Well, I've been busy. . . .

In early April, when I had my art booth at Equine Affaire in Columbus, Ohio, I got a commission to sculpt a horse pulling a two-wheeled carriage (with a driver in the carriage, of course) which will be used as a world championship trophy! I normally take about three months to do a single horse sculpture, and the foundry takes two to four months to cast that horse in bronze, but this trophy has to be awarded in October, so I have to HUSTLE to get the original made and shipped to the foundry! So that's one of the many reasons I haven't kept this blog up-to-date - I've been slaving away in my studio getting three months of work done in about one month's time! The horse is nearly finished (WHEW!), and I'll be starting on the carriage in the next day or two, hopefully (I'm waiting for the client to send me some measurements so I can get started).

On the writing front, I've been working on a new Harry Potter story to keep my HP readers happy, and letting both novels "rest" so I can read them with fresh eyes when I get back to them. I sent out queries to six agents back in March, all of whom stated on their websites that they report in six weeks. Each also accepted "partials" (a few pages up to 50 pages of the novel), which is why I chose these agents to contact first. I figure the novel will sell itself better than any query letter of mine! I heard back from three of the six, and have yet to hear from the other three, which seems rather odd to me (but maybe they're just swamped, I dunno). It's been way more than six weeks now.

The published writers on the Critters news group said to allow six months to hear back from them, but I'm beginning to have second thoughts, thanks to one of my betas. He suggested I try to benefit from the Harry Potter insanity that's coming this summer (due to film 5 and book 7 coming out within a week of each other!) and get my book out there ASAP. He thinks my HP fans will flock to buy my book now while they're waiting for Harry's next film and last book. So I'm researching self-publishing now, just to see what's involved in self-publishing fiction.

I self-published a non-fiction book, "Sculpting 101: A Primer for the Self-taught Artist" a few years ago (and that edition is nearly sold out - I need to revise and reprint it!), so I'm a "registered" publisher already, and know how to get the ISBN number and get my book listed on "Books in Print" as well as submitting the copyright application and a copy of the book itself to the Library of Congress. I did all of that for the sculpting book. I've had good art sales this year, so I can afford to print a certain number of books if I go the route I used for the sculpting book, which means shipping every book myself rather than having a Print-On-Demand (POD) company handle all that work for me (which is WAY expensive!!). So now I have a query into the local digital printer who did my sculpting book to find out what it will cost to print my novel.

I've spent a lot of today revising the formatting of my novel to a 6" x 9" "trade paperback" format and cleaning up some of the other formatting stuff that appears in a draft of a novel rather than in the finished book - and I'm only up to chapter 2, argh!! It's painstaking, annoying, frustrating work to reformat a 124,000 word book by hand, but that's how I have to do it. I can't do a "search and replace" because every instance of whatever needs to be changed is different!! For instance, the "internal monologues" (thoughts) had to be formatted with an underscore _before and after_ the internal monologue for proper "submission" formatting (or so I've read and been told numerous places). In the printed book, the "before and after" shown between underscores would be printed as italics. Apparently it's easier for a typesetter to find underscores than italics. Also, the existing format (the way I wrote it originally) is in 12 point Courier New, which is not a fun font to read in a book. I've changed the font to Bookman Antigua, which is attractive as well as easy to read, and I'm making the chapter headings in a different font to make them more attractive, as well (well, I AM an artist, after all!). I have to delete the extra space between paragraphs, indent each paragraph three spaces, and center the * * * that denote a scene change (they didn't have to be centered before). Argh. . . talk about a labor of love!!!! *sigh*

That same beta suggested I check into e-book publishing too, but I don't know if I want to go that route. I've done some research already, and found a software that SAYS it encrypts the files so they can't be pirated or shared, but who knows?? That's too much for me to think about right now!

The good news is, a friend of mine who's a *fabulous* painter (Elin Pendleton, www.elinart.com) has agreed to do the cover art! Now we just have to figure out what image would make the best impression as cover art! I have some ideas, but I've asked my betas to give me their ideas, as well. I may ask a few more folks for their opinions before I'm done. But getting Elin, who's a truly exquisite artist, to do the cover art is a real COUP!!!! And she's excited about the book and believes I'll make a great success of it! From her mouth to God's ear, that's all I can say!!!! LOL!

My horses are home from winter boarding at last, so some of my time is being spent doing barn work and taking care of my horses as well as riding. And that's on top of doing yard work, sculpting (of course), keeping up with orders (I just shipped two trophies to Kent, Ohio, and the week before shipped six trophies to a race track in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada! And I have fine art orders to fill, too - only one left to fill, but that piece hasn't arrived from the foundry yet).

On top of all that, I'm teaching a sculpture workshop at the K-12 Gallery in Dayton, Ohio, in late June. I need to do some preparation work for that. Then I have a sculpture show in Botkins, Ohio in July. By that time, the horse and carriage piece should be at the foundry and being cast, so at least that pressure will be gone. In the middle of all this, I have the Harry Potter story to finish and get to the betas, and the first novel to re-format, re-read and decide if I'm going to self-publish it, and the preliminary beta jobs on the second novel to read through and work with. Sleep????? Who has time!!!!!!! :D

It's been a while! Whew!

