the bottom of the property) and none of the siblings could stand the thought of it not staying in the family. But given the UK housing market, it is unlikely we could ever afford it. Still, it was fun to dream about.

But I also started thinking about how strange it would be to move in and change a place that everyone had known for 25 years. How could we redo the kitchen? Or dare to move the couch there?

As I had these thoughts, the writer's side of my brain suddenly came alive.

Inspiration!!!

That short story that I wrote so long ago sprung back to life. Boston? Hah! I had a historical location to rival no other. And the subplots of a woman moving into her husband's childhood home -- fertile ground for a writer!

So what's my point, other than showing off the pictures of my lovely little vacation spot? (Just to rub it in, here's the view from my bedroom:

and a view of the town, including the ruined palace and the 750-year-old church:

My point is that you never know what will inspire, and ultimately, result in a finished project. Writers talk a lot about writing what you know. But I think it is infinitely more important to write what ignites you. THE SHADOW SCRIBE took on a whole new life when I was inspired by this house. Maybe four pages remain of my original short story, but there are literally hundreds of pages that are intimately tied to this house and how I feel about it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to dreaming of where I might move the couch if the house is ever mine.

Is this seat taken?

2010-06-16T08:16:00.000-05:00

I am about to embark on a 16-hour overnight journey with my husband and two children. And, of course, I am all stressed out. I've spent hours on the Continental website trying to sort out the seating, hoping that we might have a little extra room for my kids to stretch out and get some sleep (I have already accepted that I will get no sleep at all). At the moment, my kids and I are in one row -- 14 A, B and C. And my husband is in14 F, same row but by the window, separated from us by two strangers. I've already explained to him that we will be playing Rock-Paper-Scissors to see who gets to ride in the quiet seat.

It is no surprise that last night I dreamt about flying. And agents (because I have those kinds of dreams all the time). I dreamt that I won with Rock and was sitting quietly by the window while my husband dealt with Goldfish crackers and coloring books. And who sat down next to me? Janet Reid. And I was too terrified to say a word. I spent the entire trip debating whether I should volunteer that I wrote a book, because I didn't want to be one of those people. She was so cool that I didn't want to come across as uncool.

But Janet was REALLY nice. And very funny, just as you would expect. She drank a lot of gin. And shared my kids' goldfish crackers.

I woke up before I decided whether to mention my book or not. And now, in the waking world, I am kicking myself for missing an opportunity.

This just proves how blurred the line between imagination and reality can get for writers.

And what about you? Do you dream about your book? About agents?

Breaking the Habit

2010-06-11T10:43:00.000-05:00

They say it takes fifteen days to make or break a habit. That is what I've been doing -- breaking the blogging habit. I haven't posted to this blog in 15 days. And I've done very little in the way of commenting on others, although I do go through my Google Reader every day. Why?

I have a love/hate relationship with blogging. I love the sense of community it provides, since writing can be a lonely business. I love reading what other writers have to say. I love hearing that I am not alone in the query wars. But I hate what blogging has done to my productivity and my state of mind.

Last spring, I was finishing the first draft of my WIP. It wasn't uncommon for me to write 3000 words a day. I was dedicated to writing. I had a schedule and I kept it. I felt like a writer.

This spring, while I've been in the throes of querying, I've also been writing short stories for a magazine. Someone was actually paying me to write. And yet my productivity sucked. Seriously sucked. I had an editor waiting for material and yet it seemed like half my day was eaten up by reading and commenting on blogs, writing my own posts, and (this is the pathetic part) watching my stats and waiting for comments and then getting depressed by when I didn't get them.

Now I know that blogging is not supposed to be validation, just like I know I shouldn't take rejections personally. But I don't care who you are... everyone wants to feel liked and important. We want to feel like we are good at what we do. But when you're getting a lot of "Thanks for the query...but no." in your inbox, and when you are making the blogging effort and not getting results, it is hard not to let it get to you.

I get over-focused on things. And in this case, it was blogging. There are so many posts on how you should blog, how to build your following, how to be a good follower, how to be a good blog host, what to say, what not to say. I was trying to do it all. But some days, it just frustrated me to the point of paralysis.

So I made the decision to take a big step back. And it worked. On Monday, I finished my serial ("La Luna" will begin in Woman's Weekly on August 10) and sent in a nice invoice for it. Today, I got approval for another serial. I'm feeling like a writer again.

I'm not giving up completely on blogging. I will post occassionally, I will try to comment to any comments I receive, I will read all the blogs I follow, I will comment when I feel moved to do so (although this won't be as often because I mainly use the Google Reader which makes commenting harder). When I start my next book in September, I will start to look for a critique group. But for me, I have to remember that I am a writer first and everything else must bow to that.

What about you? Do you ever feel this way? Can we be forgiven for forsaking blogging?

How many queries does it take to get representation?

2010-05-25T18:54:00.000-05:00

I'll admit I'm a numbers geek. I find statistics comforting. Recently, I put up a post about Persistence versus Denial, asking how many rejections a writer should get before giving up. And I had the most visitors I've had since I started blogging. The number of hits and the comments tell me that I'm not the only one looking for some hard numbers.

Because I am also a research geek, I've done some searching. And I've got some numbers for you. QueryTracker has a page listing their success stories. And on this page, they have links to interviews with writers who have gotten representation. Many of these writers have revealed how many queries they sent before getting their agent. I went through and tabulated the numbers from the last 30 interviews (where the writer answered that question). So here it is, sorted alphabetically by genre...

90      COMMERCIAL
118    FANTASY
46      FANTASY
4       FANTASY
20     HISTORICAL
50     LITERARY
60     MG
60     MG
53     MG
59     MYSTERY
40     PARANORMAL
30     ROMANCE
40     ROMANCE
25     ROMANCE
45     YA
47     YA
100   YA
26     YA
60     YA
102   YA
32     YA
50     YA
39     YA
106   YA
150   YA
20     YA
32     YA
75     YA
96     YA
24     YA SF

And since I admit to being a stats geek, let's break it down.

The average: 57 -- This means the average writer gets 57 rejections before getting an offer of representation
The minimum: 4 -- OK, I'm totally jealous, but really want to read that book.
The maximum: 150 -- Actually, this writer admitted it was between 150 and 200! Talk about perseverance!
The mode: 60 -- The most often recurring number.
The median: 47.5 -- The middle of the road, throwing out the highs and lows.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel SO MUCH BETTER!

I'm a Cover Girl!

2010-05-24T10:13:00.000-05:00

OK, not really. But sorta!

The woman on this cover is not me, but Darcy Bussell, British ballerina. But see that little banner on the upper right hand corner? The "Compelling Mystery Serial" that starts today? That's me!

I'm in the depths of querying my novel (and have been for months) and we all know that means rejections. So I must take my joy and successes where I can. 350,000 people will be reading this magazine and maybe my story.

So.... yay!

Now I have to get back to working on the next serial. And framing the cover to put on my wall. It will make a nice change from the rejection letters.

Do computers make for better writers?

