Sorry About That

Sorry about my lack of posts lately. I've been busy/too lazy to post.

As far as query letters go, I've got my master letter finished. I'm going to have Mom go over it later today and then tweak it if it needs it and then I'll tailor it to specific guidelines. What I'm working on now is getting all of my red-penning plugged into the computer. I'm almost halfway done now...and I would be farther, but I've been procrastinating.

Also, you may notice that there's a new playlist. If you follow my blog, you will remember that the playlist corresponds with projects that I've been working on (or, in the case of the last playlist, a project that I thought about working on but never did). This new playlist is for a new project that popped into my head a few days ago. I'll start working on it next week, my month off be damned. I don't want a month off and I don't need a month off. So there.

That's all for now. I'll probably be posting tomorrow, and said post will likely consist of a string of "OHMYGOD"s, due to the fact that I will be a nervous wreck until I get replies from all the agencies that I'm sending queries to.

Until next time!
♥Jen

[titles are SO over-rated]

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaarg.

I know this is very old news, but query letters are hard.

Just thought I'd reiterate.

That is all.

The Query Letter Monster, SuperKid, and a bit of Character Randomness

I recently changed my location on the Draft to this:

"HELPHELPHELP I'm being eaten by the evil query letter monster!!!"

Writing query letters is hard. I think it's mainly a psychological "oh my God, they're going to hate it and the book is crap and nobody would ever want to represent me!" thing, but also a little bit of an inability to figure out how to write a query letter. The writing help books just can't quite explain it so that my li'l brain will understand.

And then you hear all of the stories of publishing going caput and that e-books are taking over and all of that...it's enough to give you nightmares. Heck, it HAS given me nightmares.

Blarg.

Moving right along...

I have been dubbed "SuperKid" by my buds on the Draft. Apparently I'm just that awesome because I'm fourteen and am already writing query letters, I skipped a grade, and I can write like the best of 'em. That just makes my day! Woot woot!

I love getting compliments! Woot!

Moving right along again...

My characters feel that they're being ignored lately. I haven't let them into the chatbox in ages, and they're itching to have a go at the keyboard...so here we go. Conversation between characterw with occasional comments by me.

Ray: Well, I must say that I am quite proud of Jenna. Although, she really does need to get back to working on her query letters.

Astra: You're just jealous because she didn't include you in the CMU.

Ray: No.

Leander: It's true.

Ray: It's not true.

Leander: Is too. You're steamed that Astra and I are on the CMU...and you're not.

Ray: It does not bother me.

Leander: It does.

Me: *Sigh* Children!

Leander: I'm older than you are, who are you calling a child?

Me: So what if you're older than I am? I still created you!

Ray: You sound like a broken record.

Me: *Sticks out tongue* Ha ha.

Agnae: Oh dear...please tell me that you two aren't going to get into it again.

Me: Nah, I'll just drop another anvil on his head.

Ray: You know, it may be funny on cartoons, but it's not pleasant in real life.

Me: Real life? *raises eyebrows* Did you forget that you're a fictional character?

Ray: Sometimes I think you forget that, yourself.

Me: Oh, la...

Evelyne: He got you there.

***
Yeah, I'll end this post there. Heh.

ChatBox Parties, Instant Publishing, and the CMU

Oh la. The Writer's Draft is almost a year old. We're having three ChatBox parties, and the first one is tonight at 8pm my time.

It's crazy. It doesn't seem like it's been around for a year. It seems like it has been a lot longer, and I didn't even join until May of this year!

Let me take this time to give a big round of hugs and a huge THANK YOU to all of my peeps over at the Draft. I can honestly say that you saved my writing. Well...maybe not "saved", but definitely gave it a big boost. One day we'll all have to meet up in person. One day...*sigh* I love you guys. You're awesome.