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since I posted to this blog! Asad wants me to write about my recent trip to Maui. It was wonderful! Ten days in paradise, where we rode horses up and down a steep mountain (at the Menendez Ranch - you can find them online, and they take VERY good care of you!), rode a helicopter over Maui (can't think of the helicopter company's name, but the pilot was Al and he was terrific - I'll post the name when I remember it), rode two catamarans, both from the Trilogy company (they're the BEST!), rode the Atlantis tourist submarine (our second time to do so - still quite a treat!), toured Lanai with Bridget, our tour guide (who's very funny!) and just had a great time in general!

My hubby and I don't swim well and I'm afraid of deep water, so when we went snorkeling, I lost my nerve while walking into the water. I told our catamaran captain (Captain Chuck, who's from Zanesville Ohio!) and he said he'd take care of us. He had a guy from the crew named Orren (I hope I spelled that right!) tow us out to the reef with a surfboard! Orren dove under the board and helped me with my flippers, and towed that surfboard around for about an hour, I think. He was wonderful, and we got the snorkeling experience while feeling SAFE (we did have waist floatie thingies, but they didn't make me feel as safe as hanging on to that surf board!)

Trilogy catamarans are wonderfully fun, and we had a great time both times we went out. We saw lots of whales up close and personal, including mother and calf pairs that breeched in tandem, a mother that spent a long time slapping her tail, her pectorals, breeching, sticking her head up to look around, and in general showing her baby all the things whales do on the surface - and then the baby tried them too. COOL! When we were sailing (the engines were turned off), a pair of adult humpbacks followed us for quite a while, and another breeched right beside our boat, maybe 25 feet off the side! By law, you're supposed to stay 100 yards from the whales, but if the whales come to see you, it's hard to outrun them!

We saw lots of shows, too, and wandered through tons of shops. One fun thing was that I'd bought a turquoise-blue pendant that's a paua (sp?) shell with resin "coral" with pearls and rhinestones embedded in it. I got this necklace here in Dayton, Ohio, at a discount store, just to have something bright, colorful and inexpensive to wear in Hawaii. Imagine my SHOCK at how many shop clerks, expensive jewelers and just people in general *raved* about how beautiful my necklace was! (I got it at Stein Mart, for $20!). That was fun!

I didn't get any story ideas in Maui - at least, I don't think I did - but I had a wonderfully relaxing time. I have gotten story ideas since returning home, including several today while observing people at a restaurant where my hubby and I had lunch. I don't know what story it's inspired, but a woman who had lunch with a big white rabbit (a stuffed rabbit wearing an Easter bonnet, who was given a baby seat, a bib and some crackers by the servers!) certainly seemed to be screaming to have a story written about her! LOL!

Meanwhile, my second novel has been through one beta and my Brit-picker so far, and a second beta is sending in his comments in pieces (which are quite useful!). All of them (so far) have said the second novel is "a good read" YAY! What surprises me is that they haven't reacted to what is truly a first draft as if it's a first draft, except for marking a few typos (I did write the majority of this book while riding in a truck, y'know. The fact that it's readable at all is pretty much a miracle!) I have a ficlet beginning to bubble in the back of my brain to keep my HP fans happy, a lot of whom are writing me that they're re-reading my HP novels online and enjoying them for the second or, in one case, hundredth time (maybe she was exaggerating a bit????). And one of my readers sent me a note saying it was the anniversary of the last chapter uploaded to my second HP novel. Boy, these folks are so sweet to pay such attention to my novels!! Now if I can get an agent, a publisher and get my original novels out there, maybe these HP readers wil buy them!! A lot of them have said they want to, or asked where they can buy them. As soon as these books are available, I'll have ordering info on every site hosting my stories and will activiate my "namesake" website, which will be my writing website. I'll post info in this blog, too.

I'm still waiting to hear from some of the agents I queried a few weeks ago. I won't send a second batch of queries out until I've heard from all of those in the first batch. I'm enough of an optimist to hope that someone in this first batch will LOVE my story and take me on as a client!! Keep your fingers crossed that such a thing actually happens, and SOON! Thanks!

On getting published

Someone on my Yahoo group asked me how to get published. Well, I'm about to try for that myself, but I've done a lot of research on it, so following are my thoughts on going from idea to publication. Since I'm only published as a newspaper/magazine freelancer, I'm sharing my research, not my experience. When I have fiction publishing experience to share, I will certainly do so!

There are LOADS of books out there on how to get published. The best thing you can do to learn about writing and publishing is join a writers' group online where pro's and wannabe-pros (like me!) both post. Critters.org is a good site if you write sf/f/horror (mine are fantasy, so I fit there), but earning critiques there takes a long time. I use www.notebored.com for my crit group, Hatrack River Writers Workshop (Orson Scott Card's site) for the lessons there and the message boards (mostly the boards) http://www.hatrack.com/writers/index.shtml. Liberty Hall is a good site, but it's invitation only (I'm a member but don't participate there much - too busy, but it's a good site). All the sites I'm involved with are for sf/f/h writers. There are similar sites for romance writers, children's writers, etc. You just have to search for them.