2010-05-19T10:51:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time, if you wanted to be a writer, you had to dust off your typewriter and stock up on ribbon and correction fluid. Or, even more arcane, pens and paper. It took physical, not just mental, effort to complete a manuscript, edit it, and then RETYPE or rewrite the entire thing. And then you had to physically mail it places.

We all know that the advent of computers and email accounts means that it is so much easier to be a writer. Write something once and boom, you can save it, edit it, and email it to every inbox out there. It's making for more writers.

But does the computer make for better writers?

I'm sitting at my desk working on part 2 of my latest serial. (OK, I was. Now I'm writing this. Must stop letting myself be distracted by Blogger.) As I wrote a paragraph, I decided the second sentence worked better as the last so I clicked and dragged it in to place. MUCH better. And that got me thinking...if I had been typing or handwriting my work, would I have made that change, scribbling in the margin or ripping the page out of the typewriter and starting fresh? Would I have kept going, making a note to fix it the next time through? Would I have forgotten about it? What if I changed my mind and wanted to move it back?

I write exclusively in Word, with the exception of crooked fragments written in a bedside notebook in the middle of the night. I can't compose on paper because I am a better writer for having a fluid medium with which to write. I try not to edit as I go, but for me, composing is a dynamic process. I write things down as they flow and then sit back and reorder them so that they work.

My computer makes me a better writer. I honestly don't know if I could complete a novel if I didn't have the technology.

What about you? Do you compose on the computer or long hand? If you use technology, do you think you would still be the writer you are if you had to use paper or a typewriter?

Persistence versus Denial

2010-05-18T09:28:00.000-05:00

First of all -- 50 followers!! Woo-hoo! Thank you all for visiting. It's great to have you here.

I was recently reading a blog comment where someone wrote they had just received their 100th rejection. My first thought was "Maybe that person isn't a good writer and should just get the hint and give up already." But that thought was quickly followed by admiration of the persistence that writer showed.

How many queries do you send, how many rejections do you get before you give up? When is it dedication and tenancity, and when is it just not facing facts that it's not going to happen?

Janet Reid says to query widely, to query every agent that represents your genre. After all, you are searching for someone who loves your work, a very subjective task. Poll fifty people and you'll get fifty different favorite books. So if you query 100 agents of the 750 agents in NYC alone, you're only hitting 13% of the agents. Doesn't sound quite so desperate when you think of it that way.

But then again, others get representation after querying 10 or 20 agents. Is their writing that much better? Did they just get lucky? You hear stories of sucess after of rejections, but how many bestselling authors own up to getting rejected by 100 agents before securing representation?

I don't have an answer to this and I'd love to hear some opinions. How far do you go? How many rejections do you get before you give up? Have you heard stories of someone securing representation and getting a book deal after high numbers of rejections?

Flirty Blogfest

2010-05-16T10:53:00.000-05:00

I thought it would be fun to participate in Critique_This_WIP's Flirty Blogfest. My entry comes from Woman Overboard, my chick-lit WIP (which, in all honesty, has been IP for a long time). The MC, Junia, is on a cruise, trying to change her patterns of falling for bad men.

     I took off my shoes and slid my feet into the turquoise pool. The water was warm, and the ripples I created threw lights all around. It was hypnotic. For a moment, I did nothing but watch the glowing water. I reached into my bag and took out the pack of paper that I always carried for origami emergencies. I folded a little duck and released it across the pool. As it rocked on the waves, I folded another and sent it on its way. Before long, there were six little ducks serenely floating on the now-still water.
    “You're going to block the filter with those.”
   A voice in the dark made me jump so high I almost fell in. I looked around and saw a man in a staff uniform moving toward me. I was about to apologize when I saw him give me the up-and-down, lingering for a moment on my cleavage, which he had a good view of from his position above me. I deliberately gave him the up-and-down. What I saw was worth looking at. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair that curled up just a bit where it brushed his white collar. His blue eyes matched the glowing water and he watched me with a slightly arrogant smile. I knew his type. There was something about the glint in his eye that told me he was used to women checking him out.
     “I'll retrieve them.”
    “Even that one?” he asked, pointing to one at the middle of the pool.
     “Even if I have to swim for it.”
     “In that?" he nodded at the satin skirt I'd hiked up around my knees.
     “No, I guess I'll just have to take it off.” I held his gaze.
    “Now there's an idea,” he said with a different glint in his eye. He sat down on a deck chair and held out his hand. “I'm Max.”
     “My name is Junia,” I said. When I took his hand, warmth shot up my arm and through my body. I swear the water around my legs almost started boiling. But there was no way I was going to show him that. I quickly folded a boat and launched it toward the flock.
   “Neat trick,” he said.
     “Origami.”
     “You're welcome. Will you make me one?”
     I studied him for a moment, trying to decide what to make. I took a sheet and carefully, willing my hands to be steady as rocks, folded and refolded it. I handed the shark to him, which he took with a smile.
     “And what about you?” he asked.
     Again, I studied him silently before starting on another sheet. It took quite a few steps plus another sheet of paper; he watched me without speaking. I plucked my little boat out of the water and added the new figure before holding it up. He took one look at the man holding the spear and burst out laughing before falling back on the lounge chair, hand to chest as though he'd been speared himself.
    “Are you trying to tell me something?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow. He looked gorgeous. Must resist!
     “Not at all,” I said sweetly. “Now if you'll excuse me,” I said, standing up and gathering my skirt in my hands, “I have some waterfowl to retrieve.”
    “Allow me,” Max said, and in one move, was off the lounger and dove into the pool, shoes and all. He surfaced, gathering the bobbing birds carefully while treading water. He swam back to the edge and held them up to me.
    “You know,” he said, shaking the water from his thick hair and chiselled cheekbones, “there aren't many women who could get me to jump in a pool with all my clothes on.” He stood up and his white shirt clung to him, showing a stomach a six-pack would be jealous of.
    “That's me,” I said with a coolness that belied the heat I felt inside. “Junia Wetherby, manipulator of men and paper.” With that, I turned and walked away from the pool, leaving him laughing in the cool, blue water.

All in my control

2010-05-14T11:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday!

On Saturday, we are supposed to go on a boy scout campout. So, of course, it is absolutely throwing down the rain here in San Antonio. Serious rain. Like 4 inches in the past two hours and now many of the roads in our area are flooded and impassable. I am SO not sleeping in a tent on the ground tomorrow night.

A few days ago, I sent off part one of the serial I am writing on spec for a British woman's magazine. I heard back from the fiction editor saying that she and the editor-in-chief loved it. They enjoyed it so much in fact, that they asked if I could make it four parts, instead of three. I, of course, said YES! And then went back to my synopsis and said hmmmm...

The trick with serials is that each part must end on a cliffhanger note. After all, you've got to hook the reader enough to make them remember your story and want to shell out the cover price next week and the week after to see what happens. So making my story a four-parter is not just about expanding the story, but doing it in a way that gives a new cliff hanger at the right time (3800 words per part).

