A Year In Review 2009

A bunch of things happened in 2009 that I'm happy about.

The biggest and bestest was that I am now represented by an agent. What a difference that has made for my career and my peace of mind.

Other writing related stuff that happened in 2009.

Number of conferences attended: 2 (1 local, 1 national)

Number of Agents/Editors met with: 3

Number of entries into contests: 27 (yes, I busted the bank)

Number of finals: 9 (7 for YA, 2 for series contemporary)

Number of manuscripts that finaled: 3 (1 YA , 2 short contemp)

Number of requests for full from contests: 4

Number of full/partial manuscript rejections: 2

Number of tiara's won for most manuscripts finaling in 2008: 1

Number of new authors read: 35

Coolest thing I did: Roomed with my long time on-line buddy Lexi Connor in DC for National. We had a blast.

2nd coolest: Attended WisRWA's Write Touch Conference.

3rd coolest: I did NaNoWriMo for the first time and completed an entire book in a month, becomming a NaNo winner.

In looking at my stats for this year versus last, I can see where my contest journey has evolved. Where I used to have a 50% finaling rate, I'm now closer to 33%. I'm not planning on entering any contests in 2010. Time for me to refocus my writing on completing entire books instead of testing out first chapters.

Goals for 2010:

More reading. I'm going to commit to a book a week.

More writing. There's no reason why I can't average 500 words a day or more.
NaNo showed me I can write 1000 words a day (or more) if I have a clear story in my head.
More books finished. In 2009 I only completed 2 new manuscripts. Gotta do better. I intend to have 4 new books written in 2010.

For now I'm putting my YA stories aside and concentrating on Short Contemporary once more. I'm glad I took the break last year. I've returned to my favorite genre with a renewed appreciation for it.

Thanks to all my friends, old and new, for being there on this crazy journey to publication. Here's to all your publication dreams coming true in 2010.

Belated Merry Christmas

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Christmas. We here in Minnesota got lots of snow, rain and sleet.

Went to see Avatar with my daughter today. Had to sit in the 2nd row because the theater was so packed. It's fabulous. First time in a long time that I didn't want to leave the world the movie was set in. James Cameron did an incredible job of blending storytelling with visual magic. I'm definitely going to have to see it again.

Back to work tomorrow. Four days have never gone by so fast.

Revisions/Rewrites

I'm on page 125 of a 176 page revision and it's going a lot slower than I initially thought it would.

I love to rewrite. It's when I mold and shape all the raw material into something amazing.

Or in this case, remold and reshape.

I'm not exactly sure how many revisions this story has gone through. I do know that I finished the initial draft in July 2007. Then it sat around for a year or so because I was really stuck for how to make it work for Desire.

Along came the Desire pitch in 2008. I scrambled to rewrite the beginning and smooth out the rough edges.

But it languished some more until this fall when my agent offered her suggestions for how it could be improved.

This latest version is such a far cry from the first draft. It demonstrates 2 plus years of learning my craft and trusting in the basic story. I'm not going to hope that this is the last version of the story. I'm only going to work hard to make sure it's a better version.

When it's contained within the front and back of a Desire cover, then I'll say it's the last version. Until then, I'll revise on.

How about you? Do you revise multiple times or move on to something new?

Do you recycle?

I'm not talking cans and plastic here, I'm talking scenes you cut out of a book because it's not working or isn't needed?

I just removed a love scene from my current WIP. I removed it because I wrote a brand new one for a different spot and no longer needed this one. Problem is, I love the scene. So, I will make it work in a different book. Maybe even the sequel to this one. Does that seem weird?

Do you recycle scenes from one book to another or is each book original unto itself?

Long week. Need cuteness

For those of you who have also had a long week, here are some cute Panda pictures.

Presents Contest

Well, it was a no for me. But a nice no. Not a form rejection. In fact, there was quite a bit on the reasons why it was a no and an offer to submit 3 chapters and a synopsis from my next work.

Thanks, I'll pass.

I'm not dying to write for Presents. First of all, I don't understand what the editors like. The last couple competitions they've had, I didn't particularly care for the entries they picked to win. I think that means their taste and mine are out of sync. Which translates to me not writing for them.

No problem.

Got other lines I like loads more. Targeting something I enjoy makes a lot more sense to me.

New month, new book

How was your Thanksgiving? Mine was quiet. Spent the long weekend recovering from writing 50k in 24 days. I still can't believe I did that.

Today is December 1st. And I've started a new story. Although, technically it's not brand new. I started writing it a decade ago as a romantic suspense. I'm going to turn it into a Desire. It's a twist on a secret baby story. A bunch of stuff is written but it needs a major overhaul to make it work.

I wasn't ready to tackle something brand new like I did last month, so this is going to be a partial rewrite, partial write and I'm hoping to get it done by December 31st.

It's another story where the hero and heroine are both dark. I'm not sure why these dark heroes appeal to me so much. I'm going to lighten the story by inserting a cute baby. Nothing like an infant to make a tough guy lovable.

How are you doing post NaNo? Or if you didn't attempt Nano, how are you feeling motivated as the year comes to a close?