I admit it! I'm addicted to Submitting!

No really, I am. They should have some kind of Submittaholics anonymous. I love submitting to agents, especially by e-mail. I love getting requests for partials and fulls. Even if they get rejected, I like having stuff requested. It's a high.
However, that can get me into trouble. Case in point, I started submitting for Lady Diane before it was even done. Bad idea. The first three chapters were done and polished so I figured, hey, I have a nifty little website that tells me how soon agents reply and what they generally request. So I won't query agents who generally request fulls or reply to partials right away. Worked for a while, was fun to have stuff requested. But I did quite a lot of revising and ended up sending out two partials that were so rough they still had typos in them. (forehead smack) And one was to my very tip top choice. (stomps on own foot.)
So what does that have to do with now? Well, I am done with my slashing of Symbiosis (yes, I went back to the original title:)) and I want to send it out. Before I finished I told myself very firmly that I would finish the slashing, spend a couple of week tightening and re-writing, send it out to a couple of beta reader with a red pen, get results, apply, write a query, spend a week sending it through critique circles, and then start on my rather short re-query list.
So how the *&%$ did I end up with a manila envelope containing a query, synopsis, and five sample pages (not to mention a SASE) sealed and ready to mail out this morning to one of my top choices?!?!?!
(sigh) Silly me. Luckily, I went online and did some blog reading and stumbled on Caitlin's site (no link, sorry) a woman who is represented by the person that manila envelope is addressed to. She mentioned that she spent a full three months revising her manuscript after she got it back from betas. She worked on it till she was sick of looking at it and did not start querying until she knew is was as ready to sell as she could possibly make it.
She also got an agent in 3 1/2 weeks.
That's commitment.
So I did the smart thing; I took that little envelope and put it in my dresser drawer and recommitted myself to the process I originally outlined for my self. It's the whole losing weight thing. I want my pie (requests from agents) now, but if I decide not to eat the pie (wait) then I get much closer to my ultimate goal. (getting skinny/getting an agent/yanno(TM))
Man, I want to send that envelope right now. But I'm not going to. You know why? Because I have a fabulous book and it deserves an agent and then a publisher. But If I send it out naked, it's not going to get either.
So now I am going to start on more revisions. You all have a fabulous day.:)

Ciao!

My Baby Has No Arms or Legs.

I've just finished my hacking mission. I decided I was way too long-winded in my two fantasy novels and thought I would try slashing everything that didn't belong and combining them into one book.
Get this; I cut 60,000 words. That's about 220 pages.
You ever seen someone who was not heavy, but maybe pleasantly rounded but who was really pretty. Then, you see them like six months later and they've lost twenty pounds and bought a new wardrobe. You gawk and gape and say, man! I had no idea you could look that good.
That is what happened to my books--now one book in two parts. It is a smoother, sleeker, more fast paced novel with a fully rounded story arc in one stand along unit. I am so excited. I changed the ending of part one and made a lot of other little changes throughout the whole book. I chopped off it's arms and left but what I am left with is pure heart.
I saved the original version, don't you worry. And some day when it's published. (When, Ha!) I will have a website and put up outtakes like my friend Stephenie does for her books.
It was really really hard because I liked every scene I wrote . . . well, almost every scene. I took out some parts I really loved, but they either had nothing to do with the story, or they hindered the plot. Still, very difficult. I wrote 220 pages that I essentially threw away.
But it was good throw away. I'm happy with it.

Ciao!

The Royal We and Me

So I've been corresponding with royalty this week.
No really. I exchanged e-mails with an in-name-only prince of Bulgaria this week. He had a question on writers.net and I had a good answer. So I e-mailed the prince.:) It was fun.:)
So my apologies for being so tardy on my blog entries. Audrey has been sick for at least half the day for over a week and today is the first day she had felt good all day . . . so far. So I have been really, really busy trying to keep up and catch up on housework, I've started a new book, Kenny and I have been doing some entertaining, and it turned to winter this week. Yikes! Seriously, we had to turn on the heater.
On the upside, I've had my full manuscript requested by Marcy, who is one of the bigguns.:) Strangely enough, you won't find her on the website because she is rather new to Sterling-Lord, but has a fabulous reputation from before she joined them.
Hmmm, what else . . . I've had several rejection come in, but no one wants to hear about that.:) I still haven't hear anything from Nephele or Joe about Chain, but I'm doing some fun things to that too. We'll see how it turns out.
Thanks for reading--sorry it is boring these days. Hopefully it will get very exciting something soon.:)

Ciao!

#1 On the NYT Bestsellers List!!!!

Check it out. New Moon is number one!!! Hooray Stephenie!!!!

Ciao!

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah!

Okay, so this has nothing to do with writing, but I got a gym membership today! And I'm paid for three years! And it comes with childcare! And in total it adds up to less than 20 dollars per month! And there's a chance that the guy made a mistake and it's actually only supposed to be two years. (shrug) But he wrote three years on the contract and even threw in two months for free so, hey, 38 months at Gold's Gym including childcare for 600 bucks ain't half bad. We're getting settlement money from my accident so Kenny let me treat myself.:) I am so stoked! I was dreading what I was going to do once winter set in and now I don't have to! Yea me!!!

Ciao!