As I sat at my computer trying to figure out where the story could go, I found smiling. What was that feeling creeping over me? I barely recognized it. In my six months of revision, I hadn't experienced it in a while. And then I remembered -- it was that gleeful, god-like feeling of creating a world, characters, breathing life into them, making them do what I want them to do, putting them in horrible or wonderful situations and seeing how they deal with it.

Writers are given a special gift -- the ability to control things. In a corporate time management workshop I attended years ago, we were told "You can control everything except for two things: time and other people." As a writer, I get to control just that.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some lives to play with.

And you? Do you get that feeling of power when you write?

Five Questions, Five answers

2010-05-13T08:43:00.000-05:00

Laurel at Laurel's Leaves tagged me to give Five Answers to Five Questions. I've seen this meme around a lot recently and I'm glad Laurel tagged me because I'd already been thinking how I would answer. The 'five years from now' question really has me wondering because I never end up where I thinking I'm going to.

What were you doing five years ago?

Settling into our new house in Leeds, England
Watching both my stepmother and my mother-in-law battle breast cancer (and win)
Trying to convince the paediatrician that my son’s food aversions were not ‘just a phase’
Writing The Shadow Scribe with some purpose for the first time
Setting up a music program at a Mommy and Me-type group

Where would you like to be five years from now?

Writing for a living, whether as a published author or a freelancer, so that I can be there for my children when needed and still contribute financially to my family’s future. And of course, do what I love.
Taking a family trip of a lifetime to Africa
Supporting my children as they move into middle school and high school
Traveling to Japan for several weeks on my own
Getting a higher writing degree (MFA, MA, PhD?) so I can teach writing

What's on your To-Do list today?

Pilates
Work on part two of my serial
Make an appointment at the spa to finally use my gift certificates from November
Take my daughter for testing to see if she skips kindergarten
Water the flower beds

What snacks do you enjoy?

Guacamole and chips
Nutty chewy granola bars
Life cereal
Popcorn
Frozen raw cookie dough chunks

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire? (I'd actually do these if I were a millionaire)

Fly first class. I’ve had enough of international flights in coach with two kids.
Buy up land in cities and suburbs and put it in trust so we have green spaces, not half-empty strip malls.
Have homes near all of family members (UK and US) so that visiting becomes easier
Give vast amounts of money to research into Autism, mesothelioma, and breast cancer
Set up/donate to existing foundations for bringing the arts (music, art, theatre, and of course, writing) back into schools.

I suppose I should tag others now. I personally like tags and awards, but worry that if I tag or award others, they'll be all like "I don't have time for this stuff!" So let me know in the comments -- how do you feel about tags and awards? Do they make blogging fun or is it just one more thing you don't have time for?

Story Idea Generators

2010-05-11T09:32:00.000-05:00

While The Shadow Scribe is out on query, I need to move on and keep writing. I know I should start the next Big One, but I just can't bring myself to do it yet. I started a long post on why that is, but it was too heavy for a Tuesday, so we'll save it for another day.

Instead, I'm moving on to some short stories. I am lucky to have a relationship with a weekly British woman's magazine that publishes short stories. Woman's Weekly have published two of my stories (2006, 2009) and part one of my first serial will hit the newsstand next week (serials run 3-4 parts of 3800 words each). (If you want to see some excerpts, head on over to my website.) WW recently OK'd another serial idea so I just sent the first part for their approval. As I wait for word from the editor (yes, one more reason to refresh my inbox 30 times an hour), I need something quick to distract me.

But the question is "Where to Start?" Most of my short story ideas just come out of the blue but sometimes, like this week, I needed a jumping off point. When that happens, I turn to a story idea generator. At first, I was skeptical of the generators, which randomly pair up character, conflict and setting. Some go as far as adding themes, beginnings and endings. Results can be cliched, strange, or just plain nonsense. But for me, the results make me think.

A few months back, I used Cally Taylor's short story generator and it gave me: a business man, a playground, regains consciousness. Naturally that begs the question of what a businessman is doing in a playground. A pedofile? A devoted father? A developer looking at tearing it down and building condos? After musing on that for a moment, the idea for "Know Thyself," my first three part serial was born.

This weekend, I turned to the Seventh Sanctum Quick Story Idea generator. While some of these combinations were way too out there for me (lighthearted tragedy about an unbalanced princess?), I kept seeing the character of "ethical smuggler." It gave me a story idea - hopefully perfect for a 2000 word short for the magazine - that will be my project for the next few days.

The nice thing about short stories is that they give more immediate gratification. I know I won't be editing my story for months at a time. I know that if the magazine rejects it, I've only wasted a few days, not years of my life. And they pay. So I get to feel like my writing is contributing a little to my family.

And you? Have you used any story generators or writing prompt sites, whether for novel ideas or short stories? Do you ever distract yourself from your WIP by writing shorter works?

Writing is ruining my Reading

2010-05-06T15:42:00.000-05:00

Too much knowledge can be a bad thing.

When I started college, I was in Television/Radio, which means that I know all those things that go on behind the camera and off-set. It ruined the way I watched TV.

When I got my culinary degree, I had to be Food Safety Certified. The way they train you is by grossing you out with all kinds of heinous videos showing chefs spitting in food, or cooking without handwashing after using the bathroom, or -- the worst -- waiters pi&&ing in the soup. It ruined the way I ate in restaurants.

As a food scientist, I know in great detail what that list of ingredients on the side of a package means. It ruined the way I shopped and prepared dinner for my family.

And now that I have written and revised and revised and betad and revised and revised, I know all those little quirks and grammar don'ts and pitfalls of writing. And it is ruining the way I read.

I recently finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I thought the story was intriguing, but as I read, I was bothered by the passive voice, the backstory dumps, the telling not showing. Some of this, I will chalk up to it being a translation and I think there is only some much leeway the translator has. But at one point, I caught myself thinking "Enough with the sandwiches!" because there were probably about 30 references to the MC eating sandwiches (one of my betas said something similar about my MC drinking too much tea).

For the past six months, I have had a real problem reading books without being extremely critical of the writing. In the past three months, I have given up on about six books, which is way out of the ordinary for me. I don't know if it just the books I have chosen recently or if it is because I am hyper-sensitive.

Any thoughts on this? Are you a more critical reader if you are revising or writing?

And on a side (and very late) note, KarenG, I have a $5 Starbucks gift card for you! If you send your address to the email in my profile, I'll mail it to you. Thanks to you and to the others who indulged me and commented on my writing analogies.

Baking Blogfest

2010-05-01T07:00:00.009-05:00

I'm taking part in Charity Bradford's Baking Blogfest. Since my MC in THE SHADOW SCRIBE is a recipe developer (and so am I - see this post on how recipe development works), this is right up my alley. Here's a scene where Lara is working on a project, preparing recipes and photographs to appear on the back of a cake mix package.

