Girls just wanna...

...eat yummy food, drink wine, and watch hot vampires! All of that = FUN. Well, I mean, at least that's what some of MY dear friends and I really, really enjoy doing. I've mentioned my love of The Vampire Diaries here before, and now that the season is back in session after the holiday hiatus we're back to our usual Thursday night shenanigans over at Karyn's apartment. In fact, we never really took a hiatus ourselves. While TVD was on break we watched the first season and some of the second season of True Blood, and we're completely addicted to that show as well. Tonight I'm hosting a girls night at my place so we can catch up on more True Blood season 2 episodes, and, of course, eat a ton of food and drink a ton of wine.

I look forward to Thursdays every single week. Don't get me wrong, I love my husband and spending time with him is awesome too, but there's just nothing like being in a room with a few of your wonderful friends and squealing like a 15 year old over shirtless boys on TV without anyone judging you. I'm so glad we started this little tradition, and I hope we continue it indefinitely. Even if TVD goes off the air and we have to find another show with hot boys to fill the void. I just hope whatever show that is also has Ian Somerhalder on it.

Right on target

I know I've mentioned here before that I'm not a huge procrastinator. That being the case, I'm thankfully moving right along with my manuscript and my goals for it. I think when I originally finished the very first draft back in early November, I wanted to start the submission process by the end of January. Well, two more drafts later and I realize that might've been a lofty goal.

Writing my query letter was seriously one of the hardest and most painful things I have ever done. Thanks to the good people over at AgentQueryConnect, about a week after I posted it I finally have a clean, finished version. It changed dramatically from where it began, but I think I have a winner now. Time will tell- if it captures the attention of some agents, then I'll know! If I get rejection after rejection, then I'll know it needs revamping.

So this weekend I spent some time working on line edits from my readers. I want to thank Debbie, Colleen, Karyn, & Holly for catching all those typos and missed words! Clearly I think faster than I type at times. I also made a couple minor changes to the story; just a few things that were nagging at me after I went through the whole query writing process. It's funny how just going through that made me see some of the holes in my story.

I have to reread the whole thing again and try to tighten and clean it up as much as possible. I want to rewrite certain sections that have always left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth- they just don't sound "pretty" enough, if that makes sense. Lastly, I need to write my synopsis, which I plan on trying to do as I reread. I have to read up a bit on how to write a good one, cuz I have no idea where to even begin or how to keep it to 3-5 pages. THAT should be interesting.

Regardless, I'm pretty sure I'm on track to get the submission process started by the end of this month. I just got butterflies in my stomach when I typed that! I can't believe I'm really going through with this! I honestly had no idea I would ever even get THIS far. Time to grow some thick skin and get ready for rejection! But hopefully there will be at least a couple agents out there that want to hear more.

The Speech I Needed to Hear - by Sara Zarr

Please, if you know me at all, take a moment to read this AH-MAY-ZING speech by Sara Zarr, author of the fabulous Sweethearts (I heart you, Cameron Quick!). She gave this speech at a Writer's Conference recently and it almost brought me to tears last night. It's so relevant to what I'm going through right now as an unpublished, wannabe-author.

Sara Zarr's speech

I kinda love this quote:

"Creative lives require us to be blind optimists. Keep writing the stories you want to write. You have to have faith that what matters to you will be a story others want to read. You have to have faith that if you show up to the page, something will happen. That all the stories haven't been used up by other artists."

And this one:

"Nurturing a creative life doesn't happen with the wave of a magic wand. It's not about changing the content of our lives but how we experience them, putting ourselves in a safe place where we can nurture our gifts."

Amen, Sara.

Everyone, go read Sweethearts. Like NOW.

A bubble of joy...

...is what I kinda feel like I'm floating around in right now. Insert insane amount of smiley faces here.

Let me back up. So, remember I mentioned that website the other day, AgentQuery.com? Well I went back to it a few days ago to start researching more agents for my list. Instead of beginning my search right away, I looked around on the home page for a couple minutes and saw a little blurb that said "Join AQ Connect! Agent Query's social networking site!" Being that I'm self-admittedly addicted to Facebook, my curiosity was peaked. A social network for aspiring writers?? Heck yea I'll sign up!

So I did. Once signed up, I spent a while just going through all the forums. Holy moly, you guys. This site is kinda like a form of heaven for my non-published ass. They have forums all about the query process, where they show you guidelines for writing a good query & examples of good ones, there's a section here for posting any questions you have about writing a query or synopsis (I'll be viewing the synopsis one soon), and you can post your own query for critiquing. They also have forums about agents, publishing & networking, general writing questions, book clubs, etc, etc, etc. I've really only just begun to discover everything the site has to offer.

So. Yesterday I hemmed and hawed all morning, trying to decide if I should just bite the bullet and post my query. I'd polished it up to the best of my ability, but I knew it still needed work. I was totally at a loss as far as what else I could possibly add/remove/change. I figured I'd spend some more time just reading through other's queries and offering my weak suggestions wherever I could before I posted mine.

Finally I just said F it. I decided there was no time like the present, might as well go ahead and get it posted. I figure, hey, maybe some of the questions people have might open my eyes a bit about the story in general. Maybe there are some holes in it that I'm not seeing because I'm waaaay too close to it.