The first step to geting published is to write, write, write, then revise, revise, revise (*way* more than three times!!). Set the story aside for a month or two and find something else to occupy your mind so that, when you look at the story again, you'll see it with fresh eyes. Then revise, revise revise AGAIN! After it's as good as you can get it, ask people whose opinions you truly respect to read and critique your writing. Be sure the people you ask like the genre in which you're writing - don't ask those who like techno-thrillers to read a fantasy novel, for instance. Your loved ones -- spouse and children -- may refuse to read it because they're afraid they'll hurt your feelings if they don't like it - which is why nobody in my family has read any of my fiction, *sigh* (and they're into techno-thrillers instead of fantasy, so that's another problem).

Don't argue with your readers, learn from them. Every opinion has SOME validity, even if it doesn't make sense to you (if it doesn't, ask them to clarify their meaning, to give specific examples from your story and perhaps they will also be willing to suggest ways to rewrite the problem areas).

Go through as many critiques as it takes for you to get to the point where there is very little you can find to change in the manuscript (I had 3 betas, my Brit-picker, two critique groups and two or three other folks critique mine). When you think it's really, truly finished, see if your most vocal critic will read it one more time to help you find any leftover plot holes, words used too frequently, etc.

While he's working on that, you can start researching agents you want to query. If it's a novel, those who know the industry suggest you try to find an agent first, rather than a publisher. An agent can get you through doors that you'll never get into by yourself. You can meet agents at writing conventions, many of which are sf/f/h conventions as well as writing conventions.

There are guide books published each year by Writer's Digest books and others that list both agents and publishers open to new writers. The 2007 Guide to Literary Agents is my next research assignment, once I get the polishing on "Star Sons" a bit further along (no, wait - I can do it today, since I'm polishing chapter 10 right now). Some agents want you to send the first five pages, others the first five chapters, a rare few the first hundred pages. When I have the first hundred pages polished again (I'm nearly there now), I'll start sending out queries to agents, ten at a time.

www.AgentQuery.com is a good site that has up-to-date lists of agents and tells what they're looking for. Jeff Herman has an annual guide to agents that's really nice because they answer questionnaires that tell their other interests, such as favorite films, which can help you get to know them better before approaching them (so you can do a better job of choosing who to query).

I've read many times that it's a good idea to break into publishing by creating a name for yourself by selling short stories. I'm not very good at writing short stories - I tend to think in "long form" - so I haven't tried that route. I do write articles for magazines and newspapers - I'm working on some now to publicize my daughter's new farm (a training/boarding facility that features educational clinics for riders - www.dancinghorsefarmoh.com), but short stories just don't seem to flow from my fingers all that well. It's a good idea to try them first if you can write them.

Query letters are difficult to master, IMO. The query letter has to catch the eye but be professional-looking and SHORT. A synopsis is also hard for me to write, as is a "blurb" (a one-paragraph explanation of the story). But those are all things you need to learn how to do.

All that said - hang out in writers' forums. Participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month - nanowrimo.org, I think), or at least read the forums. Read every book you can find on story, structure, character, dialog, plot, scene, description, etc. Read every book you can find on every aspect of writing and submitting your novel. There is a "Complete Idiots' Guide to Publishing Your Novel" that explains the process in simple language, and many others that are just as good. Learn to love spending time at B&N or Borders browsing the writing books! Subscribe to Writers Digest (www.writersdigest.com) and check out their book club, as well. WD covers everything from freelance articles to memoirs to poetry to screenplays to short stories and novels, and has books in the book club that are tremendously helpful for any form of writing.

Beware of vanity presses and POD (print-on-demand) places if you want to be published "for real." There are two distribution companies in the US that distribute books to all the big chain stores. Ingrams is one of these, and I can't think of the other, sorry! I've read in articles and on several forums that PoD places and vanity presses (both of which involve the writer paying to have the book printed) cannot get their books into the chain bookstores (Barnes & Noble, Borders, Waldenbooks, Books-A-Million, etc.) or even WalMart-type stores. So you'll have a garage full of books unless you can talk your family and friends into buying them or do a lot of SERIOUS marketing on your own. (To be fair - there are POD and vanity press success stories such as the "Soup for the Soul" books, but those are rare.)

Bookstores won't deal with distributors who won't take returned books (those that haven't sold in a certain amount of time), which is why they deal pretty much exclusively with Ingrams and that other place (darned swiss-cheese memory! *sigh*) POD and vanity presses won't take returned books.