     Once again talking to myself, I brainstormed a few quick ideas. “One stir-in recipe…maybe almonds and coconut. Bar cookies…a variation on millionaire’s shortbread? Something healthy, maybe with fruit?”
     After translating the ideas into rough recipes, I gathered the ingredients for the first recipe and turned on the voice recognition software, setting the laptop off to the side of the work area where it wouldn’t be splashed by anything.
     “One box cake mix, a half-cup chopped toasted almonds, a half-cup shredded coconut, two tablespoons vegetable oil, a quarter-cup water...”
     “You say something, love?”
     “Oh!” I jumped a foot and splashed water down my front. My lack of sleep made me very twitchy. The plumber stood in the doorway.
     “No, sorry, I was working,” I explained, gesturing at the laptop.
     “Right, sorry about that,” he said and walked off toward the front door, avoiding Mike coming in with the wheelbarrow. I closed the door and then went over to the laptop to delete the last exchange from the screen.
     Four hours later, the smell of chocolate filled the kitchen and dirty bowls and desserts of varying degrees of edibility covered the counters. The coconut almond cake was delicious, the bar cookies tasty but too sticky, and the so-called healthy recipe with raisins and bran cereal was disgusting. Recipe development was not a job with immediate gratification. Some projects – like this one – took me five, ten, even twenty tries to get the recipe perfect. The bedroom, my makeshift studio for the day, was in an even worse state. Plates of mauled and mangled food were everywhere, the victims of my attempts for visual culinary perfection. My hero – the food actually photographed – still sat beneath the lights getting dry and stale, looking less than appetizing.

I've done recipe development for baking and for culinary applications, but my true love is baking. When I was in culinary school, our instructor said to the class on the first day, "Some of you are chefs and some of you are bakers. Here, you will do both, but you will find you are drawn to one side or another." And I found that to be true, both for myself and the other students in my class. Why the difference, you might ask?

Cooking is on the fly, meaning that for the most part, you can change and adapt as you go on. You taste, you adjust, you immediately taste again. Many chefs don't use recipes, but go by instinct and feel. Or they start with a recipe and immediately change course to make it even better.

Baking is precision. Consider this: cookies, cakes, and pastries are all made from the same basic ingredients. Flour, sugar, butter, eggs, raising agents. But you change the proportions and you get a totally different result. If you don't balance your recipe perfectly, you do not get the results you expect. And you usually have to wait for some time to find that out (an hour or so for it to bake).

UH-OH! Analogy alert! You could compare this to the difference between pantsers and plotters, right?

Which are you -- a baker or a chef?

The Character of San Antonio

2010-04-29T15:17:00.001-05:00

There have been some great posts on setting, like this one at What Women Write, and this one from Laurel over at Laurel's Leaves. I like the idea of thinking of the setting of a story as a character, because places are as unique as people.

I'm working on a new serial for a UK magazine. This story will be set here in San Antonio and I'm feeling the pressure to capture the city faithfully. I would think the majority of the magazine's readers (40+, female, British) have never visited and will never visit Texas, so my story will, in a sense, represent San Antonio to them.

Texas is a place like no other. And in some ways, it is difficult to explain why in words. Let me show you a brief selection of sights I pass on my daily drive to work:

Like this:

And this:

And this (which, by the way, holds the record for the largest cowboy boots in the world):

Unfortunately, the picture of the Jerky Outlet was out of focus.

Throw in the excitement of our annual Rodeo and Stock Show, the Hispanic influence on the culture, amazing food, and of course, the unique Riverwalk

See what I mean? We're talking one quirky character here. I hope I do her proud.

What about you? Any favorite posts on setting? Do you have a setting that you are particularly proud of/anxious about representing faithfully?

Cooking up more strange stuff

2010-04-28T07:41:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned last week, my former job was a recipe developer. I was given a product and had to use it as an ingredient in a recipe, which might be printed on the back of the packaging or perhaps put on a website for users to access. For three years, I worked for a company that made gravy, sauce, and bakery mixes. After a while, you use up the run-of-the-mill recipe ideas for beef gravy or pancake mix and start to get a little creative (read: weird).

Here is a list of the some of the strange recipes I made:

Rootbeer Float Pancakes: I had to come up with 15 pancake recipes in one week. (And we're not talking about "Add 1 cup blueberries.") I used rootbeer instead of milk to make the pancakes. They tasted a little strange with maple syrup, but they very tasty with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Instant Stuffing Sauce: A restaurant chain wanted a mix they could combine with water and pour over day-old biscuits to make stuffing. It smelled just like Stove-Top , but was kind of thick and sticky so that it didn't make the biscuits soggy.
Mole Sauce: Mole (pronounced Mow - lay) is a wonderful Mexican sauce made from roasted chilis, corn tortillas, almonds and chocolate. Somehow, I managed to turn Beef Gravy mix into a passable mole (OK, not passable here in San Antonio, but they accepted up north just fine). This one took me about twelve attempts to get it right.
Chocolate Cream Pie: I made chocolate pudding out of Biscuit Gravy. This is not quite as weird as it seems when you realize that biscuit gravy is basically flour, corn starch and milk (no seasonings), which are the same main ingredients as pudding. I made up the hot gravy and stirred in sugar and chocolate chips. When the chocolate was melted, I poured it in a prebake pie shell and topped it with whipped cream. OK, yeah, that is pretty weird.

So there you have it: culinary strangeness.

If you missed it, go check out my last post on recipe development as a writing analogy for a little contest. Comment here or at that post and there might be a cup of coffee in it for you (I'm giving away a $5 Starbucks gift card -- sorry, I'm cheap these days as I am no longer employed as a recipe developer!).

Cooking up another writing analogy

2010-04-22T13:26:00.001-05:00

Writers love analogies. And we really love analogies about writing. Some days, it seems like every other blog post out there ends with a comparison of how the day's topic compares to the writing process. I did one on shoes not too long ago.

In my past life (meaning the era before I chucked my career to write full time) I was a recipe developer, working in the test kitchen of a food manufacturer. This also happens to be the job of Lara, my MC in THE SHADOW SCRIBE. As I was revising, I came upon this passage, something Lara says while working:

Recipe development is not a job with immediate gratification. Some projects – like this one – take me five, ten, even twenty tries to get the recipe perfect.

So of course, that got the analogy juices flowing. Let me tell you how recipe development works:

You start with an ingredient (usually a product made by said company). And then you come up with a target recipe. You write out a version of the recipe using the necessary ingredient and then you make the recipe. And you taste it. And you change a few ingredients. And then you make it again. And adjust a few more things. And then you make it again. And taste it again.

By now, you are getting tired of the taste and you are losing your objectivity. So you have a few other people taste it. They give you their opinions; some think it needs more salt, some think it needs less. So you change it again. And you taste it again. You start to think you never want to taste that recipe ever again. But you must, because it is your job, you've worked hard on it, and you are a professional. You remake and retaste a few more times until you think it is perfect.

When you are confident it is finished, you serve it up to the VIPs (usually sales and marketing types). Sometimes they say it isn't quite what they are after (at which point you go back and rework and retaste a few more times). And sometimes, their eyes glaze over, they make yummy noises, and they eat the whole thing. Score.

I'm not going to draw the writing/editing analogy for you -- you are a bright group and I'm sure you'll figure it out.

So that is my "_______ is like writing" analogy.

Let's have a contest (my first ever)! In the comment section, give me your best/most obscure/most ridiculous "_____ is like writing" analogy. If you've already posted an analogy on your own blog, link to it. If you've seen someone else with a great analogy, link to that. If you don't have an analogy, comment anyway. I get lonely over here sometimes.

For anyone who comments or links, I'll throw your name in a hat for a $5 gift card for Starbucks (yeah, it's a small prize but, heck, every writer could use coffee, tea or a muffin). There's an extra entry for anyone who makes a "Writing is like Starbucks" analogy or who mentions this contest on their blog. You've got until Thursday, April 29 to enter.

Come on... you're a writer! I know you've got an analogy floating around there somewhere!

My big ol' but

2010-04-19T07:39:00.001-05:00

(Note: This post was originally titled "I have a problem with my but" -- I was a little worried about what Google would bring. Even now, I am a bit concerned.)

Last week, I asked if anyone had experience with AutoCrit or any other editing software. I wanted a program that would flag if I had repeated words or phrases and similar glitches because, frankly, after eight drafts, I am just a tad bit overfamiliar with my manuscript. And overfamiliarity breeds typos.

I signed up for AutoCrit ($47 for a 1 year membership) and ran a few chapters through. With the wizard, you cut and paste a single chapter in (or up to 5000 words at a time) and select the report you want to run. I selected the report on overused words (-ly adverbs, just, that, conjunctive phrases, was construction and so on) on one chapter and noticed the conjunctive beginning box was checked. When I looked through the highlighted, I found a whole bunch of buts. I'd never noticed this glitch in my writing before so I went back to my manuscript and highlighted every but in there.

597.

At first I wasn't sure whether it was a problem, so I went to Strunk and White and asked them. As usual, they sniffed down their noses and said "The too frequent use of but as a conjunction leads to the fault (of) loose sentences. Loose sentences are common in easy, unstudied writing. The danger is that there may be too many of them."

S**t, if you'll pardon the pun.

I am now much better friends with yet, however, although, and except.

But that's OK.

For this reason

2010-04-15T09:30:00.000-05:00

I've been rather iffy on the whole blog thing. I know I'm supposed to do it to build my platform, but that feels a bit forced to me. Recently, I've been questioning whether it is worth it at all.

The response to my last post showed me that it is, and not for the "supposed to" reasons. We all know that writing can be a tough business. Sometimes,when the rejections come rolling in, it can be a downright lonely and soul-destroying business (and I've had a few lonely, soul-destroying weeks). But on Wednesday, a bunch of strangers with nothing to gain said some really nice things about my writing. It cheered me up a lot, so I went and said some nice things to other writers. It made me feel like a part of a community. It made me feel like a writer. And it made me feel like these strangers weren't strangers, but friends that I have a lot in common with. And it is for this reason that I will continue to blog.

So, thank you to my lovely new friends.

And while you are here, maybe you can give me your writerly opinion. Take a look at this sentence:

Pages clutched in an outraged hand.

What do you think of this line? Can a hand be outraged? I was thinking a hand could show that someone was outraged (white knuckles, tension, etc.) but I'm not sure if this is one of those weird lines that just doesn't work. I'd love to hear your thoughts...

Fun and exciting news

2010-04-14T08:00:00.004-05:00

Fun and exciting news -- Laurel at Laurel's Leaves has chosen my excerpt from THE SHADOW SCRIBE as the third runner up in her Eleventy One Celebration Contest!

For this contest, the scene or story had to be dialogue-driven and show an instance of negotiation and/or persuasion. I selected a scene from THE SHADOW SCRIBE, my novel out in query-land. Here's the brief blurb:

Soon after Lara Ramsey moves into Heraldsgreen House, a Georgian house in the Scottish countryside, she starts talking in her sleep. Every night, Lara’s story is captured by the voice recognition software on her computer. Every morning, Lara wakes to read a new chapter about an artist who loses the woman he loves and tries to find love and inspiration once again. Stranger still, the style of language she uses is from two hundred years ago. Lara is beginning to think she’s crazy, her dream home is starting to scare her, and her skeptical husband, David, is never there. For the sake of her sanity and her marriage, she must find out what the story is and why she is telling it.

In this excerpt, an exhausted Lara meets with her friend Isobel and tells her of the strange goings on.

“Lara, has it occurred to you that there may be more to this?”

“Like what?”

“There is a huge amount of energy in this world that most people are completely unaware of,” she said, pointing her biscuit at me.

“What do you mean by energy? Currents?”

“Sort of. Forces, like the life force, move through all of us. Some are more sensitive to it than others,” Isobel said with a meaning look. “Maybe you are channeling some of this energy as you sleep.”

“Channeling? Like a medium? Ghosts? Are you serious?”

Isobel shrugged. “You live in a really old house. Are you telling me you’ve never considered the possibility?”

I didn’t answer right away. “I guess I never really thought about it like that,” I said slowly. “I don’t think I believe in ghosts.”

“That doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.”

I was glad the waitress came to take our order because I needed a few minutes to think about what Isobel suggested. We were both silent until the she placed a basket of rolls on the table and left.

“Isobel, it can’t be ghosts.”

“Why not?”

“I haven’t seen anything, or heard anything weird.”

“Other than the sleepwalking or telling a historical story while you are unconscious?” she asked patiently.

“Right, good point.”

“Look, I’m not saying that ghosts are strolling down the hallways of Heraldsgreen. I’m only suggesting that there may be some unresolved energy in the house.”

“David is going to think that is ridiculous,” I said, more to myself than to her. “He doesn’t believe in anything like that.”

“Why not?

“He’s a scientist. If it doesn’t have academic backing, he’s not interested.”

“Scientists drive me crazy,” Isobel snorted, tossing her long hair back over her shoulder. “They are always so sure what they know is true, right up until the next big discovery proves them totally wrong. Then they hold on to that theory as if it is the one true answer. Look, if he says anything, throw this at him: The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, right?”

“If you say so.” Where did she come up with this stuff? It was pure Isobel. She probably had copies of Popular Science next to Reflexology Monthly.

“And we’ve proven the body has energy: brain waves, electrical activity in the heart, the energy we create by eating and drinking, the heat we give off and so on. David would have to admit to this, right?”

“Of course.”

“So what happens to all the energy, the electricity we know about – and all the energy we don’t – when we die? Is it so hard to believe from a scientific perspective that the energy remains after the body passes on?”

“You make a good point.” Isobel blew me away. She was always like this, sometimes she seemed so flaky, yet she was so intelligent. Her brain just seemed to work a little bit differently.

“Just something you can use to get David on board. Tell him not to eliminate something just because he doesn’t understand it.”

Thanks, Laurel, both for running the contest and for giving me a lift when I really needed it!