So I posted it. And I waited for a response. One came quickly- she said there were "intriguing elements" but she wanted more. She needed some further explanations on a few things and suggested I change a couple things, so, great. I thanked her for her input and promised I'd take her suggestions into consideration, which I totally am. The next responses took a while to come (I don't know, probably because people were like, at their jobs and actually working when I originally posted it at lunchtime yesterday). But they were worth the wait.

You guys...it turns out my story might have some real potential! I mean, I didn't get a huge slew of comments, but the few that did offer their critiques said things like "Loving this story", "definitely interested in this story", "intrigued by this story", etc. OMG OMG! You don't even know how good that makes me feel. I mean, my readers have told me they like it and stuff, but they're all my friends and family. And as much as I do believe they've been honest with me, and they've been totally helpful with the revision process, hearing things like this from complete strangers is different. I guess it sorta, I don't know, validates it for me a bit more. Or something.

You can read my query, and all the comments/suggestions I've gotten so far, at here. I'll be revising and posting a new version sometime today based on the feedback I received. I'd love to hear your comments, too. This kind of stuff is what keeps me going and makes me believe maybe I'm not so crazy to think I might actually have a shot at this.

Grammar 101

One of my biggest pet peeves is bad grammar. Well, bad grammar along with bad spelling. I might not be one to talk, considering my issue with commas (oh, the hours I've spent removing them and putting them back in, only to remove them yet again...and then agonize over whether I really should've removed it), but at least I can form a sentence. And I know the differences between there, their & they're and your & you're.

A co-worker was questioning why "kids these days" (heh) are adding extra consonants to words, like texxt, workkk, yayyyy, etc. This is the sort of crap that makes me INSANE. Why is it cool to look like you don't know how to spell? The nerd in me clearly doesn't get it either. Of course, we grew up in a world before email & cell phones & texting. There were no shortcuts to writing (ex. LOL, BTW, BRB, etc), so maybe this weird fad of misspelling on purpose stems from that?

People's grammar is deplorable, too. I'm talking grown adults here. I never realized how many people on this earth don't have the ability to form a grammatically correct sentence. Read any of the comments on Facebook for like, Fox 8 News or your favorite bands' status updates. 99% of the comments either have misspelled words, are complete run-on sentences, or just in general make no sense. Here's an example from a Fox 8 News update regarding MTV's new show "Skins"(which I have not seen nor do I have any inclination to watch, by the way):

"Mtv is kepn it real! This s wat happing now adays, just hard for all yall parents to accept it b/c yall dont want to belive yall kids are doinng it. So dont blame the show"

And that's not even really a bad one.

Another example- I'm also a fan of The Vampire Diaries on Facebook (duh). Whenever they post an update all the teens go bananas, which is fine. I have to admit I get excited for sneak peeks to new episodes or new pictures from the upcoming show, etc. I'm just a dork like that. The comments on these updates though...oh man. These kids don't even know how to spell the character's freaking names! Damon becomes Damien, Damin, Damen; Stefan is Steven, Stephan, Steffan (maybe they're just using the extra letters to be cool in this case?). It is simply amazing.

And now, I will get off my high horse and try to figure out if another comma is needed in this sentence.

blah. meh. sigh.

I spent more time researching agents this week and adding to my ever-growing list. It's still only at 15, but at least I've about doubled what I first had. Holy hell is that a job in and of itself. Thank god for the website AgentQuery.com, which lets you search literary agencies by genre. However, it's really not 100% accurate. Some of the agencies that show up for young adult don't actually represent any young adult authors at all. So I spend at least a half an hour on each agency's website, searching through all the current authors, the agents & what they each represent, choosing an agent I feel would fit me, and then researching all the submission guidelines. Which, of course, are pretty much different for each and every agent/agency. But it'll definitely help when I start sending out my manuscript. And that, my friends, will be a whole new job in itself as well.

And I'm not gonna lie, more and more I start to doubt that this book is even going to go anywhere. I really, really want to stay positive, it's just difficult. Sometimes I feel like...I don't know, like I have absolutely no idea what I'm getting myself into. That I'm fooling myself into believing someday, albeit probably someday far off, I could actually write novels full time. I am so far less talented than so many of the authors out there.

But then again, I won't know til I try. I just have to make sure I'm ready to dust myself off from all the rejection, pick myself up and continue working on my new manuscript instead. And start hoping all over again.

Writer's Conference

The other weekend I was at my parents' house talking books with one of my mom's good friends. We got on the subject of the awesomeness of young adult books, and I happened to mention to her that I just finished writing one myself. She seemed pretty impressed (which made me feel pretty good, I have to admit) and wished me the best of luck in my writing endeavors.

Then last week she sent me a brochure about a writer's conference at Lakeland Community College this spring. I read the flyer over completely and I'm pretty intrigued. I'm just kinda going back and forth over whether or not it's really, truly worth the $75 admission fee. Some of the courses wouldn't apply to me, but the chance to sit down with a real editor and go over some of my manuscript could be really beneficial (no offense to those reading it and offering notes right now, of course- I appreciate you guys soooo much!). However, it's not until the end of March and I really hoped to already be well into the query process by then.

Has anyone ever been to something like this before? If so, was it helpful? What do you guys think I should do??