Friday, October 30, 2009

NaNoWriMo is just hours away!

I'm less prepared than I was last year for NaNo. Last year, I had practically the entire book outlined and characters firmly sketched. However, last year I based the book on Lysistrata, so I had a full set of fully-formed characters and a pre-existing plot to follow.

This year, I don't have a firm handle on my main character, and I only have an elevator-pitch for my plot:

Outbreak meets Jurassic Park meets Anne McCaffery.

I think this will be a wild ride, though. I have several short stories on this basic idea that date back to when I was in high school (egad!). One of the stories in the mail right now sparked the idea of the book.

Well, I'm going to do a modicum of research on what a state wildlife officer does so there will be some verisimilitude in my book.
ta
m

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Weekly update

This week, I got a novel rejection from Simon and Schuster, but whichever little intern read it, carefully folded the packet and stuffed it into my #10 SASE! Bonus. I had a glimmer of misguided hope when I held the weighty envelop in my hand, though.

I also received an email confirmation from Tin House that they had entered my (snail-mailed) story into their online submission form. It should be easier to track, I suppose.

I am mailing a fantasy story tomorrow to a fantasy magazine, though I have since realized that the story is actually the first vignette of the novel I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo. Dragons meet Outbreak meets Jurassic Park. Should be fun to write. :)

Writing-wise, I started a story about a girl and some alpacas, which wants to become My Friend Flicka with alpacas. I'm pretty sure I can sell a story to an alpaca magazine I subscribe to, but as a novel idea, it'll have to wait until after Nano.

The NaNo class begins on Tuesday! Yikes! That means I only have two weeks to commit to a novel idea (Dragons Amok is only the leading contender), and I have to finalize what I'm going to teach. I've got the first couple weeks under control, but it's the four in November that I really need to plan out before they happen. I'll be too busy to plan once NaNo start.

By the way, anyone who wants to follow me on the NaNo website, my handle is "marenster," just like it is on Twitter.

That's all for now!
m

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Mailings, Rejections, Death

So, since my birthday, I've mailed two more stories and gotten a rejection for the novel. I turned around and mailed it to another publisher.

However, one of the editors I sent the novel to on 9/25 DIED on 9/27!

I didn't think my writing was that bad. Maybe her inoperable uterine cancer had something to do with it.

That's just rotten luck. For her. I'm just happy my proposal is sitting in her now-defunct slush pile while I live and breathe and write more. Cancer is just a bummer all around.

m