Wanted: Feedback on Critique Software

2010-04-12T17:25:00.000-05:00

Recently, I posted about using Gary Corby's neat little wildcard string for searching out one of my grammar quirks. Since then, I've been playing around in Word trying to find a way to highlight echo words, only to come up empty-handed. I then searched on the 'net to try to find a macro for finding repetitive words and phrases and came upon the AutoCrit Manuscript Editing Wizard.

The wizard allows you to paste in a scene or chapter (the amount you can paste and how often you can do it is dictated by your subscription level) and get feedback. The basic subscription (listed as $47) gives you reports on overused words, repeated phrases, sentence variations, repeated words, dialogue tags, first words, names and pronouns, frequent phrases. The higher subscription levels give you more.

I am intrigued. Normally, I am skeptical of software that analyzes writing (don't even get me started on Word Grammar check). But these days, I am so over-familiar with my manuscript that I feel I am missing some basic stuff. So I wonder if AutoCrit (or similar) might help me with some nitty-gritty mechanics.

Any thoughts on this? Does anyone have any experience with AutoCrit or any other program that would do similar things?

The many elements of rejection

2010-04-10T10:22:00.000-05:00

Rejection sucks. I was reminded of that on Thursday when I got the big R on the revised full I sent to an agent. As I sat wallowing in self-pity (I always give myself six hours of wallowing time before forcing myself to get back to work), I started analyzing what it was about this rejection that hurt the most.

1. It made me question my ability. This one is pretty obvious. It is hard to hear someone say that they just don't think your book is good enough. It made me wonder if it is good at all. Will anyone think it is good enough? Will this book end up in the bottom drawer? Have I just wasted 15 months?

2. The schelp isn't over. For a few weeks there, I was starting to think I would be done with synopses, query letters, submission tracking tables, trips to the copy shop, postage, SASEs, and all the little chores that go with querying. Um, nope.

3. More money out the door. I am a very frugal person and I hate that I might have to spend more on manuscript copies and postage. I feel guilty spending the money, knowing that nothing may come of it. At times, it feels very self-indulgent. I worry that my husband (who is extremely supportive, both emotionally and financially) will finally look at me and say "Enough! Go get a real job and stop spending on a book that may never happen."

4. Admitting it. There are way too many people who know that I reached the stage of having agent interest, which means that I am (too) often being asked "Have you heard anything?" And now I have to 'fess up. Meh. In truth, I think this one bothers me the most. My pride is wounded and I would prefer to lick my wounds in private. Lesson learned. Next time, I will be very careful who I tell.

Like I said, I ruminated on this for about six hours. And then I gave myself a mental slap and reminded myself that this is just part of the journey. There is still another agent looking at the manuscript. There are hundreds of agents still out there. I won't give up. I can't give up. I remember the words of Randy Pausch:

Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want something badly enough. They are there to keep out the other people.

What I learned this weekend

2010-04-05T16:40:00.001-05:00

I learned a few valuable things this weekend and I thought I would share them with you.

1. Do not mail chocolate bunnies to south Texas in April, because they will go into the mail looking like bunnies and come out of the mail looking like this:

2. Easter egg hunting in the Hill Country takes on a whole new dimension. You have to watch out for cactus. And scorpions.

3. Texas has some real pretty weeds. The bluebonnet is the prettiest. There must have been twenty people who pulled their car over to take pictures in this field.

4. Sometimes, you meet a character from one of your stories. I'm working on a serial short story and have been struggling a little with developing the main character. I knew what I wanted her to be but couldn't quite get her backstory to fit. At a party this weekend, I met someone and it just went off like fireworks in my head -- this woman was my character. Suddenly, my backstory was clear and Serina came alive. She won't be based on this person (who is so fabulous and kind that I know she wouldn't mind) but she will be the person I picture as I write the story.

Anyone else learn anything new this weekend?

Because charity doesn't end when the headlines do

2010-03-31T17:59:00.000-05:00

The news of earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010 dominated the news for days. But it wasn't long before the headlines turned to other things. Now, almost eleven weeks later, we hear little about what is happening in the devastated country.

Haiti's problems are just beginning. A "Preliminary Damage and Needs Assessment" (PDNA) report issued by Haiti's government and several major donors gave these statistics:

More than 220,000 people killed and more than 300,000 others injured.
Homes: 105,000 completely destroyed, more than 208,000 damaged.
Educational institutions: more than 1,300 collapsed or unusable.
Hospitals and health centres: more than 50 collapsed or unusable.
Debris: 40 million cubic metres
Total value of damage and losses: US$7.9 billion, equivalent to 120 per cent of Haiti's 2009 GDP (by that measure, the Jan. 12 quake was the worst disaster in the 35 years that methodology has been applied)
Recovery cost: $11.5 billion over the next three years

These numbers are overwhelming. You may wonder what you can do to help.

You can read!

That's right. Inspired by one author, 100 writers got together and contributed short stories of hope, love, joy, and life that would help raise money for the victims of the earthquake.

100 Stories for Haiti is available in ebook form from Smashwords

or in paperback from British publisher Bridge House Publishing.

Since it is a British publisher, the cost is in pounds and the shipping is expensive. If the shipping cost is a problem but you would still like to order a copy, please let me know in the comments. I will be going to the UK in June and would be happy to add your order to mine and hand carry them back to the US. (If I order 5 copies at once, it will ship direct from the printer and save money).

If you would like more information, go to the 100 Stories for Haiti website or click the image on the right hand side of this blog.

Imagine...you get to read great stories (including my story "The Last Bus to Montreal") AND you will be contributing to the British Red Cross to aid Haiti.

If you want to get involved, please link to this blog or directly to 100 Stories for Haiti and help us get the word out.
Thank you!

You can't handle the truth

2010-03-29T18:19:00.001-05:00

So in a forest of lies, I will now reveal the truth...

1.   When I was in college, one of my good friends was a vampire. This is FALSE, because vampires don’t exist. OK, this is almost true because one of my good friends swore blind he was a vampire. To this day, I don’t know if he was (cuz who am I to say they don’t exist), or if he honestly believed he was (which may mean he needed serious help), or if he was pulling an elaborate hoax on us (to which I say, DUDE!?)

2.   When I lived in Toronto, I decided to get a tattoo. As I was sitting in the tattoo parlor leafing through the book of options, the Chinese restaurant next door caught fire and we had to evacuate. I took it as a sign from the Universe that I shouldn’t get inked. I still don’t have a tattoo. This is TRUE. I should point out that I have made a deal with the Universe that if I get a book deal, I am going to get that tattoo.

3.   When we got married, my husband and I both wore dresses. This is FALSE. My husband wore a kilt, which is nowhere near a dress. He (and any other Scotsman) gets seriously ticked if you refer to it as a dress. Here's a picture...

OK, this one's not our wedding photo but that was a long time ago, before digital cameras. My husband (and any other Scotsman) wears his kilt at every opportunity.

4. My favorite thing to do is go camping. I love hiking to a place where no one has been and just chilling out by the campfire. This is FALSE. I am a room service kind of girl. I love nature, but I prefer to have a hot bath after enjoying it.

5. Shortly after I graduated, I was approached by a recruiter from the Department of Defense to work for them on an artificial intelligence computer project I started while in college. This is FALSE. But this happened to a very good friend of mine. I may write a book about this one day because it is such a good story.

6. I don’t believe in love at first sight. This is so completely FALSE. I honestly believe in love at first sight and have been lucky enough to experience it. Once. I married him. (see #3 above).

As I was completing this little exercise, it occurred to me that a lot of my fabrications had a nugget of truth to them. I realized that this is very similar to my writing style as well. Many of my stories have some basis in reality, whether it is characters or setting or plot elements. I am a very visual writer, meaning that whole scenes, conversations, actions playing out in my head like a movie before I write them, so it helps if I can picture it. Using reality as my jumping off point works for me. I am in awe of writers who build worlds from scratch.

How about you? How much of your fabrications have a basis in truth?

Lies lies lies!

2010-03-26T18:24:00.001-05:00

It's no secret I've had a bad couple of weeks. I've been vocal enough about it and I'm really tired of my whining (I'm sure you are too).

So to turn the beat around, I'm going to thank Laurel of Laurel's Leaves for giving me the "Creative Writer" award, which celebrates our ability to pass off the made-up as reality.

The requirement of the award is that I tell five lies and one truth. So here goes:

When I was in college, one of my good friends was a vampire.
When I lived in Toronto, I decided to get a tattoo. As I was sitting in the tattoo parlor leafing through the book of options, the Chinese restaurant next door caught fire and we had to evacuate. I took it as a sign from the universe that I shouldn’t get inked. I still don’t have a tattoo.
When we got married, my husband and I both wore dresses.
My favorite thing to do is go camping. I love hiking to a place where no one has been and just chilling out by the campfire.
Shortly after I graduated, I was approached by a recruiter from the Department of Defense to work for them on an artificial intelligence computer project I started while in college.
I don’t believe in love at first sight.

So I ask you, which one do you think is true? Go on... guess!

Please leave your pick in the comments section. I'll post the answers in a day or so.

I blanked

2010-03-25T13:14:00.000-05:00

We've all got our little words and phrases that crop up in our writing over and over again, those writing weaknesses that we don't notice, but cringe when someone points them out. I found mine. And boy, did I cringe.

My weakness: I blanked. By that, I mean that I overuse the phrasing "I *ed" such as I looked, I walked, I started, I moved, I gathered. My book is in first person, and while there is no way to completely avoid that phrasing, it is not the most effective way to convey the action that is taking place. As was pointed out to me very recently, too much of it leads to a boring step-by-step run down of what's going on.

I am now enternally grateful to Gary Corby, who wrote a life-saving post on Advanced Searching in Microsoft. With the help of his post, I was able to highlight every instance of "I blanked" -- all 745 of them. (Yeah. Major cringing going on here.) I am well on the way to fixing these (only 650 now!) and my writing is much stronger for it.

On a side note, out of 10+ beta readers, not one commented on that. But a publishing professional did, so guess who I'm listening to.

The worst thought in the world

2010-03-23T13:08:00.000-05:00

Today I had a moment. A bad moment. A BAD MOMENT.

As I sat with my head in my hands trying to work through a difficult rewrite, a treacherous little thought entered my head. This tiny dark voice crept around my tired synapses and whispered to me that maybe I should just give up. And for one brief second, it sounded like a good idea. I had a flash of how much easier it would be if I wasn't doing this. I would sleep at night. I would stop staring at a computer screen until my eyes hurt. I would stop checking my email forty times a day. I would stop rereading the same passages over and over until the words blurred together. I would stop getting rejected. I would stop torturing myself with questions of whether I am good enough.

I won't give up. I can't give up. I know that. But this is the first time in my life as a writer that I ever thought of it, even if just for a second. It scared me.

Have you ever thought this? What did you do?

Starting Over

2010-03-21T12:55:00.001-05:00

I'm revising again. AGAIN. I've revised once before based on an agent's feedback and while the revision addressed some problems at the end of the book, there are still some pacing issues in the first 50 pages (again, more feedback from that wonderful agent who is being extremely generous with her time).

Those first chapters are a problem. I've revised them many times but, although things have improved, they're just not good enough. So I've reached a conclusion: they have to go.

That's right. Gone. I am going to throw them away and start fresh. After a several difficult days of muttering to myself and frantic highlighting and scribbling in the margins of the latest draft, I came up with a lot of reasons why this is necessary:

Those chapters were written four years ago. The rest of the book (where there are far fewer problems) was written last year. I know I am a much better writer now, the way that a dancer is better for practicing every day.
They have been picked apart and put back together so many times that they don't flow they way they should.
Trying to fix the problem using what is there is clearly not working. I need to approach those chapters in a new way and I can't do that with the old words staring at me.
I know my characters and better. Because of this, I can communicate the backstory and motivation much more effectively and efficiently now.

I have to admit that when I decided this, I felt sick. I thought I was finished. I wanted what's there to be good enough. There is still a lot of writing in those chapters that I like (I may use some of it, but I will make that decision AFTER I finish the new chapters). But it has to be done. And the more I think about it, the more eager I am to start writing. There is that thrill of possibility in writing something new. I am optimistic that it will show and make the book much stronger.

Fingers crossed.

What about you? Have you ever done this? How did it work out for you?

A Writer's Shoes

2010-03-18T08:19:00.000-05:00

I find I walk differently depending on which shoes I'm wearing. I also find that I feel differently too.

When I wear these, I have this rolling, strutting walk (can't help it - that's what boots do!). I feel flirty, a bit sexier, a bit wild. I feel like I should be in Gruene Hall, listening to some rockin' Texas folk music and drinking Bud longnecks.

These are my new Skecher Shape Ups, which I love. To walk in them, I really have to slow down and take careful steps. When I wear these, I feel healthy and a bit smug. I also feel sore. They really make my butt and legs hurt.
(And, yes, they really do work!!)

And when I wear these... actually, I never wear these. I'm not sure why I bought them since they are totally different from my usual style. If I wore them, I think I would feel self-conscious. As for the way I would walk in them, I'm fairly certain I would just fall down.

All these shoes make me think about writing. There are types of writing that I slip into easily. I feel comfortable. They fit. I feel like I can run. Some types of writing make me feel reckless and excited, like I'm a different person. Other types of writing pinch in places and just don't feel right. I might try it anyway, just to see. After all, we've all worn shoes because they look good, even if they hurt like crazy!

What about you? Do you slip into some writing easily while another type just doesn't fit? Do you force yourself to try on new writing, even if it doesn't feel quite right?

Digital Dirt

2010-03-17T10:31:00.000-05:00

Things have gone all kinds of wrong this week, on both the personal and writing fronts. I would love to rant a little about the writing side of it and get some of the support and commiseration that fellow bloggers and writers are so good at. But I don't dare, for fear that some day an agent or editor might do a search on me and my digital dirt would be revealed. I've seen warnings all over the blogosphere to be careful what you put out there because too much complaining or too much personal information might cause a publishing professional to pause or even pass.