POD books are fine for those with a small niche market - I did that for my "how to" book on sculpting ("Sculpting 101: A Primer for the Self-taught Artist" which, like "real" published books, has an ISBN number and UPC code). My art business (Whimsy Hill Studio) is listed as a "publisher" in all the places that matter. I didn't bother to try to place the book with a real publisher nor did I worry about distributing it through Ingrams, since it has such a small niche market. I sell it from my website (www.thesculptedhorse.com) and in my booth at shows. I also wholesale it to art teachers and sculpture supply stores, including the largest one in the US (as far as I know), The Compleat Sculptor in NYC. That's good distribution for such a book, and I make a tidy profit from sales. I actually need to revise it and do a second printing - I'm almost out of the first edition. But that kind of thing, church cookbooks and family memoirs are pretty much all PoD and vanity presses are good for if you're serious about being a PUBLISHED author, as I am. (And you can't count such "publication" on a writing resume - the pros in the field know who the PoD publishers are and will give no credance to such "credentials.")

Once your novel is as good as it can be, print it out and edit it again. You'll be surprised what jumps out at you when the novel is on paper rather than on a computer screen.

Once you narrow down which agents you want to query, find out how the agent wants to be queried (that's what AgentQuery.com and those books are for, to give up up-to-date names and addresses of agents who are LOOKING for new writers!) Print your novel out in the proper format (do some research - I don't have to tell you *everything* LOL! That can be another post sometime anyway) and send a fresh, clean, crisp copy (not your ONLY copy!) of however many pages they want (if any), along with your query letter, etc. and a self-addressed-stamped-envelope for the agency's response. Then cross your fingers that you get a good response!

Oh, another thing to do before querying is to go to a bookstore and look at books similar to yours. Look in the "acknowlegements" for each one (not all of them will have them, but mine includes this group, my betas, and the others who've helped me get my novel into publishable form). Find out who the agent is for the writers whose books are similar to yours. Then look in the guidebooks to see if that agent is taking new writers and query them, since you know they like work similar to yours.

If an agent asks for more of your manuscript (and you do NOT copyright your manuscript!! That's very amateurish. No agent or publisher is going to rip off your story), send them exactly what they ask for (but if they ask for the first five pages, for instance, and the chapter ends on page 6, go ahead and send page 6 - they'll accept that). After that, make sure you find a lawyer to go over the contract you're offered (if you're so lucky!) before signing it, and you're in business!

A reputable agent will not charge you a reading fee or any other fees up front. Once you have a contract, they may charge an "office fee" for copying, etc., but you shouldn't have to pay anything else. Agents are like commissioned salesmen - they make their money by making sales, not by charging writers fees. If, in your research, you run across an agent who charges a reading fee or other fees, don't query him. That's what all the pros say, and I think it's good advice.

If you're lucky enough to find an agent, and he's good enough to find you a publisher, the publisher should put you together with an in-house editor who may make suggestions about your story. Listen to the editor - he knows what works in the real world of publishing. But remember, too, that it's YOUR story. If you question something the editor says, there's nothing wrong with asking about that point (or so I've been told - I'm not at that point yet!)

Eventually, you'll be sent galley proofs to read so you can make sure the story was printed as you wrote it (you'll be looking for typos and real errors - no "polishing" allowed at this point). Once the galleys are approved, the book goes to press. Then you and your agent or publisher will discuss which book signings you'll attend, etc. and you'll hope and pray that lots of folks buy your book! (You should talk to the agent and publisher about how your book will be promoted and how much travel you're expected or are willing to do to attend book-signings, etc. If you're comfortable giving interviews, it will benefit your book for you to be interviewed on radio and TV and in print, so let your agent and publisher know if you are comfortable in front of crowds that way - that's where my years as a performer - both singing and sculpting in public - will be helpful to me! Yay!)

This is the publishing business as far as I know it from extensive research and talking to friends who've been published (but not in my genre, dang it, although one friend did try to hook me up with an agent friend - but that agent doesn't handle fantasy, *sigh*, nor did she know any such agents - I did try to get the networking thing going, but it didn't pan out, alas).

Hopefully, this rambling post is a bit helpful to you!

WHOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

That squealing you can hear all across the country (surely you can, right??) is ME!!!!! I just put all the chapters of my novel together and did a total word count. I was SO worried it was going to be WAAAAAY over the 120,000 limit for first-time fantasy novelists, since it was 115,000+ when I started editing/revising, and parts of it have "grown" considerably. But one chapter got deleted completely, saving me 1800 words (which isn't much in the overall scheme of things), and I've been polishing polishing polishing as hard as I can go. So are you ready for my combined chapter word total????? WHOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!!!!!! Doing the happy dance here! It's 122,272, and some of that is chapter headings ("Chapter 1, Chapter 2," etc. through chapter 51 - so that's 102 words, right, that don't count in the word total? So I'm down to 122,170! YAAAAY!) I can trim 2170 words outta there, no problem!! YAAAAAAY!!!

Doing the happy dance here!!! (And there was nothing wrong with the chapter I cut - it was just not "necessary" to the flow of the story, so I cut it. Nice chapter, too bad it's gone, but YAY that I'm so close to the right word count! HUZZAH!!!!

Here I go, doing a celebratory squealy circle dance all by myself!

