Gaining Perspective

I finally looked at my Marlene scores today. I got 45,40,30 out of 50. The comments were mostly helpful. This was the first contest for my YA and I'll be the first to admit it's in a rough stage. Today, I was putting together my entry for the Fire and Ice contest and I did note that a bit of the beginning was different. Hopefully each entry gets a little stronger.

I don't know if you saw that The Knight Agency is sponsoring a Book In A Nutshell Contest. Bastically, you submit 3 sentences (150 word max) and they pick the top 20. Those lucky people then get to have their manuscript looked at by an agent. I'm going to guess they'll get over 1000 submissions. I wonder if they have any idea what they're in for. Of course, you have to have a completed manuscript to query, maybe that'll slow some people down. I still don't know if I've got a shot, but what the heck. I tossed in A Case Of Meddling. I chose this one because although it's been requested, I'm hestitant about sending in the full because I'm no longer confident I understand what Desire is looking for in a new author. So this is my Hail Mary play.

To give you some sense why I feel this way, I should explain I followed up on Firebrand Literary's Query Holiday results. Basically, they opened the floodgates and allowed anyone (and everyone) to send a first chapter. They received 3700 submissions in a month. 900 the first day. GASP. That's the competition fellow authors. Daunting, ain't it?

Today's goal: Get the Fire and Ice entry off
Yesterday's accomplishment: Sent back all my judged entries
What I'm grateful for: The gumption to keep trying despite the odds
Quote: "Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough." Og Mandino (1923 - 1996)

The end of an era

From the top, moving clockwise: Taz, Amber, Kahlua, Asti.

I probably should have posted this weekend about this, but I just didn't have it together. All four of my kitties have moved on. I put my last one down on Saturday. I'm now living in a pet free zone and I'm both sad about it and a little relieved.

My dad asked me when I was going to get a puppy. I just laughed. I think I'm going to enjoy the lack of kittie messes (roller poopies, barf, litter everywhere) for a long while. I can get new furniture, stop covering the old furniture and not have to sleep with my bedroom door closed. And if I need to cuddle, my daughter's just going to have to pick up the slack.

And now back to my (ir)regularly scheduled blog

Hello, I'm back from vacation with my daughter. Two days on a train, two full days and two part days in Chicago near the fabulous Magnificent Mile (Michigan Ave). Oh, how the time does fly.

We had a great time. The city is big and noisy. Full of lights and people. When we arrived at 4pm on Sunday night, we settled in, had dinner at the fabulous pub restaurant in our hotel (shephard's pie--OHMYGOD YUM) and then hiked to the John Hancock. Imagine my culture shock to find out that Chicago doesn't slow down on Sunday night. It's a hoppin' happenin' place.

We went to the Alden Planetarium and Field Museum on Monday. And the Museum of Science and Industry on Tuesday. Lots of cool stuff in all those places.

Since we took the train, we were dependent on public transportation to get around. Buses were our friend. The weather was a bit cool for outdoor activities, but we still managed to hoof it a bit. Nothing like experiencing a big city one step at a time.

Being out of touch with the internet was rather nice. I had about 40 e-mails when I returned. Most of them junk mail (I gotta clean that up). I hope all you were good while I was gone. Seems like they went and announced the Rita/GH finalists. Congrats to all you who finaled. I'll be in the audience in July cheering you on.

Today's goal: unpack
Yesterday's achievement: relaxed
What I'm grateful for: 4 days of no work
Quote: "No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one." -Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915)

Hello vacation, here I come

I've had a pretty productive couple of weeks writing wise. So, I'm feeling pretty good about taking off for 4 days and leaving my laptop behind. Okay, maybe I'm a little twitchy about being out of touch for 4 days. It's a little like quitting smoking cold turkey.

Since we're taking the train to Chicago and it's an 8 hour ride, I thought I would take some reading material along. No laptop, just reading. I can't wait!

Today's goal: Wash clothes for the trip
Yesterday's achievement: Got my entries off for the Touch Of Magic Contest
What I'm grateful for: A vacation with my daughter
Quote: "Henry James would have been vastly improved as a novelist by a few whiffs of the Chicago stockyard." -H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956) Here's hoping it works for me too!

Balancing dialogue and narrative

Mark Valley. Ispiration for Dane Holcroft, ex-Navy man and lawyer

We all know that the more white space, the faster the book reads. In an effort to keep a grip on my pacing and be able to keep track of my story flow, I've started bolding the dialogue. I've done this now for the last 3 rewrites/edits and it seems to work pretty darned well.

