Query Success

Hard work does pay off. Revision after revision after revision. I started querying SEAWEEDS a few weeks ago. Got slammed with 10 rejections in the first week. And today, I came home and boom, an agent (from AN AWESOME AGENCY) wants to read my book.

Holy yay!

To anyone out there who is feeling doubtful, just keep writing. Keep revising. Keep your chin up. Rejections make us who we are. They make us stronger in the end.

I may not get an agent out of this, but at least I know I have a good query and potentially a good book. :-)

Old stuff you thought was crap but actually isn't

Since I'm not writing anything new (for the present) I've decided to revisit all my old novels. Some I haven't touched in years. For example, my first YA book I started writing in early 2009. I queried it, got rejected a bunch, but I did have one agent read the entire book and she told me exactly what I needed to do--work on the beginning, make it more exciting, draw the reader into the vampire world sooner. Plus, the ending was a little corny. Fix that too. Oh, and it wasn't believable that the girl fell in love with the guy so quickly...

I re-read the novel. I edited a few things, took out all the "I love yous" and replaced them with "I care about you." I re-wrote the ending and made it stronger. And now comes the hard part...CHOPPING stuff out. Literally, I've had to cut entire pages of useless crap that makes the beginning sound like a typical teen story (which it isn't at all). My novel was originally 82K. Now it's 75K and I still believe there's stuff from the beginning I could cut out.

Just because it's already been queried, doesn't mean I can't query it again. It's been almost a year since my last rejection for it. And plenty more agents have popped up since then.

I'm glad I'm doing this. I was so in love with the book, the characters, the world I created...now I'm back and I feel at home.

Accomplishments

In terms of accomplishing goals this month, I got off to a rough start. So the last two weeks I've been trying to redeem myself by writing and reading and querying as much as possible. I finished Flicker last night. Final word count-96,000! And probably with edits it'll end up close to 100K. It's the longest book I've ever written. And while I'm proud of it, I'm dreading the LONG LONG editing process ahead of me. Thankfully because I changed the ending, I think it can stay in 1st person. But it'll still need a lot of revising before it's ready for agents. Goal for querying it is January 1, 2011. That gives me four months. I think I can do it.

I also wrote two short stories, mainly because I want to have lots of pieces to chose from when selecting stories for grad school applications. I think they're decent stories. The plots aren't overly complicated or twisted, mainly they're stories about life and relationships. I think if I submit one piece that's focused on plot and one on character it'll show diversity to schools.

I've been sending queries out for Seaweeds every day for almost a week. Five rejections so far. I expected that to happen. But I'm gonna keep on querying. If anything, I'd appreciate feedback. I got agents in the past to read entire books and provide me advice and it was well worth the rejection to know what I need to work on. My mom finished reading Seaweeds last night. She doesn't think it's my best work and says it's bizarre and weird but funny. Good. I'm glad it's funny. I didn't intend for it to be a serious serious novel. I wanted to write an escape book for people who are tired of seriousness and need to take a dip in the ocean.

My other book, To Catch a Rainbow Butterfly, which I still believe to be my best work, was queried and rejected back in May. I'm going through the agents I sent it to, revising my query, and gonna query it again.

I have another novel that I started writing back in college that has a lot of potential but man, oh man, does my writing suck! So I'm thinking I'll rewrite it.

So all in all. Despite achieving a lot these last few weeks, I still have a bucket load of work to do. And full-time work starts again on Thursday, so I'm spending these next two days of freedom working on everything I just blogged about. I love this blog. If I forget what I'm supposed to be doing, I just come back here and read what I wrote.

To everyone and their writing endeavors, good luck and may your fingers be swift and your brains be imaginative and your hearts be full!

in the mud

I wrote a short story. Originally I'd planned to make it into a novel, but I needed another piece for my grad school portfolio. I have too many murder-related short stories. Need to show variety. Maybe later I'll expand it into a novel, but I don't feel the need to just now.

