I discovered a new singer today while I was at the gym watching CMT because it was the busy time and I couldn't get on one of the DVD Players. (I'm watching Matchstick Men.) She's actually the actress in the movie Broken Bridges (anyone else heard of it? I hadn't till today. I'm not completely sure it's even out.) Anyway, her name is Lindsey Haun and she sings a song called Broken, and it is so gorgeous! My hubby found the mp3 and downloaded it for me and I have listened to it about twenty times since then. She has a really clear, beautiful voice and the song is a pick-me-up piece. This is one of me favorite lines followed by the chorus:
"No matter how much your heart is aching
There is beauty in the breaking
Yeah
When you're broken in a million little pieces
And you're trying but you can't hold on anymore
Every tear falls down for a reason
Don't you stop believing in yourself
When you're broken."
Anyway, nothing to do with writing, but the song is positively gorgeous!!!!
Ciao!
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Friday, October 13, 2006
Okay, There really is a point.
To the last post which is just a picture. It is so I can have a picture on my profile. Look to the right. See where it says "View Complete Profile?" Click on it. Go ahead; I'll wait. (Lalalalalal) Isn't that cool!?!? Now when I post comments to other sites that I frequent it will have my pictures. Yea!
But I had to have the picture hosted online somewhere and where better than my little blog here.:)
So I have to brag, even though it's really my sister's news. She had a paper in her nutrition class that the professor said she was going to grade solely on grammar. (Which sounds really weird to me; you'd think there would be some content expectation in there somewhere!) But she wrote the paper and asked me to go through it with a fine-toothed comb. So check it out, she e-mailed me yesterday and she got the highest grade in the class!!! See, I do know something about writing. I was all proud of my sister's grade . . . weird, I know.:)
I'm getting ready to dive back into the world of querying with my new Symbiosis. I do so with a tad bit of hesitance because it is a really rough road with incredibly small odds.
That and I'm starting to get sick of my book . . . but from what I've heard, that's a good sign. (shrug) What do I know?
There is a difference this time though, and it's one that I think is very positive. When I queried before I was always hesitant to send the five sample pages that most agents say to send. That's because my first five pages were kind of boring. But, my little brand-new author mind said, They are important! No . . . they weren't. Notice the use of past tense here? The first five pages of my manuscript are now my first one page, and I get my first line that really makes you smile within the first page . . . as opposed to about page ten in my last version.
So now, with a 145,000 word novel that moves quickly on every single page, I have a query letter that I am not very confident about, and sample pages that I am certain of. Quite frankly, I'll take this over the other. As Miss Snark often says, the best books are often intorduced with the worst query letters; that's why you send sample pages. She said straigh out a couple of weeks ago that most of the submisisons she recieves are either a good query letter, or good pages . . . but they come together a surprisingly small percentage of the time.
I don't think I have a bad query letter, it is just so hard to really capture the essence of a novel like mine in a few short sentences. I was reading Rachel Vater's blog this morning (I've become a huge fan of hers; she is now coming in a very, very close second to Kristen in my race of favorite agents.) and she talked about what your personal writing style is. Mine is characters. I create characters that people feel for. I think my second strength is plot, but when you have characters you are really concerned about, it gives the plot more importance. But how do you word that in a query letter? Dear Agent, I have a book full of people you are really going to care about. Right.
None the less, I think my first five pages are now good enough to suck in the reader.
So I guess what I am saying is that I am going into this new round of submisisons with mixed feeling. Another part of that is that this is my novel's last shot. It has been about eight to ten months since I submitted this novel last, so most--if not all-- of the agents will not recognize my name or the characters' name. (And, of course, they won't recognize the title because it is new.) However, pushing it a third time is just not going to happen. It's now or never time.
And I feel almost ready.
Almost.
I want this thing to shine, so I am not rushing it, but I've gotten to the point where I am starting to question my own judgement. Am I over-editing? When I start to second-guess myself I'm just going to have to be done.
Sorry this post is so long and rambling; I have been feeling rather sober as well as hopeful about this next round of submisions and it has awakened my random musings. Hope you all have a great day.
Ciao!
But I had to have the picture hosted online somewhere and where better than my little blog here.:)
So I have to brag, even though it's really my sister's news. She had a paper in her nutrition class that the professor said she was going to grade solely on grammar. (Which sounds really weird to me; you'd think there would be some content expectation in there somewhere!) But she wrote the paper and asked me to go through it with a fine-toothed comb. So check it out, she e-mailed me yesterday and she got the highest grade in the class!!! See, I do know something about writing. I was all proud of my sister's grade . . . weird, I know.:)
I'm getting ready to dive back into the world of querying with my new Symbiosis. I do so with a tad bit of hesitance because it is a really rough road with incredibly small odds.
That and I'm starting to get sick of my book . . . but from what I've heard, that's a good sign. (shrug) What do I know?
There is a difference this time though, and it's one that I think is very positive. When I queried before I was always hesitant to send the five sample pages that most agents say to send. That's because my first five pages were kind of boring. But, my little brand-new author mind said, They are important! No . . . they weren't. Notice the use of past tense here? The first five pages of my manuscript are now my first one page, and I get my first line that really makes you smile within the first page . . . as opposed to about page ten in my last version.
So now, with a 145,000 word novel that moves quickly on every single page, I have a query letter that I am not very confident about, and sample pages that I am certain of. Quite frankly, I'll take this over the other. As Miss Snark often says, the best books are often intorduced with the worst query letters; that's why you send sample pages. She said straigh out a couple of weeks ago that most of the submisisons she recieves are either a good query letter, or good pages . . . but they come together a surprisingly small percentage of the time.