Media bias, grrrrrr

I was simply appalled by the ridiculous media bias shown on ABC's "Good Morning America" when Diane Sawyer, Robin Roberts and an English correspondant reported on Daniel Radcliffe's publicity photos for the play "Equus." The reporters expounded repeatedly on their idea that parents wouldn't want their children to see "Harry Potter" nude. (Children aren't going to be taken to see "Equus," which is such an intense play, it's difficult for many adults to watch.) The reporters completely ignored the fact that every person they interviewed for the story supported Daniel's decision to appearin "Equus" as a very professional way to progress in his career from child star to an adult actor whose work is taken seriously. Even the mother of young children who was interviewed simply shrugged and said, "He's an actor. He isn't Harry Potter or a role model. He has a right to do what he wants to with his career." One person said Daniel was being very professional in his choices by taking a challenging part and changing his looks to prove he can do adult work, rather than partying, getting drunk and getting into trouble to "prove" he's a grown-up. And those who think that, at 17, he's too young for such a part need to remember that he is English, and he is "legal" there for such things at his age. Also, the British aren't as offended by nudity as some Americans are.

The photos themselves are true works of fine art and were shot in good taste. Some of them are comparable to many photographs, paintings andsculptures I've seen in art museums. As a fine artist myself, I am envious of the skill shown by the photographer, Uli Weber. I've done a lot of photography over the years, and won awards for it, but Mr. Weber's work is astoundingly beautiful.

ABC News just lost another household. We stopped watching Dan Rather when his lies and bias became obvious. For ABC's reporters to say exactly the opposite of what the people interviewed said about this subject is another form of media bias we will not tolerate. I really like Diane Sawyer most of the time. I'm ashamed of her for allowing this story to run as it did.

My busy brain. . .

Wow, I just noticed that my last post was on Dec. 12, 2006. At the time, I didn't realize that was the actual anniversary of the day I started "Star Sons"! Now it's complete, going through critique on a writing website and after the post-critique final polish, I'll be searching for an agent and/or publisher!

Meanwhile, on Dec. 29, 2006, I completed the first draft of Book 2 of the "Star Sons" saga, which still has no title. This is the novel I worked on as my NaNoWriMo project, which is now up to around 105,000+ words. I have to go back and punch up some descriptions and other stuff to complete it. I pushed the plot forward as fast as I could, trying a different style of writing for this one, rather than my normal "write a bunch, next day re-read that and polish, polish, polish, then maybe write some more if there's time" style of writing. It will be interesting to re-read it from the beginning and see how "polished" or "unpolished" my first draft is!

Someone on my HPRefinersFire Yahoo group said my imagination must be very crowded, after I'd posted that book 1 is being polished, book 2 is finished and book 3 is clamoring to be written! I had to agree, my imagination IS crowded! That led to this post, which I'm copying here from my Yahoo group:

I start a novel with the characters in mind, a basic conflict in mind, and the ending, as well, but then have to hope I can weave all that together in a coherent whole and make it something people will CARE about! There's a lot of "dancing on ice" involved, hoping I don't hit a "thin patch" and fall through a hole (not being able to finish the story, or writing something that's BORING or that nobody can care about - ACK!). I think what I've written in book 2 is going to be an exciting read - sure hope so, anyway!!

You would not BELIEVE how crowded my brain is!!! Yet when I'm going to sleep now, with no scenes to plan, I feel quite lonely. Ethan, Jake, Laurel, Casey and Merlin have kept me entertained, excited, involved and curious for over a year now (I started "Star Sons," the first book, Dec. 12, 2005). I'm TRYING to give things a rest now so I can polish accurately and get some SCULPTING done (writing kind of takes over mylife and my art business just coasts along while the writing has control of my brain. Good thing I do editions instead of one-of-a-kind sculptures or I'd be in big trouble!) It's been strange since I wrote "the end" to book 2 how lonely I've been in my dreams, which are usually great places to plot scenes. Kind of hard to switch gears.

Now I'm getting ready to make some lists of things I want to "punch up" in both books to make the characters even more sympathetic, more flawed, more three-dimensional, more INTERESTING. I'm having trouble making Ethan "flawed" - he's such a hero and I love him so. His biggest flaw is his sense of responsiblity, which makes him, even as an older teen and young man in his early twenties, "stodgier" than his brother Jake - at least in Jake's eyes. Ethan is shy, Jake's outgoing, but Jake's an impulsive rascal and in some ways is more "dimensional" than Ethan. I have to make sure Ethan isn't a one-note hero, a cardboard cutout (although he isn't to ME -- I have to make sure he's as rich a character to READERS as he is to me). Ethan's other "flaw"is his temper, which can result in things exploding without his sending spells in any direction, so he's a very controlled person even as a child. But I'm gonna have to let his temper explode a bit more (and earlier in both books), I think, to show how dangerous it can be and make it obvious how good a person he is for being able to control it as well as he does.