I'm not a huge fan of giant chunks of a book being inner dialogue. Or long passages of descriptive narrative. When I read, I tend to skim most of these because if the author has to spend pages and pages telling me what their character's thinking, then they're not doing a very good job of showing me what's going on, now, are they?

Same thing with descriptive narrative. Unless it somehow pertains to the action, I don't really care that much about the setting. A house is a house, unless it helps you with character development.

That being said, often setting is very important in my books. Some of the reason why I describe my character's surroundings is because I was once told I was terrible at it. Any time I get told I don't do something well, I go out of my way to correct that. Another reason is that where a person lives or how they decorate their home can offer clues to their personality.

So, do you have any technique you use as you write to help keep the story flowing or editing tricks that make the work easier?

Today's goal: Finish adding the word count needed to TOM contest
Yesterday's achievement: Added 2000 words to The Baby Bargain
What I'm grateful for: I drove home from work with the windows down yesterday
Quote: "Play: Work that you enjoy doing for nothing." -Evan Esar (1899 - 1995), Esar's Comic Dictionary

The Christmas Bargain has left the building

It's on it's way to New York Monday morning. I dropped it in the mail tonight. As always, I send it off with mix emotions. This novel is a departure for me because it's not targeted at Silhouette Desire, but at Special Edition. It was really easy to write. Almost too easy. The secondary characters were a ball to work with. I only hope they didn't overwhelm the scenes they're in.

My next project is to write 2000 words on the sequel and get it ready to go into the Touch Of Magic contest. That's due on Saturday.

Then, I'm going to tackle a Nocturne Bites for the pitch. I started something a thousand years ago and had no idea what to do with it. Then the whole plot just exploded in my head and I knew exactly what to do. It could be written into a whole book, but I think it will work great as a Bites. The pitch is April 15th. The blurb is due the 4th I think.

After that, it's back to Bound By Duty. ARG. I have to get this thing finished. I'm going to write the darned thing however it wants to be written and not worry about trying to fit it into a predetermined shape. Maybe that will help me get it done. That, and the fact that I had a little brainstorm about my hero's inner conflict. It would be nice to finish it sometime mid-May. Say, the 15th.

You've probably noticed my YA has gotten lost somewhere. Sigh. I need to get some feedback on it before I'll be ready to move forward. And I should be getting lots of feedback in April. That's when all the contests are due to announce finalists.

Today's goal: Get manuscript done and mailed
Yesterday's accomplishment: Final polish complete
What I'm grateful for: I walked outside in bare feet today. WHOOHOO!!!
Quote: "Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out."
-Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), from Boswell's Life of Johnson

I'm this ( ) close to being done

This is how I picture all those manuscript look heading to Silhouette.

1500 words from now I will be able to write "THE END" on my revisions for The Christmas Bargain. I probably should have worked a little harder and gotten done sooner. Today, at eharlequin Susan is hosting an on-line Special Edition pitch. There are 11 pitchers and in the next week or so there will be 11 fulls or partials winging their way to her desk. Unfortunately, my full will be mixed in with that crowd.

Oh well, at least the wait will give me time to finish Bound By Duty and maybe even the sequel to The Christmas Bargain. The last time I sent her a full, she got back to me in 9 months. That's more than enough time to write a book and a half.

I hadn't intended to concentrate on short contemporary this year. I really wanted to try something new, but after not finaling in the Marlene with my YA, I'm going to wait for some feedback before moving forward with it.

So, there's my near future in a nutshell. Stop back in a couple days and it may have changed. Sigh.

Today's goal: Finish the last chapter
Yesterday's accomplishment: worked on edits up to the last chapter. Finished updating the synopsis for The Christmas Bargain
What I'm grateful for: We might have just endured our last sub zero day this winter. WHOOHOO!!!
Quote: "Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck -- but, most of all, endurance." -James Baldwin (1924 - 1987)

Dealing with rough spots

Well, last Thursday I decided to print out the first three chapters of The Christmas Bargain and start working the book on paper. You get a very different feel between reading on a computer screen and reading on paper. Usually I wait until the polishing stage to print pages out because I tend to rework my prose a lot, rearranging sentences, etc., and like to be down to tweaking a word or two here and there before I work on paper.

What else a paper format gives me is a better sense of continuity and flow of the book as a whole instead of individual sentences. I was pretty confident about the first chapter, and the third chapter (because it didn't see a huge rewrite), but chapter two saw the most change and it has caused me the most trouble in the past because my characterizations went awry.