Also, I finished plugging my edits for the prologue into the computer. I decided to post it on the "sharing your work" thread on the Draft, and the feedback I got was totally rockin'. Abby said that I need to hurry up and get it published RIGHT NOW so she could read the rest. That made me happy. If only there were such a thing as instant publishing...unfortunately, it's a long process. But I'll get through it eventually.

Also on the Draft (this is a very Draft-oriented post, apparently), we have a thing called the Character Meetup Thread, or the CMU. I recently joined in. Each of us that are participating have a character (I actually have two) that we stick in the story. We can have our characters interact and all sorts of awesome things like that. It's pretty awesome, and I've found that I'm completely addicted to it. It's been...ah...distracting me from my work. Ha. But that's the story of the Draft -- "distracting writers since 2007!"

'Course, it's also a support system for those horrible bouts of WB or self-doubt or general crappiness, so there you go.

Anyway. I'm going to go check and see if anybody else has posted on the CMU. And plug my edits in if I have time between refreshing the Draft every six seconds...

Overprotective Mother Syndrome

I swear to God, I think I have it. Or, rather, a variation of it, called Overprotective Author Syndrome.

I drafted query letters to seven different agencies today. I'm going to have Mama look over them later today or tomorrow and then revise them and work on getting the things that I need to mail the letters that need to be mailed. I'm going to work on plugging my edits into the computer over the next little bit so I'm ready if (big if) any of the agencies want to read the manuscript.

I can't stop thinking that I shouldn't bother, nobody wants it, I'll fail, best just keep it inside and share it with friends and family. Keep my baby from being hurt and all that stuff.

Of course, at the same time I know that it's stupid. I want to send out letters, I want to get responses, and I WANT to get my story out there. That doesn't mean that I'm not nervous, though.

I feel so...I don't even know. I feel confident that somebody out there will want to read my manuscript, but at the same time I can't get rid of that little nagging feeling that says I should take up alpaca farming instead.

Gack.

Empty

I feel empty. Oh so empty.

I have nothing to work on.

That's right -- I finished editing. Today in sixth period, to be exact.

And now I have nothing to work on.

So my solution is as follows:

I am skipping my month off (I so totally don't need it) that was planned for January and moving right into working on my next project.

Still, I'm giving myself the rest of today to celebrate before I go rocketing off to another project. I also have to plug my edits into the computer, but I can't take my computer to school (even if it was a laptop), so I'll work on my next project when I'm out and about and save the computer-edits for when I'm home.

*Sigh*

I did it. I did it. I did it!!!!! I wrote AND editied an entire book in less than two months! I feel so...accomplished. Now it's off to query letters...joy. Actually, super joy! Really! This means that I'm close to accomplishing my dream! Hahahahahahahaha!!!!

I think I'll go get my red-penned manuscript and pull up my OpenOffice doc. Off I go!

The Red Pen Diaries -- 14 Days in

Day fourteen of editing is winding down to a close, and I'm right around halfway done. My goal is to finish editing by Christmas.

I'm actually very proud of myself. I was very good with the continuity, and only about two or three things so far have been really off. There have been a few grammar mistakes, but for the most part I've just been going through and fixing things that read a bit weird.
All is well on that front.

I really don't have much more to report, so I'll sign off now.

Blood and Books

I've been reading through sections in my manuscript lately. Not editing, just reading. I've been reading the high points and the battle scenes and all that mess, and I have come to a conclusion:

I'm seriously messed up.

Looking at me, I don't think that anybody would see me as the type to sit down and right an almost gratuitously gory death scene that is mean and brutal and completely awesome. I swear, they didn't seem that violent when I wrote them. I kept thinking that I would have to add more blood and guts to them during editing to make them violent enough.

Heck no. They're violent enough already!

So yeah, I've discovered a talent for writing really really really awesome battle/death scenes. Hm. Perhaps I should try writing horror. Who knows, I could be the next Stephen King. (Not that I'm comparing myself to Stephen King, of course. He rocks.)

Moving on to a new topic: books.

I love books. That's a given. You have to love books to write books. But I don't mean the stories -- although those are awesome. I mean the books themselves. The smell of the paper and the glue and the ink...mmm. There's nothing quite like the scent of yellowing pages in old dusty tomes. Take a minute next time you're at the library and smell a book. You'll be glad that you did.

I love feeling the pages in my hand. I can't stand e-books. I want that physical sensation of flipping the pages and cradling the book in my arm as I drink in the words that the author slaved over and churned out page by page. I live for that.

Yay for books!
♥Jen

Deciding What to Write

Hmm. Editing is going great and all, but I want to write something. Of course, editing my NaNo novel takes priority. If I don't edit, I can't send out my letters (that I should probably start working on sometime soon). My grandmas also want copies of the manuscript for Christmas, which I can only give if they've been edited.
So I'll finish editing first.

However, I've been thinking of what to write next. I have two stories that have been in the back of my brain. One of them is called Opal's Legacy, which I was working on at the beginning of the summer. It's sort of half-outlined, and needs some more work if I'm actually going to write it.

The other project I've been contemplating going back to work on is The Family Secret, which is currently on draft 3. I am having so many problems with that story that it's not even funny. My stupid characters from that story pitched so many curveballs, accidentally created huge-normous plot holes, and just screwed a bunch of stuff up. If I go with that one, I'm starting completely from scratch. I'm taking a few weeks to write a detailed outline, make character and setting profiles, gather pictures, and all of that other good stuff. No more winging it. It ends in headaches -- at least for me.

Which brings me right into my next subject:

I have discovered that I am an OP writer. (OP = Outline Person.) I have to have my outline. I have to have my profiles. I have to have a clear idea of what's going on, where the story is heading, and how the story ends. I am not a "wing it" kind of person, at least when it comes to my writing.

Now, don't get me wrong, I deviate from my outline (sometimes by quite a bit - tSotD has about four chapters that weren't outlined). However, I like having it so that I can refer to it and know generally where I'm supposed to be.

On the subject of character profiles, I can be quite OCD about those. I have a book that has a chapter-long FBI-like intelligence dossier to fill out for characters. I fill every single little thing out, right down to favorite colors and mother's maiden name. My characters, of course, hate when I do this. They say it's a waste of time and they can just remind me of a fact about them when I forget it. However, I always counter with the reminder that they have just as big of a problem with continuity as I do.

But I digress.

My point is that I'm picky about my profiles. I have to know where they are, and I have to make sure that they are perfectly filled out. I spend hours on modelmayhem.com (etc.) looking for pictures that fit my characters. I'm weird like that. It makes me feel better knowing that I have all my reference materials at hand.

Moving on to other subjects.

NaNoWriMo, as I have said many many many many times by now, is my very best friend. It taught me how to work on a deadline, the importance of outlining, and all of the other wonderful things that you've been hearing about since October. NaNoWriMo, I love you! Muwah! Chris Baty, you are totally freaking awesome for starting it. Hugs to you!

I think I'll go edit a bit now. Have to get SOME work done this week!

♥Jen

Nyah!

Aaah, today was good. So good. Awesome!! I got a lot of editing done, due to several free-ish periods because of state testing -- there will be several of those this week. I got some reading in.

But second period.

Oh, second period...

*Giggle*

I walked into the room. I put my stuff down. I picked up the binder. I waved it aroud. I said:
"Guess what, Mr. K? 87,050 words in 27 days! 203 pages!!!"

He said, "don't even talk to me!", which I found highly amusing. *Snort* He sounded like a three year old.

Oh, and we're working on new essays for the Rural Voices Radio thingy. I have the chance to resubmit my old one, but I don't think I will. I came up with a new subject.
And since I'm so petty (and I know it), the new topic is:

The sense of pride and accomplishment I felt when I wrote 87,050 words in 27 days.

Hey, he said it could be about anything, as long as it's nonfiction!