Anyway, that's how Ethan and Jake are entertaining me today - trying to show me their flaws and foibles as well as their good sides, so I can enhance their characters in the book. <<

So now I'm off to work on those lists and start incorporating the critiques of book 1 from that writing site into the chapters (which is MUCH harder to do at times than it sounds!!)

It's been a while!

It's been a while since I posted, but I've been busy! As you can see from the NaNoWriMo icon, I'm a WINNER with my NaNo novel coming in at 55,506 by the 28th of November, when I had to quit writing for a while due to real life pressures. That novel is the second in the "Star Sons" series and now stands at over 82,000 words. It's light on descriptive passages right now because I used the impetus of NaNo to push the plot forward, which is a different way of writing for me.

A couple of days ago, I posted some questions about fantasy battles on three different websites--my Yahoo group (HPRefiners Fire, the Hatrack River Writers Group, and Critters Newsgroups. I've gotten an amazing array of answers to my questions at these three sites. The first one, my Yahoo group, is made up of readers of my Harry Potter fanfiction, many of whom are eager to read my original work as well. Many of my readers are also writers of fanfiction, some more serious than others. They come from a wide variety of backgrounds, so they have lots of interesting expertise to share in many fields. The second and third groups are writers message boards. The people posting there are either published or hoping-to-be-published authors. Their suggestions and opinions are interesting, valuable and much appreciated by me.

The trick, when asking for opinions or suggestions for your writing, is to remember that everything any of these folks say is their own opinion. They haven't read my stories. They only know what I've told them in a post, which may or may not be a good representation of the story itself.

Sometimes it's hard to trust yourself, to trust that what you've written is actually of interest to other people. That's why I'm so glad I started out writing fanfiction, where I could upload completed stories and get instant feedback. Doing those fanfiction stories helped me gain confidence in my writing so that when someone does make a comment that leaves me wondering why I'm bothering, or if I get stuck and make my OWN comments about "why am I bothering???" I know I actually am a decent writer. So kudos to my fanfiction readers! And thanks to those on the various message boards who offered suggestions to help me out.

Off to a good start!

The first day of Nano is over and I wrote 4680 words! Yay! Now, if I can keep up that pace, I might actually manage the 50,000 words by the end of the month, even with the interruption of my 10 day business trip, Thanksgiving and life in general. Onward!! You can watch my word count progress via the icon in the sidebar, if it's working - sure hope it's working! LOL!

And we're off!

It's November 1st, and the beginning of the National Novel Writing Month. So far, I've written about an hour and have 740 words. I can't even do the math to see how many years it will take me to write 50,000 words at the rate of 700 words an hour - wait, yes, I can! Ah, it will take 7.15 hours to write 50,000 words at a 700 word an hour rate. I can knock that novel out in ONE DAY! Yeah, right. . . .

Anyway, good luck to all Nano participants! I tried to install the Participant icon here, but it didn't work for some reason. Oh well. Off to work again!

Just in time!!!!

I JUST THIS MINUTE finished the serious revision I was doing on "Star Sons" - POV problems are worked out, chapters have been divided differently, writing has been heightened, deepened, intesified and I have not counted the total words. The total chapters will be 52, I think. I need to renumber the chapters after dividing chapter 5 into three chapters long after moving ahead. To avoid any MORE confusion, I kept the numbering system the same. Now I'll go back and straighten out those problems and see how many thousands of words I've gone beyond my 120,000 goal! Ack! But first, maybe I'll ride my horse if the arena's dried out enough (we've had rains of biblical proportions recently!)

Now the decks are cleared for me to concentrate on my Nano project, which will be the sequel to "Star Sons." I'll just count up the words I've already written and write 50,000 words beyond that to earn my "winner" icon! That's the plan, anyway!

YAY!

WHEW! The break I took to whine on here and putter around online was a GREAT help! As soon as I went back to the section of chapter 39 that had me stumped, I saw the solution! And it was EASY!!!!!!!!!! YAAAAY!

This whole experience is just testimony to the benefits of taking breaks!! Procrastination can be a good thing if you do it right!!

Change in plans

Well, that story I came up with for Nano has been shelved for the time being. I am actually STRESSING about not getting any writing done on my second novel, with all the editing I'm doing on the first. So, the Nano novel will be "Star Sons Book 2" - I need to think of a title, oh well. At least while trying to work out what to do for Nano, I realized I want to do my father's WWII memoirs as a screenplay. There's something else to work on in the future. But first I want to finish at least the first two books of "Star Sons"!!!! So "Star Sons II" is the Nano book. Good. Decision made, stressing over that is finished now. Yay.

Talk about stress. I'm quite frustrated with my POV problem in SS - I have some scenes where I want to see into *both* brothers' heads - that's one of the interesting things about having TWO main characters/heroes, IMO, seeing things from both points of view, but everyone who knows more about writing than I do tells me "Nope! Can't do that! One POV per scene! That's ALL!" Argh. I'm up to chapter 39 now (formerly chapter 17) in revisions and have the problems fixed, including a major rewrite of chapter 2 (so now two versions exist and will continue to do so until I decide which I like better.) Actually, the chapter I'm on should be #42, because I decided yesterday to divide chapter 5 into three chapters - so now those files are "Chapter 5," "Chapter 5a (will be 6)," and "Chapter 5b (will be 7)." Renumbering all the chapters and making certain I don't erase any by mistake will be another nightmare. But don't worry, I have everything backed up.

