No News Is Not Good News

"When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on." ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

I decided to enter ITS into a few contests this summer. Four to be exact, all with editors/agents as the final judges that I wanted to target. Most of the editors you need an agent to get in front of and this seemed a good way to get around that while I tried to find an agent.

Naturally that meant making the finals, but I was hopeful. I had made changes to ITS that I believed made it a better story. It had already placed second in the Toronto RWA contest in 2009, and while it didn't final in the other contests I entered in 2009, the comments for the most part were helpful and encouraging and mostly had nothing but good to say about it. With the exception of the one judge who indicated she did not like my heroine and did not care whether she lived or died.

Unfortunately my plans are not coming to fruition. The New Jersey contest finalists were to be notified by August 9th. Given that I have not been contacted, one can safely assume I did not make the finals.

This morning I awoke to a notice from the Heart of the Rockies contest informing me I did not make the cut there either. The scoresheets were attached, so I opened them (with trepidation - it was 6:30 am and who likes starting their day with bad news?). The first two scores were 99 and 92. They had nothing but good to say about the entry and no major concerns that required fixing and wished they could have read more. The third score was a 79. Ouch. The main concern here was that while I hinted at the scandal and gave some detail, by page 25 I still had not fully revealed what the scandal was. Also I used too many words ending in 'ly'. Points to consider, so I guess that's something. On the plus side, no one wanted to throw my heroine under a bus.

At this point, I'm not holding out a lot of hope for the last two remaining contests, but we'll see. It's frustrating, that feeling of banging at the door and never getting in. Actually, I feel more like I'm doing a full body slam against the door and just bouncing back onto the concrete walk.

I have made a few story tweaks since entering, shoring up the backstories to strengthen motivation and conflict, but alas these epiphanies occured too late to help me with the contests. Although none of the judges seemed to feel the GMC I had entered lacking, so who knows.

Perhaps contests are not the way for me. At least with this manuscript. It looks like I'll have to do things the old fashioned way and fire off my agent queries again and keep slogging away.

I think it is a testament to my complete lack of sanity that despite all of this, I'd still rather do this writing gig rather than the day job, which pays a decent salary and doesn't reject me at every turn. Perhaps I need a 12-step program for Gluttons of Punishment Anonymous.

What’s Going On

Good question. What IS going on? Someone asked me that the other day and my response was, “Same ole crap, new week.” Which basically sums it up, I guess. Nothing brand spanking new to report.

I am writing, working away, trying to stay more focused on the creative side and less on the business side for the time being. Although my brain is always jumping ten steps ahead of where I’m at so to say I’ve been entirely successful on that account would be a lie. Currently I’m planning on entering two manuscripts in one contest. One completed manuscript to give it another shot at an editor I’m interested in, and a new manuscript that has a first draft completed and could use some outside feedback. The new manuscript I’m also going to put in a couple of other contests next month as well.

Once the contest entries are completed, I’ll continue plugging away to get this ready to ship out to agents and editors, which hopefully will be ready to do by September-ish. That leaves me October to brainstorm my NaNo mss (a planned revamping of Juicy Lucy and her Big Bat – my brother’s title, not mine) and fire off query letters.

I am not going to Nationals this year. I made that decision early on and I don’t really regret it, much as I enjoy the experience. I felt there wasn’t anything new to sell at this point, whereas next year I should have four finished products to sell, possibly five. And, if the writing gods smile upon me favourably, maybe I won’t have to sell anything in Nashville, maybe I’ll get to promote something that’s sold instead. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, in every day life, I am working hard to maintain my optimism and keep my stress levels down. I am successful some of the time, and a walking disaster at other times. Sometimes the battles feel epic and the war never-ending, but I feel my old optimism creeping back and slowly gaining the upper hand. My mother will be happy to hear this. She said over the past few months my eyes looked dead and I had stopped laughing, which, for anyone who has spent any time with me knows, I spend a large part of my day laughing. Or I did. And I’m starting to again. So boo-yah on that.

