5.22.2010

Query Update

I apologize to the 1-2 readers (I'm being optimistic about my readership here) for absence for the past week or so. Unfortunately this is a blog about my life as a writer on top of having a demanding full-time job. I know, I know--so inconvenient! :) Believe me I know that better than anyone. It's cool that I spend all day writing and get paid for it, I just wish it was a very different type of writing I was getting paid for.

But just wanted to update to say I was picking back up on the query process for Charm Bracelet. I hit the pause button on that process a few weeks ago for a variety of reasons, and looking forward to getting a fresh batch out! In the meantime, still have an iron in the fire from my last round of queries, so hopefully good news will ensue.

Ciao!

Recycling: Good for the Environment, Bad for Your Manuscript

Once upon a time (a year ago) I wrote a book that I ended up shelving. It just wasn't coming out like I'd hoped. But there were still some great scenes in there, scenes I didn't want to let go of.

So I was working on my new WIP last weekend and thought, "hey, wouldn't that scene from [shelved book] work GREAT here?" And at first it seemed to. I dropped it in, rewrote bits to tailor it to my current WIP. The easiest 2K words ever. Woo hoo, I was on a roll.

Except that's where the roll stopped. For some reason, I couldn't figure out where I wanted to take the story next. All the momentum I'd been building up until that point was completely squashed. I went to bed that night trying to convince myself the story was moving in a good direction, but by the time I woke up the next morning, I knew I was kidding myself. That scene stuck out like a sore thumb. The characters' motives and personalities didn't quite align. Even though both characters are 16-year-old girls, where they were at in their heads at the time was very, very different for each of them. And it showed.

It's hard, letting go. Letting go of a scene you love dearly because the book it is written into didn't succeed. It seems like such a waste. But all of those hundreds of pages nobody will ever lay eyes on? There's a reason for it. It's called perfecting your craft. And there's nothing wasteful about that.

5.11.2010

Sidebar

There has been some stuff going on in recent weeks in this country that I find troubling. Unless you live under a rock, you know what's going on in Arizona and you heard about the attempted car bomb in Times Square a couple weekends back.

I'm not going to comment specifically on any of this, because I don't intend for this blog to be a political forum. But I will say this:

I can see the Statue of Liberty from our bedroom window. Every morning I get up and there she is, one of the most stunning and inspirational backdrops you could imagine. Today it's mostly cloudy, so she's raising her arm against the dull, gray sky--and that doesn't make it anything less than spectacular.

Maybe I'm luckier than most that I have this daily reminder. But it doesn't give anyone else the excuse to forget--even if they're halfway across the country--what she stands for.

5.03.2010

Writer-Specific ADHD

I think I've discovered a new behavioral disorder. I'm calling it Writer-Specific ADHD. Do you suffer from this? Major symptoms include:
1) Desire to start a new project as soon as the old one is finished, if not before
2) Always coming up with a "better" idea, therefore eclipsing the excitement you had for your previous project.

And, if you have an extreme case, like I do:
3) Putting the query process on hold because you think your current project now pales in the light of bright, new shiny idea, even though your full manuscript has been requested and is floating around in the ether of literary agents.

I'm thinking about trying to get this included in the next version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It's about time they came out with an update.