I Love Me. See my Jacket?

I love me. I really really love me.  See, look, I'm giving myself lots and lots of hugs.  The jacket?  Oh that.  That's to help me love myself more.  Really it is.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go roll around a plump and puffy room for a while.  I'll be back once the doctors say I've loved myself enough.

;o)

ETA: Don't mind me.  I was working on my blurb.  How 250 words can drive a person so far around the bend is anyone's guess.

 *All images deleted to avoid any chance of copyright infringement* - It was of a guy in a straight-jacket

Queries and First Chapters - Things to Avoid

In case you didn't notice, I finished the rewrite.  With everything else going on, I totally forgot to celebrate.  Woohoo. 

Of course, finishing the rewrite means I now have other stuff on my mind - like editing and querying.  Last night, amidst a rousing discussion of universities and what we can or can't afford, I dropped out and started working on my query blurb.  After several attempts, I think I have a good beginning.  I haven't looked at it yet today, so whether that was just my tired brain going 'This looks awesome, now go to bed' or it was actually pretty good remains to be seen.

In keeping with the direction my brain's been going, my eyes landed on a link I hadn't seen before: Agents' Chapter One Pet Peeves.  Thank goodness I haven't done any of those in this draft.  (And for more, head on over to Part Two.)  Oddly enough, over at PubRants, agent Kristin Nelson talks about what she's seeing - but doesn't want to - in queries.  So between those two places, it's kind of a lesson in 'what NOT to do'.

With as tight as the industry is right now, I don't want to do anything to bulldoze my own work under the pile of rejections.  Sometimes this whole thing feels like a puzzle game - where you have to do everything in perfect sequence to move on to the next level.  Here's hoping that this is the book where I've hit everything in sequence and the door slides open. 

Keep your fingers crossed for me. 

Woohoo!

The ACT scores are in and Daughter got a composite score of....

30



Pardon me while I dance.

4 Authors

This morning the gals at BookEnds posted something fun and I wanted to play along.  The idea is to post four authors - dead or alive - you'd want to have lunch with.  So here goes...

Ayn Rand - because I think she'd have the most interesting stories to tell about her life in Russia, her time in Hollywood (I'd love to hear the story of how she met Cecil B. DeMille in her own words), and the early days of 20th century publishing.  I've seen several interviews she did and even with the thick accent, she was a very eloquent woman.  Of course, I'd probably spend the whole lunch drooling on myself and feeling inadequate.

Robert Louis Stevenson - beyond his novels and his poetry - which are brilliant in themselves - I think RLS was probably a man out of time.  His ideas were so far ahead of the era he was in, I'm surprised he got anything published.  I mean seriously, how could lunch with the guy who wrote this poem not be interesting?

Jim Butcher - because, let's face it, I want his career.  That and I think he'd be a hoot to hang out with.  (Or maybe I'm just assuming he'd be a lot like Harry Dresden - minus the magic.)  And then if we had lunch and became friends, he could introduce me to his wife.  In my fantasy-land, the three of us could sit up all night bouncing story ideas off each other, or just hanging out talking sports and music and movies. 

Seanan McGuire - I didn't even know this chick existed a year ago.  Now she's one of my favorite writers.  She inspires me.  We'd have lunch, talk cats and crazy things.  We'd laugh about the pretentious guy at the next table and secretly wish for the waiter to spill water in his lap. 

If you could have lunch with any four authors, who would they be?

THE END is near

No, that's not some kind of prediction of the zombie apocalypse.  It's just my way of saying I wrote the climax last night.  All that's left is the denouement and I can put this puppy in the 'finished' column. 

I'd tell you which book this is in the scheme of my work, but truth be told, I've lost count.  Let's just say I've written a lot of books since late January of '04.  And this one doesn't even really count as a 'new book', since I wrote this one already and this is the total rewrite.

You know, I've been to other blogs where the writer can guesstimate his total word count.  Ugh.  Mine's got to be in the millions by now.  Right?

:shrug:  Not that it matters.  I'll just keep writing and keep writing and maybe someday someone will want to buy something.  Anyway, enough about that...

It's definitely a good thing. And it means I should have this draft done sometime today or at the latest tomorrow. Yay me.

And then will begin the process of tidying up this manuscript so I can start querying again.  Wish me luck.

(BTW, I'll be posting another request for people to beta read this, so if you're interested, feel free to email me via the link in my profile - or comment here and I'll contact you.  I'm hoping to be ready by the end of July.)

I Need a Sassy Gay Friend

I spent the past couple of days edging the yard.  It looks great, but since I don't have a weedwhipper, I did it all with this little hand held torture device.  The yard looks great - well, if you ignore that it's all weeds - but my hands are big puffy sausages of discomfort.

Yeah, yeah.  I do need a little cheese to go with that.

I also need a Sassy Gay Friend to kick my ass. Like this guy with Desdemona:



D: "Othello's ordered me to bed."
SGF: "Yeah, well he's also ordered a pillow at Bed, Bath and Beyond that's good for smothering."

ROFL

Anyway, I've come to the decision that I don't want to finish this book.  And I'll stomp my feet and hold my breath if anyone tries to make me.  I'm enjoying these people and this world too much.  If I finish this, who knows if I'll ever be able to be with them again.  I mean, if no one buys this, why bother with the sequels?  Right?  :pout:

Okay, so yes, I'll finish this.  I'll even have it done by the end of June like I promised.  But that doesn't mean I have to like writing THE END.  :end pout:

Have you ever written a story you didn't want to end?  Do you need a sassy gay friend, too?

Weekly Update

Is it already a week later?  Sheesh.  Where did those days go?  No, seriously.  I have no idea what I did since last Friday.  According to the old spreadsheet, I wrote just over 10K words.  I read a book or two.  I took the kid out for some teen driving time.

I'm this close (picture me holding my finger and thumb about a half-inch apart) to finishing DLN's second first draft.  It bears little resemblance to the first version - well, except for the genies, the MC, her dog and a couple of her friends.  (Yes, Natalie, I kept Zeke.)  Jo - the MC - is still gritty, but she's got more about her to make her sympathetic to a wider range of readers.  Oh, and there are more bodies.

Last Friday, I finished the latest Sentinel book by Shannon Butcher (Why do my fingers always want to type 'Bitcher'?) and it was probably her best yet.  I also read the second Bullet Catchers novel by Roxanne St. Claire.  I could kick myself for not finding these books years ago and reading them in order.  Sheesh.  Right now, every book I read seems to be in some series or another.  Is it just me or are stand alone books going the way of the dinosaur?

As for Daughter - which is where I suspect the rest of my week went - we're still racking up student driver miles.  This week, we used some of that time to pick up job applications.  That's right... my baby is applying for her first job.  :sniffle:  This morning she even has her first job interview with an acquaintance of mine.  She'll be trying to snag an internship type position in a property management office.  Because in this economy, she has a better shot finding a non-paying job to gain experience than she does finding a paying job to gain mullah.  And personally I'd rather have her getting the experience than the $7.24/hr to bag groceries*.  Of course, bagging groceries isn't her only paying option.  She'll be putting her app in at a florist nearby, too.  If she can get the internship and the paying job, hurray!

And that's my life in a nutshell this past week.  What better place for a nut, right?  How are things in your universe?

*$7.24 to bag groceries???  They're kidding right?  I didn't make that much per hour until I was like... god, I think I was 28 years old before I crossed the $7/hr barrier.  :shudder: