Category Archives: publishing

This week in writing

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It’s been more than a week since my last progress report, but these few weeks in writing doesn’t have much of a ring to it. So what’s happened? I’ve heard from two agents. One was one of the four who requested pages. She was very nice. Said the concept is fabulous, but that it wasn’t quite the right fit for her. The other is one I queried during a time when she said every query would get a personal reply, even if it was a no, rather than a form rejection. A form rejection is a prewritten letter just saying no, with no reasons behind the no. Her response was also a pass, because she had recently signed an edgy YA, and that mine sounded too issue driven for her taste. So, no agent yet, but both rejections were encouraging in their way. Neither said the concept wasn’t sellable or that the writing was bad. The first specifically said it was likely an agent out there that will want it. But that she isn’t that agent. The other already had a project that could possibly compete. The  interesting thing to me about her feedback is I don’t think of Random Acts of Nudity as an issue driven book. I see the sex tape as the catalyst of the story, not the focus of it. It’s an important part of the story but its not all sex tape all the time. but I’ve been working on the book for over a year, I’m too close to see it objectively.

Also going on is the editing class. It’s been really interesting so far.  This week the task is to read the entire manuscript and cut any scene that does not advance the plot or the character arcs. I’m pretty pleased so far, I’ve found a couple of brief scenes that can go, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve got many wasted scenes. They almost all tie into either the overarching plot or are important to character growth. With one exception. There’s a scene just past the halfway mark that does neither. It’s just a sweet moment between the main character and her sister. I should cut it, but I can’t. I love it! Which means I really should get rid of it. There’s an adage that goes “kill your darlings.” It means don’t get so attached to any of your writing that you can’t change or cut it. It can apply to the wording of a sentence or entire scenes. I’ve never had a problem changing sentences, but hooboy, this one is tough. I’ve marked the scene to delete, but haven’t actually done it yet. My critique group is reading Random Acts this month. I’ll ask them if they think it should go.
I’ve also made a little more progress on the WIP. It’s very close to being finished. Maybe four more chapters until the end. If I can finish it by the end of the month, I’ll start a new novel for National Novel Writing Month.
And in baked goods news, I made banana bread from scratch just because I had all the ingredients on hand. It’s delicious, I don’t think I’ll ever use a mix again. I also made a deep dish pizza for my sister’s birthday dinner. It was just okay. Since I had left over ingredients I tried a different dough recipe and made a stuffed spinach. Also just okay. The pizza code is tough to crack, but I will prevail!

This week in writing

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It’s been an eventful week. I participated in a pitch event on twitter. The rules were simple. Pitch your book in 140 characters or less, and mark it with the tag #pitmad. Agents were following the tag, and if they liked what they saw, they’d favorite your tweet. I had three agents request mine. Which means there are now three agents with pages from Random Acts of Nudity in their inbox (plus a fourth who had requested pages off a similar event the week before). So now I wait to see if any of them ask for more. And I try to not to obsess over the undiscovered typos that appeared in the excerpt seconds after each time I hit send. Hopefully a missing quotation mark here and a random paragraph break there won’t ruin the query’s chances, but who knows? Having an agent/s request pages is a small goal to check off on my mental list of “things that mean I’m a real author.”

It would be very easy to get carried away, imagining that because they asked for pages, I’ll be signed and have a book deal by next month, but that ain’t happening. In truth this isn’t that different from the unrequested queries I’ve sent. With those I sent a query letter and five to fifty pages of the manuscript, which the agent or their assistant would read and then choose to pass or ask for more. (So far it’s all been passes). In this case the agent has only seen a one to three sentence description of the book. The pages will be the first sample of my writing they’ll see. If they ask for more, that will be exciting (and another check on the list).
The major difference, and it’s a significant one, is that these agents already like the concept of my book. With the blind queries I never knew for sure if the agent passed simply because they didn’t like the idea of the book. These agents are into the idea of a high school girl with a sex-tape (uh…a book about a high school girl with a sex tape, I’m not implying they like child pornography. Whoops) So now it’s a matter if they like my execution of the concept.
So as I said, it’s all about waiting. Though what I’m waiting for is hard to say. I only know I’ll hear from them if they like what they saw. None of the agents said they’d contact me if they didn’t. For all I know they’ve already read the pages and decided it wasn’t up to snuff. Or it might still be in their to read piles, and they might not make the decision for several months. It’s best to just celebrate that I qot a couple of requested queries, and go back to business as usual.
In other writing news, I made some progress on my work in progress. And I got another couple of chapters edited. Plus starting this week I’ll be taking an online course on professional editing, which will hopefully make the self editing process easier and more productive.
That’s all for now.

Welcome! Aka the boring introductory post

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Welcome to my new site.  Some of you will be coming here because we know each other, either in the real world or in the nebulous webland.  To you folks, thanks for dropping by.  The rest of you are probably wondering who I am and why you should care.  I can’t answer the latter for you , but as for the former I’m a big old geek/nerd/dork.  You might have seen some of my nerdy ramblings over on Read Comics.  Or a few guest posts I wrote for Forever Young Adult.  I grew up in Chicago, but recently moved to Minneapolis.  I love comic books, regular books, baking, and baked goods in general.  I’m also an aspiring author.

I’ve completed four novels as of this post, with a fifth hovering on the edge of being done.  None are published, though I’m feverishly working on getting them in publishable shape and into people’s hands.

My young adult novel, working title: Random Acts of Nudity, was a semifinalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2012.  Which was a thrill.  I’m currently querying agents in an effort to sell it to traditional publishers.

I’ve also got a humorous new adult paranormal romance (that’s a mouthful), as well as one finished sequel.  I’m working on the third book in the trilogy right now.  I’m thinking about going the self published route with them.

Finally, I’ve got a stand alone fantasy (neither of the urban or the high variety).  I call it a Magic Land tale, since it follows the formula of say the Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland.  In which a person from our world is transported to a new fantastical world.  I’ve yet to see an official name for this particular subgenre of fantasy.  If you know of one please fill me in.  I’m not sure which path  I’ll take with it.

I have a short story in the anthology Horror, Humor, & Heroes Volume 3.  I’ll put up a link to its Amazon page for anyone interested– once I figure out how to do that.

I’ll be posting updates on how my writing career is going.  Could be entertaining on a train wreck level.  You’ll also see excerpts of the novels and short stories from time to time.  And maybe a drawing or two.  I’ll also post on whatever is going through my mind, mostly about things I love.  So expect to read about a lot of baked goods and books.

Until next time, Susie