Not the news I was looking for....

Some moments in life are destined to remind me of Star Wars.  "These are not the droids you're looking for."  Yesterday I received not the news I was looking for.

Agent X said Tales is still not ready.

Big Sigh.

Heading into the holidays this isn't what I wanted to hear.  Part of me wished the agent would have waited until January to share the news.  Another part is glad that I at least know and I can now spend a few extra days off in deep contemplation of what to do.  Do I keep editing the same work?  Do I get a professional to provide more feedback (maybe at a cost?)? Do I move on?

Seems to me like I have some thinking ahead.  Each of the options has it's light.  Editing the same work means I'm not giving up on it.  Getting a professional editor to provide more feedback means that I will be improving my skills.  Moving on  means I can focus more clearly on new projects.

Each of the options also has it's darkness.  Editing the same work can be tiresome and irritating and keeps me from working on new projects - some of which I believe to be much stronger.  Getting a professional editor to provide more feedback will cost me money and I may get a result that I don't agree with.  Moving on means giving up - or does it?  I could always self-publish, I suppose, and see where I go from there.

What do you think I should do?

Happy Happy Holidays

Who doesn't like that time of year where we all get time off to do nothing?  Or maybe you're the kind of person who gets time off and does everything!  That's usually how I am.  Currently, as I blogged the other week, I'm working on two projects:  Tales2 and SW.   Hopefully I get some extra words down over my all-too-short x-mas vacation (if only I hadn't taken all that time off earlier this year). 

Good news is I heard from Agent X last week.  Still no review - but an encouraging email that Agent X will get around to reading it soon, and is really looking forward to it.  So, to sum it up, it's been 2 - almost 2.5 - months, and I'm still waiting to hear back from an agent.  Rest assured, this is normal.  And it gives me time to work on other projects.

And I love my other projects.

In order to get pumped for the writing (and reworking) of Tales2, I spent time in Surrey in late November and took a couple of pics to inspire myself.  Below is one of the rainy days I spent walking around. 

What gets you pumped for your projects?  (Whether it be writing or something else - I'm curious)

Apologies

I'm pretty sure that I oon't have any regular readers - but for the thousands that do wait impatiently for my next words, I'm sorry for the long absence from my blog.  I finished Tales edits in early October and sent the updated draft to Agent X who had asked for the rewrite.  It's approaching two months now and I haven't heard anything back.  This is normal.

I tell myself this everyday.  And then I begin to dream about big contracts or turning around and self-publishing.  Whichever way it happens I will be happy.  I wrote a book, I finished it.  Now I need to work on something else.

Which is my main excuse for the long absence of blogging: too many projects.  It's not a bad thing, right?  I can work on multiple projects and spend all my time playing around in the world of the imaginary.  Which brings me to what I am currently working on:  the next book in the Tales Trilogy (I'll call it Tales 2), and an entry for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award which you can read about at the following link if you are interested.  Entries are due in January which means I have a lot of work to do over the holiday season.

http://www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Novel-Award-Books/b?ie=UTF8&node=332264011 

So again, I'm sorry for the absence.  I'm going to get back to my weekly postings of my experience trying to get published. 

See you next week.

Arduous-ity

It's not a word.  But I feel like it should be.  I've spent the past week doing the polishing edits on the Tales manuscript and I have to say:  I am completely, utterly, and almost unbearably sick of my own writing.

I've read it before from other authors, that re-writing, and re-writing, and re-writing, gets to be very tiring, tedious, and exhausting.  But it has to be done.

And the changes I've made are great ones.  I think.

It's always hard to cut words that just aren't working.  Or scenes.  Or chapters  (thankfully chapters mostly happen earlier).  But it is easier to think of making your novel or story better.  Focus on that.  Even though I know exactly what the page says without looking at it, I force myself to open my eyes, because eventually I will see something I haven't seen, and what I do see will be something I can fix to make my book stronger - better.  So I will keep working away at it.  Typo after typo.  Bad sentence after bad sentence.  Fallen brick after fallen brick.  And one day, hopefully, it will be published, on the the shelves, and never get another polish again.

This coming weekend is Thanksgiving, and I'm going to be done by then, because if there is one thing I dislike, it's working on the holidays.  Especially one with pumpkin pie...

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

An End of Season

In a couple days fall will be here.  I have two weeks left in my personal deadline to get the edits back to agent X.  Things are coming to a close.  As I am busy finishing up the final polish on the newest version of my manuscript, this week's post is going to be a sweet ode to the summer which has almost completely passed us by.  This picture I took on a very short trip to a local lake this summer.  I love how the sun reflects on the water.  I love how just looking at the water makes me feel the amber warmth of the sun on my skin.  It was a beautiful evening.

What was your favorite part of summer 2012?

The Power of Water

One of the main elements of my novel is water.  Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch would be nothing if water didn't exist.  But also, the main character wouldn't have her powers.  Sometime after I began writing this book, I realized that I was writing about something that absolutely terrifies me.  That's right, I'm afraid of water.  Maybe it's because my parents put me in swimming lessons when I was too young.  Maybe it's because of that one time my aunt took me down a water-slide and I swallowed a lungful of water. Whatever it was, it stuck.  To this day I hate swimming.

But I do love water.

My favorite thing about water is how it quenches thirst.  My second favourite thing is a cascading waterfall and how awesomely mesmerizing it is to watch gallon after gallon of fresh, clear glacier water come pounding over a cliff.  Whenever I travel, I try to visit a waterfall.  The picture below is from one of the road trips I took this summer.  This waterfall is Takakkaw, in Yoho National Park in British Columbia.  This is one of the most beautiful and accessible waterfalls I've ever been too.  Even though you can drive right up to it, it's still in the middle of nature (unlike certain other falls on the opposite end of the continent).  You could walk right up to the base of Takakkaw, and feel the cold, chilly spray on your skin.  I loved it.

My third favourite element of water is the rain.  I find it clean, refreshing, and rejuvenating no matter how cold it is, or how small and prickly.  Whenever I feel absolutely, completely horrible, I want it to rain.  Because I feel like the rain can be that emotion.  But in the spring, when everything is dusty and grey and my spirits are picking up after a long winter, I want it to rain too because I want everything to be green and bright.  

Water can be many things, and it can mean many different things to many different people.  There is one overall truth that exists for everyone though: we cannot live without water.  It gives us life.  Without it we'd be dust.  

What does water mean to you?

A Priceless Original

Writing Weekend 2012 was an amazing success!  I got through the rest of the rewrites for Tales!  It's been a long hard road, and hopefully I'm approaching the end.  At the very least, I'm approaching a nice, wooden, two-story, solidly built inn with soft, feather beds, and serving delicious bowls of hot lamb stew.  I think I will rest here for a while.  Well, after I do another read-through and edit and send the umpteenth draft of my novel to agent X.

The big milestone had me remembering back to when I finished the first draft in 2009.  WOW.  That was a long time ago.  After I finished, I did a rewrite, then I did another, and another, and...you get the drift.  I took a picture of the first draft I printed out.  There it is sitting pretty in the binder, waiting for my red pen to mark up all the pages.  This last edit I did completely on my computer, which really got me thinking about how I best like to edit, rewrite, read, and write.  I'm pretty sure I like a combination of both paper and plasma....hmmmm....not sure if computer screens are plasma....but either way, I'm sure you get my drift.

What's your favourite way to do each writerly activity?

Oh lookie, here she is all shiny and RED!