November 28, 2009

Deadline...Check

Revisions are done for The First Romantic Suspense. Volunteers are being requested to read the manuscript and give criticism.

November 18, 2009

Deadline

Revisions are taking much longer than I thought they would. In the past two weeks I've written an additional 1700+ words for The First Romantic Suspense. I'm glad that I'm doing it, but I honestly need to spend more time on it. I'm only about a third of the way done and I can't decide if it's because I'm adding more to it or because I'm just so slow. Either way I've given myself until Nov 30 to complete the revisions and have it done. Anyway, when these revisions are done I will need someone to read through the MS and The First Short Story. Someone who hasn't already and is a seasoned reader or writer. Any takers? Contact me if you're interested. Thanks!

November 15, 2009

The First Short Story

While researching the current fiction market, I've come across a bit of advise from a well known editor, Noah Lukeman. His piece on "How To Write A Great Query Letter" can be downloaded from Amazon.com for free and gives some great advise. One of the topics he covers is credentials. There are more than 5 recommendations when it comes to building your credentials for writing, but I'm focusing on just two of them for now.
The first I've already discussed in a previous post. Get a degree in writing. I'm not sure when I will have a chance to continue my education in writing, but it's on the list of things to accomplish in my life.
The second is take a shot at short stories. When I read this, I honestly thought it wasn't for me. The two novels I've worked on are no where near under 4,000 words and I have been too busy to concentrate on any other projects except the novels. I didn't think I could write anything that short. I know, most people are opposite on the subject, but for me, it's easier to write a novel for some reason.
However, I'm doing it anyway. It sounds dumb and maybe repetitive (because of The First Romantic Novel), but I had a dream last night of an interesting storyline. So I'm working on it. It'll be about 4,000 words since most of the markets are looking for that amount and after more research I'm going to submit it.
Wish me luck :)

November 6, 2009

NaNoWriMo

Have you ever heard of this? I hadn't until today when I read Carolyn Jewel's Writer's Blog. I didn't know anyone actually did this when it came to writing. Try it out. You may enjoy it.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/whatisnano

November 3, 2009

Moving Along

Just a quick update. Still working on revisions for The First Romantic Suspense. Seems to take forever. I didn't know I was so unhappy with the last version of my MS (manuscript). Today I've already written an additional 350 words. Cool, huh? That's considered a good day, I think. Some agents I've queried have come back with responses such as, "We only consider novels with 90,000 words minimum." I don't have plans at this time to write another 40,000 words for this MS, but we'll see where my new revisions take it.

I have only queried 10 agents so far for The First Romantic Suspense. It seems I'm starting from scratch again, but hey, it's got to be done. New query letter (with research included...see post below if you're confused), I will need to adjust my synopsis after my revisions are done and then start with another 10 agents.

As for The Second Romantic Suspense, I am adding adding additional "scenes", as I like to call them, to my layout. I keep a chapter-by-chapter summary of my novels as I'm writing to keep things in order. I can move one section to another, add a quick scene, etc...it's more organized for me, even when I'm not actually writing. My layout is a place to write a quick description of what I want to add to this chapter or that chapter, so when I actually "sit down and do it", I already have it worked out. It feels small right now, but the first 5 chapters are halfway written. I say halfway because I've added many more scenes to my layout since my "Breakthroughs" post below. I just haven't actually written them.