Maybe part of my stress is that it's been raining so long. I HATE HATE HATE gray days. And I'm stuck at home because we have workmen installing something (a two day job) and I can't leave. I'd like to just go to the grocery store, y'know? Just a change of scene, see some people, that kind of thing, but no, I'm stuck here. Ah well, I'll survive. I'd survive better if it wasn't gray and soggy outside!! *sigh*

Pardon my whining. The news isn't all bad - the revisions really SING! But it's so HARD getting them there. Writing is FUN! Revising is hell.

Progress!

A lot has changed since my last post. I've been working on the problems in "Star Sons" and am now up to chapter 20 (which used to be chapter 10 - some chapters have been broken into two parts, one into three, others left as they were; the POV problems are being worked out; and I'm polishing the socks off of everything as I go). I've come up with a story idea for Nano - just the characters, setting and ending so far (which is how most of my novels start out). I've tried every kind of "outlining" or "scene planning" or "plot diagramming" system I've heard of recently and every single one of them blocks me entirely. But put a blank computer screen in front of me and a cooperative keyboard at my fingertips, and the words just fly! So I'm not too worried (she said hopefully! LOL!). I hope my story idea is "enough" to spin a novel out of, but we'll see as I go along!

I tried to write "Star Sons" conservatively (meaning "tightly" - not a lot of words, not following every possible story thread that presents itself) because I know I can write TONS of words in a very short time. Now I'm not worrying so much about keeping the word count down (I have deleted an entire scene and tighten some others so far). It was 115,000 words before I started this draft of it. Hopefully I won't go over 120,000, but with the editing I'm doing as I go along, the word counts aren't varying TOO much -- so far -- hopefully!

The Nano novel will be a completely different thing, not part of the "Star Sons" saga. I'm frustrated about not having time to work on the second novel, which is SCREAMING to get out, but I want the first one polished while I have all the things I want to fix fresh in my mind. I can't do the second one as my Nano novel because you're not supposed to work on anything that's already started, and I have the first two chapters and some of the climax already written for "Star Sons II" (whatever its title may be. . .).

"Star Sons" is being critted on Notebored.com now and Boris and Pyx, in particular, have been a great help so far. It's amazing the things I think readers don't really need to see that the people who read it WANT to see. I'll have to be careful about that, because fulfilling such desires in readers is what made my HP novels go to 50 page chapters and over a million words for the two novels together! I can't be that "generous" with "Star Sons" or no publisher will ever take it.

A new direction???

As I just said in a reply to Sherri's NaNoWriMo comment, I learned at Context that stories with male protagonists are rare in the YA market, so they should have a better chance of selling there. I hadn't planned on aiming my story at the YA market. The second novel will have some sex in it (dunno how far I'm gonna go with that, how much I'm gonna show, but it's there), but I'm told sex and violence aren't a problem in YA books. I suppose I have some research to do to see what's acceptable in the YA market. My heroes start out at 16 and 19, and are 17 and 20 by the end of the book. I don't know if that's too old for the YA market or not. I guess I'd better find out!

Another thing I learned at Context was that I REALLY enjoy screenwriting and it comes easily to me! So that's something I plan to explore!

And then there's the technical stuff I learned there, which means I'm rewriting "Star Sons" completely to fix some things that can't be just fixed here and there - the whole book needs to be gone through with a fine-toothed comb to get all these things correct. I have to tighten up some POV issues, change where some of my chapters break, etc. OH boy. . .such fun. . .argh. . . . And NaNoWriMo is coming soon and I have NO IDEAS. Well, I have a few, but still, this stuff with my novel has me so distracted, I can't think of anything else right now. It will all work out in time, I'm sure. I just have to keep plugging away at it.

I'm off!

I'm off to Columbus, Ohio, for the Context 19 writers' conferences. They were considerate enough to ensure the conferences didn't overlap, so I signed up for ALL of them! Critiques of the first couple of chapters of my novel by my peers and some pros; a screenwriting workshop; paranormal romance workshop; etc., etc. And they're roasting author Mike Resnick Saturday evening, too. Should be fun!

NaNoWriMo

Well, I'm gonna have a go at writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I've signed up for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). My participant icon is SUPPOSED to be on here - I tried to upload it. We'll see if it "took" or not!! Oh, and I joined the Dayton NaNoWriMo group - I'll try to get to their meetings. It will be nice to have a face-to-face writing group to meet with regularly - I think! (Never having been part of one, I have no idea if it will be helpful or just give me more to be confused about! :))

Meanwhile, I'm busy re-editing and polihsing my novel, working on a new query letter to go to a new set of agents (8 rejections out of 11 queries so far - time to move on to the next ones on the list). I'm not discouraged - I know I aimed high (I queried the best-known fantasy agencies who were looking for new authors. Now it's time to move down a tier, I guess. I didn't really expect any of these guys to take me on, but hope does spring eternal and all that!)