I'm at that point where I really don't know what to do in terms of writing. Seaweeds is being queried. I expect nothing more than a lot of rejections after going through the query process before with 3 other novels. But I do hope for at least a few interested agents who might wanna read partials or fulls. At least to get feedback would be extremely beneficial.

I seriously am like 2,000 words away from finishing Flicker, but is it really publishable? It's all about werewolves, Fae, vampires, and witches. Everything nowadays is about that. I want to stand out. And I'm not sure if Flicker is the stand out book agents will want to grab.

So do I put Flicker on the sideline like I did once before with a novel and move on to a new project? Or do I keep at it until it's done and at least let friends read it. Because there's no harm in that.

Or do I go back and revise and work on some novels that I never took the time to query?

All I know...I can't survive without writing.

I smell you Autumn

September is just around the corner and I haven't been as vigorous with my writing as I'd planned. I was at the beach all last week and didn't write hardly at all. I got swimmer's ear and spent all weekend CRYING because of the pain. I'm just starting to recover.

I queried Seaweeds today. FINALLY! A part of me is super super scared that no one will want to read it. That's what happened with the last novel I queried. My first two books I queried, I got a few agents to read the entire manuscript. With each novel, I expect more not less. I really want to get an agent this time, or at least get agents interested in reading more.

I still need to finish Flicker. I might need to write a new short story for grad school applications. And I have another novel I want to start writing. Lots to do. A week left of summer vacation and then back to full time work. Yikes. I better be productive!

August Goals

So July wasn't as exciting as I hoped it was going to be, but at least I got a lot of writing done.

Seaweeds is just about ready for agents! I still have a few more edits to do. But it's solid. Just gotta make sure the query is top notch. My plan is to spend all of next week reading it as many times as possible to make sure it's error-free. I really like the story. I think agents will either hate or love it. Best I stick to agents who like dark humor and sex.

Flicker is almost done. Two more chapters to write. It will def be over 95K when it's all finished. I was thinking I'd hit 100K, but I'm not. Like I really want to edit that long of a book? I might actually have to re-write the whole thing. I'm not sure if 1st person works, so it may have to translate all over to 3rd person which will take a long long long long time. Is it worth it? I'm not sure...especially when I have another book I want to write.

WIP #3...in synopsis form...dying to be written. I shall start it as soon as Flicker is done and Seaweeds is queried.

Goals for August:
Query Seaweeds
Edit/Revise Flicker
Get to 25k in WIP #3
Write another short story for grad schools (I have two that I really like but they're too much alike)

need a place to go

I need a place to go where I can scream, cry, kick my feet against the ground, curse like a sailor, and throw punches at the wind. Usually I put my anger into my writing, but I'm so worked up right now, I'm unable to do anything but write down exactly what I'm feeling. But quite frankly I don't know what I'm feeling.

I went away for a week. Drove 5 hours to PA and spent most of the time with my grandmother or my cousin. I felt relaxed. I worked on my novels. I ran 4 miles every day. I ate good food. It was a nice escape.

Just got back yesterday and I've never been more on the edge. That escape for a week wasn't enough. And it's made me realized how unsatisfied I am with my life. I feel like I'm going nowhere. While I love writing (it's the only thing I can depend on to make me happy) it's not enough. I want a real job. My own place. A boyfriend, or at least more guy friends. Some of these things require patience. But it's hard when there's people all around you getting everything you want and they don't have to wait. And while it's probably not true for most cases, I feel like some are completely undeserving. And it really ticks me off when people don't appreciate the great things they have.

So in a way, I'm mad at myself for being ungrateful. I know I have talent. I know I'm not ugly. I know I have a family that loves me and some pretty good friends. And I'm employed. I seriously just wish I could be satisfied with what I've got but its near impossible in this crazy world where cell phones and facebook control your social life and make you feel 80 times more disconnected with the world than you already feel. Maybe I'm just being a drama queen. Maybe I'm just being selfish. Spoiled. Ungrateful. But I can't help what I feel.

Everything I wish I could say
And everything I wish I could do
Are locked behind these double lines I’ve created for myself
Been trying to erase it but I used a sharpie pen
So do I white it out or find new places to write on?