The weather has not been cooperating with my plans to get my yard and gardens ready for summer, but that appears to be turning. I got a little done by taking an afternoon off work on a sunny day. Hopefully tonight I will get a little more done. Bit by bit I will conquer the dandelions and get my gardens cleared and replanted…

Eating right and working out have been a struggle the past few weeks. Once boot camp ended I think I fell off the wagon hard. I’m getting back on it this week, at least workout wise. The eating…well the meals are healthy but the snacks are killing me! So today I have called a bit of a moratorium on that. I don’t want to undo all the good I’ve done to date. I’m hoping by late fall I will have saved up enough to hire a personal trainer to push me that last little bit.

And that is about all that is going on here in Crazy Town.

The New Look

I've finally made it around to changing the look of the blog over to something more spring-like. Actually this one is called Summer Breeze. What can I say, I'm looking ahead.

I have managed to catch my first cold in five years. Not impressed. I think the stress of late suppressed my immune system and germy boy from work coughed his illness all over my pod. I'm considering his punishment as I type this. Not sure what it will be but needless to say it will be something vile and painful and there will likely be bamboo chutes involved at some point. Thankfully, I had some Cold Fx at home and as soon as I thought the cold might be coming on, I started popping them to head it off. It didn't stop the cold completely but it kept it from being a lot worse than it could have been. I'm starting to feel better, although my nose is still on fire and the sleepless night didn't help much. I stayed home from work today to rest and medicate and get rid of the last of it.

Thanks to the cold, I didn't get out to get the gardens cleaned out as planned despite the first really nice weekend we've had in a while. Sigh... I will get it done. I am determined to restore them to their former glory this summer if it kills me. But I have to do it soon. Things are starting to pop up and grow. I need to get cracking before the ugly stuff takes over the good stuff and I forget what's there.

The writing is going good. I've finished my read through of ITS and storyboarded it. Now I have to write the synopsis (oh joy) and prep the first 30 pages for a few contests I've decided to enter.

The workout bootcamp is now over. We did our final measurements and weigh-in and I'm happy to report it turned out to be a success. I didn't make my intended goal but I did pretty good, so I'm happy about that. Shrinkage all the way around and enough knowledge on what I need to do to keep it going in a downward direction.

And that is about all the news there is for now. It's been a busy month just not an overly exciting one.

Return of the Mojo

Wherever my mojo had wandered off to those first few months of the year, it has decided to return with a bang and bring with it reinforcements in the form of focus and determination. It’s a welcome homecoming but there’s no time for a party to herald the event.

I have decided to think more strategically this year. I have the potential to have 4 completed manuscripts in my possession by the end of this year as well as the first draft of a fifth. One is already completed, the other just needs a little tweaking to clean up a plot issue I discovered, one is thisclose to being done and the last one is in first draft form and ready for revision.

All that being said, I decided to take a look at what contests were available that would have final judges I would want to target with my work. Also, with the tweaking and revisions it would be great to get some feedback from people who haven’t read the manuscripts previously. So after some review, I picked six contests with deadlines in May and June.

Which means for the next two weeks I will have my nose to the grindstone while I prep the entries and write/revamp the existing synopses (oh joy).

Once the entries are sent off, my focus will turn to finishing the final run through of Salvation Falls and start marketing it, then fixing the plot issue in Brimstone I noticed the other day and sending out agent queries, then completing revisions on Invitation to Scandal and sending out queries on it.

That should take me up to end of October, leaving November open for NaNoWriMo and the opportunity to complete another first draft. I already have manuscript chosen. I am redoing Finding Home, Dash and Lucy’s story - or as my brother calls it – Juicy Lucy and Her Big Bat. There’s a reason I don’t let him pick my titles…

Finding Home is my contemporary that I began over a year ago but the plot just wasn’t working. So I’m scraping it, keeping the characters and most of their backstory and going back to the drawing board on the plot / storyline and conflicts.

December I will spend working on the outline for my historical fiction, The Tangled Garden.

So I have my work cut out for me in 2009 but I finally feel like I’m moving forward again with more momentum than I had when the year started.