I don't think I have a bad query letter, it is just so hard to really capture the essence of a novel like mine in a few short sentences. I was reading Rachel Vater's blog this morning (I've become a huge fan of hers; she is now coming in a very, very close second to Kristen in my race of favorite agents.) and she talked about what your personal writing style is. Mine is characters. I create characters that people feel for. I think my second strength is plot, but when you have characters you are really concerned about, it gives the plot more importance. But how do you word that in a query letter? Dear Agent, I have a book full of people you are really going to care about. Right.
None the less, I think my first five pages are now good enough to suck in the reader.
So I guess what I am saying is that I am going into this new round of submisisons with mixed feeling. Another part of that is that this is my novel's last shot. It has been about eight to ten months since I submitted this novel last, so most--if not all-- of the agents will not recognize my name or the characters' name. (And, of course, they won't recognize the title because it is new.) However, pushing it a third time is just not going to happen. It's now or never time.
And I feel almost ready.
Almost.
I want this thing to shine, so I am not rushing it, but I've gotten to the point where I am starting to question my own judgement. Am I over-editing? When I start to second-guess myself I'm just going to have to be done.
Sorry this post is so long and rambling; I have been feeling rather sober as well as hopeful about this next round of submisions and it has awakened my random musings. Hope you all have a great day.
Ciao!
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Saturday, October 07, 2006
If I Don't Hear From Some of These People . . .
I'm going to scream!!! Well, not really, but I feel like I have been without news for a long time and it's frustrating. (sigh)
I have Partials that have been out for 3 months, 2 months, 7 weeks, 6, weeks, 6 weeks, 5 weeks and a couple that haven't been out long enough to fret over yet. But I also have a full that has been out for 5 months and another for four months.
As Homer Simpson says, "Aww, the waiting game sucks; let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos!"
I am all up for the marble munching game right at this moment.
However, as you can tell from my woefully infrequent blog entries, I have been keeping myself very busy revising Symbiosis. I am reading it out loud (yes, all 145,000 words) and when I am done I will probably read it out loud one more time a little faster just top make sure it all still sounds right. Then it goes out to betas. Anybody want to be a beta? (laugh)
There was a post on writers.net yesterday in which some nitwit asked just how good a manuscript needed to be before you sent it out. He was like, "I know it still has some things I need to fix, but I want a professional opinion on it and besides, agents know manuscripts are going to need a bit of work, right?" I laughed out loud. I have definitely learned (from doing it the wrong way sometimes) that there will always be problems that you cannot see. But if you can still see problems and you think it's ready to send out, that is your biggest problem. You want your manuscript to be as perfect as you can possibly make it. The agent will find new things and make it as perfect as the two of you together can make it.
Now, as perfect as you can make it changes. For example, the manuscript I sent to Nephele four months ago was as perfect as I could make it at the time. But after getting some emotional distance from it and getting some great feedback from a really great beta online (I'm going to see if he'll beta for me again when I am done) I now have the capacity to make it better. Because of that, I would now consider it sloppy and lazy to send out the exact copy that was my very best work four months ago. Get it?
However, even though the book I have now is worlds better than the one I sent out half a year ago, it is still a far cry from my best work. I am about a fifth of the way through my first pass reading it out loud and polishing it. Then, as I mentioned before, I will take a second deep polish, then send it to betas, let their critiques sit for a while, then apply the ones I think will make it better. I will deep polish one more time and then . . . and only then . . . will I once again consider it my best work. Then it will be back out to agents and hopefully a better turnout this time. We'll see.
Ciao!
I have Partials that have been out for 3 months, 2 months, 7 weeks, 6, weeks, 6 weeks, 5 weeks and a couple that haven't been out long enough to fret over yet. But I also have a full that has been out for 5 months and another for four months.
As Homer Simpson says, "Aww, the waiting game sucks; let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos!"
I am all up for the marble munching game right at this moment.
However, as you can tell from my woefully infrequent blog entries, I have been keeping myself very busy revising Symbiosis. I am reading it out loud (yes, all 145,000 words) and when I am done I will probably read it out loud one more time a little faster just top make sure it all still sounds right. Then it goes out to betas. Anybody want to be a beta? (laugh)
There was a post on writers.net yesterday in which some nitwit asked just how good a manuscript needed to be before you sent it out. He was like, "I know it still has some things I need to fix, but I want a professional opinion on it and besides, agents know manuscripts are going to need a bit of work, right?" I laughed out loud. I have definitely learned (from doing it the wrong way sometimes) that there will always be problems that you cannot see. But if you can still see problems and you think it's ready to send out, that is your biggest problem. You want your manuscript to be as perfect as you can possibly make it. The agent will find new things and make it as perfect as the two of you together can make it.
Now, as perfect as you can make it changes. For example, the manuscript I sent to Nephele four months ago was as perfect as I could make it at the time. But after getting some emotional distance from it and getting some great feedback from a really great beta online (I'm going to see if he'll beta for me again when I am done) I now have the capacity to make it better. Because of that, I would now consider it sloppy and lazy to send out the exact copy that was my very best work four months ago. Get it?
However, even though the book I have now is worlds better than the one I sent out half a year ago, it is still a far cry from my best work. I am about a fifth of the way through my first pass reading it out loud and polishing it. Then, as I mentioned before, I will take a second deep polish, then send it to betas, let their critiques sit for a while, then apply the ones I think will make it better. I will deep polish one more time and then . . . and only then . . . will I once again consider it my best work. Then it will be back out to agents and hopefully a better turnout this time. We'll see.
Ciao!
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