Hello!
Well, I have emerged from the infant-induced hiatus to another summer when I am not teaching. I am learning the trick of getting both the girls down for a nap at the same time so I can actually work.
The other trick is to put them both in daycare for a couple days a week. Maybe later this summer I'll blog about the guilt associated with paying a babysitter so I can write, but not today.
My brief writing update is as follows: I am finishing a full revision of my fantasy novel, working title Something. I thought that I had made edits/revisions to the whole book last summer before WWC, but I had only done the first half, thinking anyone who would want to see it would only ask for the first fifty pages first.
Here's a tip: DAW wants the entire manuscript right off the bat.
So, before I send the book to them, I needed to finish the edits. Plus, one of my first readers suggested a couple revisions to the characters arcs that made a lot of sense to me.
The good news is that I am totally in love with this book again. It is as much fun to read and work on the second time as it was the first. I really hope someone wants to publish it.
After I finish that book, I'm going to finish writing the alpaca romance novel I started last August. I think I'm about 60K into it. I need to flesh out the "B" plot, and then revise it to go into the mail to publishers.
That's it for now!
m
Showing posts with label Something. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Something. Show all posts
Monday, July 11, 2011
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Countdown to WWC
The Willamette Writers' Conference begins tomorrow!
I am dotting some "i's" and crossing some "t's" at the moment including writing/practicing my pitches, making "writing" business cards, and generally organizing myself. (Shouldn't forget to pack clothing. That's important, too.)
I have four pitch sessions scheduled for Friday and Saturday, and I am only nervous about them if I think about them...at all. Today was good for me, though, because I had lunch with my friends who are all at least avid readers; one of them is coming to the writing conference with me. They wanted to hear my pitches, so, amid our 2 year-olds running around the house screaming (mine wet her pants in the middle of my pitch), I told my friends my stories.
Good things about practicing in stressful environments: 1. it really, really forces you to focus, 2. it prepares you for the worst. I can almost guarantee that NO ONE will bust into my pitch sessions to demand that I change her wet underpants. Or, if someone does, I maybe will take up gourmet cooking instead.
On top of that, my friends are really savvy and had some really great suggestions for tightening up my pitches. One suggestion was to begin each pitch with the two-sentence "elevator pitch," instead of giving background to set up the story. That's a big "duh" on my part. It seems so obvious to hook pitch listeners with the pithy one-liner rather than drag them into the boring back story first. They are so right.
Just as a treat for my loyal readers, here are the elevator pitches for the two books I'm trying to sell:
Liz A. Stratton Closes the Store.
I am dotting some "i's" and crossing some "t's" at the moment including writing/practicing my pitches, making "writing" business cards, and generally organizing myself. (Shouldn't forget to pack clothing. That's important, too.)
I have four pitch sessions scheduled for Friday and Saturday, and I am only nervous about them if I think about them...at all. Today was good for me, though, because I had lunch with my friends who are all at least avid readers; one of them is coming to the writing conference with me. They wanted to hear my pitches, so, amid our 2 year-olds running around the house screaming (mine wet her pants in the middle of my pitch), I told my friends my stories.
Good things about practicing in stressful environments: 1. it really, really forces you to focus, 2. it prepares you for the worst. I can almost guarantee that NO ONE will bust into my pitch sessions to demand that I change her wet underpants. Or, if someone does, I maybe will take up gourmet cooking instead.
On top of that, my friends are really savvy and had some really great suggestions for tightening up my pitches. One suggestion was to begin each pitch with the two-sentence "elevator pitch," instead of giving background to set up the story. That's a big "duh" on my part. It seems so obvious to hook pitch listeners with the pithy one-liner rather than drag them into the boring back story first. They are so right.
Just as a treat for my loyal readers, here are the elevator pitches for the two books I'm trying to sell:
Liz A. Stratton Closes the Store.
The question of which sex would run the world better is an ancient one. But, what if a woman ran for President to end an unpopular war? And accidentally called a sex-strike in the process?
Something
Something is killing livestock and dogs in rural Oregon and leaving a trail of poisonous scales in its wake. When a Fish and Wildlife officer ends up in the hospital after cutting her hand on a scale, a race to find the creature and a cure for its toxin begins.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Weekly update #1
(1) Story finished, mailed to market
(1) rejection for LSCTS received.
School started this week, so I've felt slammed, so not much writing has occurred. However, the story mentioned above was completed and mailed this week, so I'm counting it, even though it was actually written in December.
I am nearly done with whatever it is I'm doing with Something. Mapping out the chapters is somewhat useful, but now I need to get them in order and fill in the blanks. I do want to finish the book by the end of the month (which, if you look in this blog's archives, is what I wanted to do with LSCTS, last year...not very successfully).
I have a friend who says he wants to trade a chapter for a poem. He likes the way I edit/critique/revise his poems, and I value his opinion on writing, so it might work out. He's not much of a genre fiction fan, though, so I have to remember that when I read his responses. :)
So, not bad for the first seven days of the month. whoopee.
m
(1) rejection for LSCTS received.
School started this week, so I've felt slammed, so not much writing has occurred. However, the story mentioned above was completed and mailed this week, so I'm counting it, even though it was actually written in December.
I am nearly done with whatever it is I'm doing with Something. Mapping out the chapters is somewhat useful, but now I need to get them in order and fill in the blanks. I do want to finish the book by the end of the month (which, if you look in this blog's archives, is what I wanted to do with LSCTS, last year...not very successfully).
I have a friend who says he wants to trade a chapter for a poem. He likes the way I edit/critique/revise his poems, and I value his opinion on writing, so it might work out. He's not much of a genre fiction fan, though, so I have to remember that when I read his responses. :)
So, not bad for the first seven days of the month. whoopee.
m
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