Sure enough, I breezed through chapter one and got completely stalled on two. I put the pages down with this sick sense that something wasn't working. The tone I'd had earlier wasn't there. The scene involves the characters arguing over the heroine joining the hero for Christmas as his pretend fiancee. Why the scene didn't work didn't jump out at me right away. After sleeping on it, I realized that my attempts to maintain the sexual tension were causing him to be too over the top.

To fix it, I took out a few spots where he's coming on to her and left her reactions to him intact. The sexual tension is there, but he's not causing her to feel uncomfortable, what's going on inside her is where the trouble originates. And his behavior is more true to how he behaves in the rest of the book. Earnest, charming, but a bit of a scoundrel. Instead of the oversexed dude I'd turned him into.

Needless to say, I'm happier with the chapter. Which is a relief, because I often worry about my second and third chapters not being as strong as my first. I'm crossing my fingers that this has changed.

What happens to you when things aren't really working? Do you get stalled? Do you move on to something else? How do you get past the rough spots?

Today's goal: Finish on paper revisions through chapter 3
Yesterday's accomplishment: I brainstormed a novella for the Nocturne Bites pitch
What I'm grateful for: 2 weeks to my Chicago trip!!
Quote: "I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers." -Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)

Barely a bump in the road

After feeling a little like I'd been kicked in the chest yesterday, I refocused my energy on the entry I'm throwing into the Connections contest.

As I think I've mentioned, I love starting something new. I'm terrible at endings. That being said, I'm super excited about how the first chapter has flowed. The book is titled The Baby Bargain, and it's all about a woman who goes from being a "gestational carrier" to a "mother" when her best friend dies. As someone who adopted her daughter, I'm interested in the various roads--both physical and spiritual--to motherhood and wanted to explore some of those in this book.

Being a sequel and all, I had my hero's background all figured out already. He appears in The Christmas Bargain as a secondary character, although he spends a lot of time "off stage"

I think seeing things through his eyes will help me when I go back and tackle my next set of revisions for The Christmas Bargain since it's the personality clash between him and his brother that sets up the external conflict in the story.

Another thing I have to say is how much fun it is to write a little more variety into my characters' lives. These two books have some lighthearted moments thanks to family members. As an only child, it's fun to write about characters with brothers and sisters. My best friend has 3 brothers and a sister so I have her experiences to draw from and my own outsider's perspective as well.

Today's goal: Finish up the contest entry
Yesterday's achievement: Wrote the dreaded synopsis (must cut the length)
What I'm grateful for: Writing with enthusiasm.
Quote: "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." -Thomas A. Edison (1847 - 1931)

Bad news from Desire

Well, Diana passed on Bending to Blackmail. It was a form letter too. That part sucked. No feedback whatsoever, just a generic dear author and doesn't fit our needs at this time. At least she signed it.

So, the next thing to do is pop Meddling in the mail. It's all printed out and ready to go. I can pretty much say that it won't work for them, but it's been requested and there's no reason not to send it.

In the meantime, I'm working on finishing The Christmas Bargain.

I was getting excited about writing category again, but this restored my focus on writing something that gives you more than one place to send your book. So, once I get The Christmas Bargain in the mail, I'm heading back to my YA stuff. And I'm going to finish something in time for the WisRWA Conference.

So, how's your day going?

24 hours and 4600 words later...

I have a first chapter for my sequel to The Christmas Bargain, titled The Baby Bargain. I entered it in the Connections Contest because I'm insane and Susan's judging.

I still need to polish the entry and do the synopsis (it will be short and sweet) and get the entry ready by Saturday. That shouldn't be too hard. As I mentioned yesterday, it's a story I've been noodling for years so I know the characters' conflicts pretty well.

Whoohoo, I love starting something new. It's finishing that sucks.

Today's goal: 1/2 half of Chapter 14.
Yesterday's accomplishment: Started new story for Connection's contest
What I'm grateful for: When the words pour out of me as fast as I can type.
Quote: "I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean." -Socrates (469 BC - 399 BC), In "Apology," sct. 21, by Plato.

New stuff

Okay, I'm actively working on my rewrites for The Christmas Bargain, but at the same time, I'm thinking about a sequel involving my hero's brother. It's going to be a secret baby story. At least I'm pretty sure it qualifies as a secret baby story. It's a story line I've been noodling for years. I'm taking a break tonight to work on it. Here's the opening line.

The first time the baby kicked was the day they buried his mother.