I read a blog of another writer and while I find her posts interesting, I cringe to read some of the REALLY personal stuff that she puts out there. I understand that it is who she is and she writes about it because it defines her in many ways. But I also know that it is the kind of thing that would throw up warning signs about her ability to be a professional writer (meaning one who can meet deadlines, market herself in a polished way, and so on). This writer is in the query stages and I want to email her and say 'Be Careful!!' But I don't know her enough to do that, although sometimes I feel I do, courtesy of the strange pseudo-intimacy that blogging sometimes promotes.

In the meantime, I try to keep my own thoughts and blog posts free of digital dirt. How about you? How careful are you about what you post? Do you read other blogs that are too personal? Do you know anyone whose digital dirt came back to haunt them?

The Clock Springs Forward

2010-03-15T10:27:00.001-05:00

I've never been a fan of daylight savings. It throws me off for days and I hate losing an hour of sleep, whether in reality or in theory. And it is safe to say that this year was the worst clock change ever.

At 5:00am on Sunday morning (or 6:00am, depending on which clock in my house you were looking at), I was awakened by a loud crash and the sound of breaking glass. I immediately sat up in bed, heart pounding and knees absolutely weak, thinking for sure that someone was breaking into the house. What freaked me out even more is that my husband didn't even move. I swear, that man could sleep through an air horn held to his head. I kicked him (literally) a few times and whispered "Did you hear that?" to which he replied "Huh?"

I jumped out of bed, realizing that the phone was in the other room, that my children were sleeping upstairs, and that I had nothing I could grab as a weapon. So, armed with the only heavy thing I could find -- a copy of Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" -- I crept out of the bedroom and into the living room. My husband finally got up and snuck up behind me, almost getting himself Manteled in the process. While the smart thing to do would have been to turn the light on (thereby surprising any possible intruder), we stumbled around in the dark trying to find who or what made the crash. And finally, we discovered what it was.

This:

Our Wall Clock

Apparently, my husband had come home from a work party late Saturday night after I was already in bed. He decided to change the clocks before retiring. He changed the wall clock and replaced it on the wall, but managed to miss the hanger on the back. It took approximately four hours of ticking for the clock to slide off the end of the nail.

Next year, I'm going to skip daylight savings all together and just keep my own time.

Are Debut Books Better?

2010-03-11T13:03:00.000-06:00

It has been a disappointing month for me in the reading department. There are several books I have been anticipating, all new books from authors I love. Of the four books I was eagerly waiting for, I was let down by three of them.

On one of them, I didn't get past page 50 because it was all backstory and informationg-dumping and I didn't care enough to keep going. Another kept my interest through the whole book, but I was constantly thinking "Did an editor even look at this?" because I felt the writing was a bit... well, sloppy. Another felt like a retread of the last book.

I would expect this from some of those author machines who churn out 2 or 3 books a year, but it surprises me in literary and commercial fiction.

If I had to go through the last twenty books I read and rank them for how I liked them, debut books came out on top by a long shot. It had me wondering -- is this because in this tough publishing climate, debut novels have to be better to get published? Once an author has a track record, are authors, agents, and editors taking less time to make sure the books are better than perfect?

I'd love to hear some opinions on this because it has me wondering if it is just me reading too critically these days.

Long time coming

2010-03-01T17:15:00.000-06:00

I finished the revised draft of my manuscript a few weeks ago. Right after I clicked the 'Send' button to get it out to the agents waiting for it, I updated my Facebook status, which is how I've kept my friends and family up-to-date on my writing process. Out of curiousity, I looked back at my status updates from the past year and a timeline of writing my novel emerged. I'm a big nerd when it comes to stuff like this, so I thought I would break it down here, starting with when the idea hit. Note that the during the years-long gaps, I wasn't writing at all.

Spring 1992 – write ‘Night Words,’ a 20-page short story
Fall 2002 -- decide to turn 'Night Words' into a novel. Do an extensive outline with 17 chapters.
Fall 2006 – complete three chapters of ‘Night Words’ and submit it to a (very) small opening pages competition; selected as the winner of the suspense category, and also given Reader’s Favorite award.
February 19, 2009 -- Start working on 'Night Words' full time.
May 31, 2009 -- Complete beta draft (renamed The Shadow Scribe); 67,000 words; 24 chapters; submitt to 8 beta readers
August 3, 2009 -- All feedback received and digested; begin revision
October 1, 2009 -- The Shadow Scribe is commended in the Yeovil Literary Prize
October 19, 2009 -- Complete 'final' draft; 78,000 words, 24 chapters
October 20, 2009 -- Send out first queries
October - December 2009 -- Receive 6 full requests and 2 partials.
December 2009 -- one partial and four fulls rejected, but one with feedback and invitation to resubmit with changes
Decmber 15, 2009 -- begin revision (massive restructuring with rewrites)
January 4, 2010 -- contacted by remaining two agents with fulls; arrange to send revised manuscript when ready
January 24, 2010 -- complete revision; 80,000 words, 30 chapters; send to one reliable beta reader
February 14, 2010 -- receive feedback from beta
February 19, 2010 -- complete 'final final' draft; 82,000 words, 31 chapters; sent to agents
March 1, 2010 -- waiting, waiting, waiting....

So in theory, it took me 18 years to write The Shadow Scribe. In practice, it took exactly one year (February 19 -- how weird is that?!) from the point where I seriously buckled down and started writing to the point where I had a manuscript I knew was 'finished' (noting of course that there could be agent-requested and editor-requested changes, if I should be so lucky to get to that point).

What about you? How long has it taken you with your projects?

Using real life as bait

2010-02-25T20:58:00.000-06:00

Lately I've been feeling that things are going pretty well for me, at least in terms of the writing thing. I'm waiting to hear back on my revised full manuscript from three agents who expressed interest, one of my short stories will appear in '100 Stories for Haiti', and I've just submitted a three-part short story serial for final approval at a major British magazine. So what's the logical next step? Get a job. That has nothing to do with writing.

That's right. I have a job interview on Tuesday. I didn't plan this. The whole freelance writing and do-what-I-can-with-the-novel gig has actually been working out pretty well, which is good, because there aren't many jobs for my career in San Antonio (recipe developer, food scientist, food stylist). But last night on Monster there was a job listing I just couldn't pass up. I applied and got a call for an interview this morning. In truth, I'm probably underqualified, as this is a total dream job (side note -- this is the job my MC has). But worth a shot.

And I figure, what better way to make the Universe cough up an agent and book deal than to get a full-time job that requires real commitment?

I'm now predicting my dream agent will call on Tuesday while I'm interviewing. Cuz that's the way the universe rolls. Yeah, fate has a sense of humor.

Am I tempting fate? Have you had any of these little happenings, where you think you are going one way and life hands you something else?