Mission completed!

I did it! I made it through the major edit I was working on, otherwise known as avoiding querying and thus rejection! I was lying in bed, completely unable to go to sleep, so I decided to go online and look at Anthropologie and all the pretty furniture I can't buy, and then I realized I should post an update to my weekend challenge!

I realize that was a very long sentence... I'm a little too hyped right now for 9 minutes to midnight when I have to wake up at 6:30. Anyways, I am very excited. I was also working on my query letter, which I'm going to let marinate for a few days. But this weekend, I query the world!

Oh, I've also added some links to good writers resources, which I'll undoubtedly be adding to when it’s not 9 minutes to midnight on a Sunday. One that I may have mentioned before is Query Shark, which I absolutely love and spent several weeks stalking and reading every post ever written on the site. I think my query letter and my book have greatly improved from reading it.

So, cheers to late night enthusiasm and optimistic hopes of publishing success!

This weekend

So, I'm down to 58 pages for my final edit (final, ha ha - well, at least for now). I guess I should say hopefully my last major edit before I get an agent, and then a publisher. 58 pages until I once again put myself forth for a chance to be ignored and rejected. Writers are masochists, eh? I've probably said that before, but it deserves to be said again.

Anywho, I am going to try and get those last pages done this weekend. That's an awful lot for me to accomplish in one weekend, especially considering I have plans tomorrow. But I'm in the last stretch, so I'm hoping the light at the end of the tunnel will help me finish.

On another note, the traffic to my website has increased over the last couple of months, which is cool. One day in the near future I will have exciting news to post there!

Long overdue blog post

So, I have been very remiss in my blogging lately. Nothing terribly exciting to report - I've just been going through another major set of edits before I begin querying agents again. Adding more inner dialogue for my main character, tightening up the flow (removing extra words, awkward phrasing, etc). I'm about two thirds of the way through.

Hopefully within a couple weeks I'll be back at work contacting agents... it's so nerve-wracking. While I'm editing I think about all the parts that I love so much, and how awesome I think the book is, but as soon as I send out sample pages I think how dreadful it is... alas, the craziness in a writers head.

So, this next go round I'm going to work on finding my Zen place when I query agents, and having a little faith. And I'll have my trusty blog to look back at when I get published and am asked how it all began.

For funsies - query from my main character's POV

It started the day I was followed on the street by a man in a dark cloak – cheesy sounding in the extreme, I’m aware. And actually, it all began the day before, I just didn’t realize it at the time.

I was a corporate climber, living a normal life in NYC, planning a wedding to the perfect guy. I tried to tell myself the cloaked guy wasn’t following me – after all, why would I be of interest? But after I started having crazy visions, talking to ghosts, and breaking things with my mind, I couldn’t really avoid it any longer – my life had taken a serious detour into oncoming magical traffic.

Admitting I’m a witch was probably the most major shift in consciousness of my life. Discovering I’ve lived countless lifetimes is even more mind blowing. Finding out an immortal being has hunted and killed me in most of those lives and now found me in this one? Icing on the cake.

Oh, and I forgot something really important – I’m in love with the man in my past life memories (no, not the one who kills me, good lord!). Just when I think things can’t get worse, he shows up. Which should make things better, right? Yeah, if only he remembered who I was.

So now I’ve broken up with my fiancé, fled the city, ticked off a pack of shape shifters, made out with their leader (which is so not like me), befriended a teen witch who was my sister in a past life, all while trying to figure out how to escape the inevitable murder that’s ended all of my recent existences. Why am I such a delectable target? When I figure it out I’ll let you know.

Can't believe it's almost August

This month has flown by... good grief. Still haven't heard back from the third agent of the three I submitted to at the beginning of the month. Submitted to a couple new ones over the last week. Finally got around to doing some more edits to book one over the weekend on the drive to Jacksonville (I wasn't the one driving of course).

Truthfully, I'm already totally over waiting for responses and get rejected. I know, I know, it's only been six weeks or so since I started this madness but there it is, plain honesty. Of course, life's plain honesty, at least as it regards to writers, is that I may spend years trying to get an agent. A dreary thought.

The thing that really sucks about waiting on the two agents I recently submitted to is that they state that if they don't like your work, they just won't respond. But neither of them list how long you might typically wait if you are going to get a response... so should I give up hope after 1 week, or 2 or 8? It's a little frazzling. I have no idea if no response yet means no, or not yet.

Of course now comes the wondering, is my book really good enough? Should I totally rewrite it? Should I start another series altogether? The doubt creeps in and it's a hard pill to swallow. But, luckily perseverance is my thing... really hoping I don't have to stick it out for that long...

R-------n

Do I need to fill in the blanks above? Nah, I think you can figure it out. Of the three queries I sent out, I've gotten two rejections this week. One was a nice form letter and one was a condescending form letter. Fun times. I'm still waiting on the other, hoping and praying. If that one is a rejection too, I'm on to round three of agents.

However, I'm rockin and rollin on book two, full steam ahead. Haven't quite gotten motivated enough to go back to editing book one again. I'll get there soon enough...

Happy Birthday to me!

Since I have no new writing news (alas, my fantasy of having an agent ask to read more of my book on my birthday seems unlikely unless it happens in the next 82 minutes), I will share about what I did today. I got to sleep late, then I wrote on my second book for a few minutes, having done a lot of research on Paris last night and therefore having dreamt about it all night. Then I went to a very tasty lunch with my husband, kids, sister and mom, ending with a coconut cream bomb cake - need I say more? I guess I'll just say super yum... then my husband and I went shopping and I got an awesome new pair of jeans and some shoes. Then I came home, took a late afternoon nap, got up, talked to my BFF in Colorado, and now I'm about to write on my book some more. Oh, and there was a gorgeous sunset, which had that awesome effect where it seems to leak into the air and make everything seem yellow... I love that.

Sooo... tomorrow I have another day off from work and I'll definitely spend a good deal of it writing. Just getting past that pesky first chapter that can be oh so tricky.