If you are hear from the Blog Party…WELCOME! Take a moment to look around! Do you like my new digs? If you are not from the Blog Party, you should go visit! They have chocolate and coffee and cheese….I like cheese!

I worked more on my revisions yesterday and am SO happy with what I have done. I have to say that the first sentence of my book is by far my favorite sentence in the whole book. Wanna hear it? (Um that was a rhetorical question…duh!)

” The most devastating moment I can recall would have to be the moment I realized I was dead.”

I love it!!! Tell me what you think. Well I will get back to work next Monday on further revisions. I have completed all of Chapter 1 and half of Chapter 2. Only 25 more to go! I hope you all have a great weekend and I look forward to provide some more insight and updates next week.

Also, for great advice as to what to do for meals the day before you go grocery shopping visit Desperately Searching for My Inner Mary Poppins!

Red Pen
Blue Pen
White Pen
New Pen!

I sit safely hiding behind my little Blue Pen, on the verge of stepping it up. I am slowly preparing myself for the screams of the Red Ink that are about to come my way. I have even considered purchasing a Red Pen of my own. Although I must admit, maybe green or pink would do the job just as well.

I’m in the editing phase of my project right now. And if I have not properly “Shown” you how I feel about editing with this blog, I am telling you right now….”It’s stressful!” All I want to do is send out my queries and be done with it all ready. Maybe tomorrow I should focus my blog on “patience”? Just a thought.

Dr. Seuss is surely an inspiration to us all. I wonder if he had a difficult time editing Green Eggs and Ham? Did he originally call the book Orange Eggs and Beef? Maybe Sam I Am was initially named Buzz I Was…..it’s possible!

I’m in the editing phase of my project right now. Some days I think I have finally gotten to the exciting part of writing, and others I wonder if the never ending crossing out of words and rewriting of sentences will EVER be over. So far…I’ve concluded that it is unlikely!

I’ve began editing with a Blue Pen. I’m not sure what it is about Blue Pens that I love so dearly. It could possibly date back to the good ol’ Shoe Carnival days where we would prank call each other inquiring “Do you have any Bluuuuue Shoes?” Then once we all transferred over to Office Max (It is not necessary to understand the tie between Shoe Carnival and Office Max to comprehend the meaning behind the story kids…so stop wondering) it quickly became the question of “Do you sell any Bluuuuue Pens?” Was this the beginning of the Blue Pen preference? It is very possible.

Or possibly I am afraid of the Red Pen. Just the words Red Pen sound so striking and evil! When I hear Blue Pen, I become calm and relaxed. A Blue Pen looks like perfect little tennis shoe prints covering the snowy white paper, making a suggestion here and a comment there. But the Red Pen, the evil distracting Red Pen, shoots off the smooth crisp paper like giant stilettos stomping over each word they do not like and curving into words of their own. The Red Pen SCREAMS “You’ve done something wrong you idiot!” while the sweet little Blue Pen whispers “Oh honey, you’ve made a mistake. Let’s fix that shall we!”

Here I sit,

(Originally posted on March 18, 2009 at Desperately Searching for My Inner Mary Poppins)

Where less is more and more is less, is there a middle ground? When writing a query letter, how much of the plot do you really need to expose? Will your synopsis measure up enough to get a request for a partial?

I can honestly say I do NOT find the actual writing of a novel to be the hardest part. Although it is difficult to sit down and come up with a beginning, middle and end to a well written book, it pales in comparison to the actual writing of the query letter. Imagine for a moment, taking an 80,000 word story, and being told that you are only allowed to use about 500 words to explain the entire work of literature. Does anyone else see how this appears to be almost virtually impossible!?!? And this is not the end to the insanity.

Not only do you need to figure out how to insanely condense your hard work into an email or letter, but now you must decide which portions of the story are relevant and important enough to capture your readers attention. Are you merely looking to dangle a tiny piece of steak in front of a starving dog, leaving them with just enough to want more? Or do you want to just throw them the bone, the major piece that holds the steak together and smells of what they want, but leaves off all the beef making them NEED that sustenance? And let’s face it, we could always just throw them the whole dang steak and hope it tastes sufficient enough to want the entire cow?

Therein lies the question, how long is too long? Is more less or is less more? And if that wasn’t enough to make you lose your mind and consider maybe this novel is not worth the hassle, the process only becomes increasingly complicated.