I have several ideas rattling around in my head for the NaNoWriMo project. I have no clue which one will be the one I work on, but at least I have more than one idea -- if one doesn't work out, I can do another!

New writing boards I'm enjoying: Notebored.com, LibertyHallWriters.org. I'm also enjoying the Context-19 writer's workshops message boards and reading assignments (the scripts we have in our reading list are awesome! "Braveheart," "Pirates of the Caribbean," "The Princess Bride" and "Superman" are the ones I've chosen to read of the list offered. These are early drafts of each script, I believe. It's amazing to read them and know how different each one became from its early draft. I'm looking forward to Context this weekend!

Hal Spacejock

This has to be one of the coolest ideas for publicizing novels I've seen. Can't wait to read his books! And the articles on writing on Simon's site (Simon Haynes, author of the Hal Spacejock books) and the freeware downloads he has are fabulous! I downloaded his yTimer and his yWrite. yWrite so far is amazingly intuitive and fairly easy to learn. Cool beaners!!


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Fun writing sites. . .

Thanks to a reply to one of my replies on on the (Hatrack River Writer's Workshop forum, I found Liberty Hall, a members-only writing site that has flash challenges, crit groups, all kinds of fun things. Among the fun things I found was a link to a freeware countdown timer, which Mike (who owns Liberty Hall) recommends for use with the "flash challenges" (where you write a story in 90 minutes - ack!!). The timer is available at Spacejock Timer yTimer. In addition to offering free software, Spacejock's owner, Simon Haynes, is a published author with articles on writing, agents, publishing, etc. Here's a quote from his site:

"Over the past ten years Simon Haynes has grown from a beginning writer to a bestselling, award-winning author, and his site contains numerous articles with useful advice and warnings on writing, publishing and agents. Learn from his mistakes so you don't make them too."

Sounds good to me! And his novels look like a lot of fun. Anyone who's favorably compared to Terry Pratchett's work (he writes the Discworld series, which is hysterical sf humor, in case you don't know) is someone whose work I want to read!

And what a good marketing idea he has! I'll have to try something like that myself when my novel's published (four rejections out of eleven queries to literary agents so far - not too bad!)

Back to work for me!

I'm back from visiting our daughter and had a wonderful vacation. The weather was gorgeous, the sightseeing was fun, and it was a joy to see the progress my grandhorses have made in their training. I took over 1500 pictures (ah, the joys of a 2 gig card - plus two 512 mb cards - and a good camera!) and there are lots of good painting subjects among those pics.

The break was a great help to my writing. When I had a chance to read, I worked my way through half of literary agent Donald Maas' book How to Write the Breakout Novel. A lot of what he said is stuff I've read before, or thought out on my own, but some of it is really useful to me. One thing he said that hit home was about conflict. "What's the worst that can happen?" Think that, then make it happen and find a way for the hero to work his way out of it. As I was pondering that, the climactic battle and aftermath of my second novel popped into my head. I've known all along I'd want certain things to happen in that battle, but suddenly, there it was! So today I'm going to write down those scenes while they're fresh in my mind, despite the fact that only the first two chapters of the novel are actually written. I've planned out the rest, very loosely, but I do know where I'm going. Now if I can just keep it down to a reasonable number of words. . . (120,000 or so).

Lynda

This 'n' that

I've received three rejections so far, each of them very nice - much nicer than the rejections I got for the kids book I tried to get published back in the late 1980's. I'm not discouraged - I know I aimed high with the agents I chose to query first, but why NOT aim high? There are tons more agents to try if these all reject me, but my hope is that the ones who asked for pages with the query and synopsis will be captured by the story and ask for more. I'm sure my story is better written than my queries!

I've just returned from a week-long painting workshop with Elin Pendleton at the Kentucky Horse Park. I tried to write in the evenings, but my brain was so full of information about painting, I had a hard time stringing words together, much less writing a coherent story! Still, I made a start on a short story to keep my HP readers happy. Hopefully, I'll be able to come up with a fun conclusion to this little piece of fluff soon!

I'm off for a week-long visit with our daughter and son-in-law tomorrow. I'll be teaching her what I learned in my painting workshop, and we'll be sightseeing and messing around with her horses, and I'll get to see her take lessons on two of my grandhorses. Hmm, I need to charge the camera batteries. . .there are bound to be good painting subjects in those pictures! I'm taking notecards with me to try to bash out a logical plot for the second novel, which is started but needs a better framework before I move too far ahead with it. I need to balance the action and story between this second book and the third one planned for this series, so both books have equally good plots. I'm usually a blank-page writer, so this "planning" thing is hard, but necessary for what I'm doing here.

Hopefully I'll start getting INTERESTED responses from agents soon! (Yeah, I'm a dreamer, but at least I dream BIG!! LOL!)