EACH individual Agent is different. Each has their own guidelines about formatting and grammar. Each has their own style, their own represented genre, and their own preferences about how many credentials you have. There is not going to be just ONE query letter you are writing for this ONE novel. Instead there will be ONE query letter specifically written for EACH agent. What? You had not even considered researching your agents? You were planning on just sending out a “generic form” query letter and hoping one bites? OH! Well I hope you are planning on getting ONE “generic form” rejection letter from EACH Agent as well.

This is the life of a writer my friends. Maybe after reading this you think I am insane and surely I should give up. But maybe, JUST MAYBE, I do believe my novel will capture the eyes of even ONE Agent. It is possible I believe that by writing NUMEROUS query letters, and exposing a different amount of my plot to each Agent, ONE will bite and be as excited about my story as I have become. I may not know the answer to “How long is too long?”, but I can assure that I fully intend to find out!

Lesson of the day kids, don’t give up because something sounds impossible. If you believe in it….it will become possible! Will MY synopsis measure up? Well I can assure I refuse to discontinue my efforts until it has.

(Originally Written March 12, 2009 at Desperately Searching for My Inner Mary Poppins)

I experienced an epiphany of sorts the other night while talking to my husband. Unfortunately this happens often as my husband is excellent at challenging my thoughts and emotions. USUALLY I believe it’s called ‘bickering’, however, that particular night it was more of a friendly discussion.

My brother sent me a link to a new website called Creative Byline. I can’t say if it is actually a helpful website quite yet, but it did snap me out of my writing freeze. My mind is no longer on lock down! I noticed that they required an Outline. (Uh…what’s an outline? Um yeah…I guess I haven’t done as much homework as I thought I had.)

So I spent the next afternoon putting a rough one together for my novel. This was one of the best things I have done in weeks. I say this because it REMINDED me how good my book really was. I haven’t looked at it since it was finished and I began querying agents. After all the rejections I was losing sight of what I had created, a really great book! So as I’m telling my husband this he looks at me and says, “Do you think you are REALLY done with this book and ready for an agent?” And I look at him and it suddenly hits me…Not even close!

So here are some things I plan to work on in the month of June…

• My Outline – It’s very rough and needs to be tweeked and probably shortened.
• A Synopsis – I know I’ve been avoiding it, but after reading Jody’s post yesterday, it made me realize that the sooner I get it started, the better.
• Business Cards – Apparently everybody’s doing it, I suppose I should to! I do like to be part of the “in” crowd 😉
• Finishing my Website … which includes…
• Writing the dreaded Biography. I’m not sure why I find it so difficult. But I can’t stand sitting there and writing about … well me! (Please no comments from the peanut gallery.)
• A Book Proposal – Again, after reading Jody’s post yesterday, I figure it’s better to at least have a rough draft now to save time for later.
• Finally Polish my “Elevator Pitch” so when people ask what my book is about, I can stop looking like they just asked my to recite the entire Encyclopedia.
• Look through my manuscript ONE MORE time to make sure it’s perfect and possibly revisit my first three chapters, I’m not sure they are getting the job done.
• When finished, print out my Manuscript and make it look pretty!
• Put together a portfolio for me and my manuscript (I should write a poem about ‘me and my manuscript’ … it sounds so catchy!)

That’s A LOT of Work!!! And here I thought I had nothing to do!!!

Our goal… Did I just say Our? Why yes I did…my husband has shown himself in a whole new light and I have realized that he is just as excited and dedicated to my career as I am. He even suggested I spend MORE time working on it *GASP* So OUR goal is to get me ready as if I were going to a Conference. Even though I cannot afford one right now, we have decided we WILL make it happen next year, regardless of our financial situation. Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE my husband?

So what from this list are YOU missing on your current project? Do you have have more work to do than you realized?

I’m not sure why, but I am having a difficult time writing a biography about myself. I mean really, what do you WANT to know about me?

Tell me what you want to know and I’ll make sure to give you the answer! (Within reason of course…I’m not about to tell you how it felt to give birth to my children or why I like to eat sour cream on my potato chips!)

Are you a writer? How did you decide what to include in your bio? Did it just come to you or did you struggle as I am?

Give me some advice!!!