What to do next

So, now what? I took out my old dusty WIP I thought was so well written back in the day. I read through the prologue and realized, though well written (pats herself on the back)it was written in narrative. I personally love narrative mode, both to read and to write, and I find it hard to keep from slipping back into it. I think one reason is because I write character driven novels and like to get deep into their thoughts. It also flows nicely for me. But that's not the point. The point is, if I rewrite the book, I've got some work to do. Well bring it on.

I've got this idea for a futuristic, kind of science fiction book, though I don't think there's going to be much science involved. So I went to Amazon and found a couple novels on the subject. Really, you should read the kinds of novels you want to write. I'm excited about it, but I want to do it right this time. I've already started an outline and I'm going to take my time. Now if you believe that, you don't know me. I'm a jump in with both feet kind of girl.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Wednesday.

Formatting Woes

We, my husband and I, went out and bought some paper. I figure, I'll be printing my MP (masterpiece) at least three times. Once for my husband to read and mark up, once to get it proofed by my computer illiterate teacher friend to mark up, and again for a contest I'm going to enter it in.

At the moment, I'm in the process of formatting it in Microsoft Word for printing. If any of you have used that program, you know how dang stubborn it can be. I'd turn the formatting off, except Its benefits far outweigh its frustrating ticks. But once I get it there and leave it alone, I shouldn't have to touch it again.

Wrong. When all those marked up copies come back, I'll have to go in and tinker with it, which will surely shift everything.

That's for the hard copies. Some submission rules for online submissions are quite specific about formatting or in some cases, no formatting, no tabs, and no space bar spacing for paragraph beginnings, yet they want the beginning of the paragraphs indented.

So I'm asking you, what have some of you done to achieve some of the strict submission rules? Let me know what your experiences are. I want to learn from your mistakes. Ain't I sweet.

Book Trailer

I put this trailer together months ago, more like a year ago, when I was just messing around. Since I'm in the middle of composing a query letter and a synopsis, I thought about this trailer and realized I had already summarized the book without realizing it. It's a simplified version, I admit, but it was fairly painless to do, and, in fact, kind of fun So even though the book is not published, or even queried, I thought I'd share the trailer. Let me know what you think, keeping in mind, the book is not available and the cover and possibly the title may change, though I'm quite fond of the title. That's down below.

On another note there is a fiction novel contest sponsored by the New American Press Click here Submit 100-400 pages of, it sounds like, anything. You have to send a hard copy via snail mail and it cost $20.00 to join. Multiple submissions are encouraged. It'll cost you $20.00 for each. Submissions close May 15, 2010.

I'm seriously thinking of submitting my finished MS. I doubt I'll be able to get it fully proofed by then, but it should be fun. I don't expect to win, anyway, but don't tell them that.

Right now my hubby is reading it. Bless his heart, he says he likes it. What else would he say, but he's pretty honest, albeit a bit biased.

Well, it was great talking with you. I'm thankful for your comments and I welcome all my new peeps. The more the merrier, I love you all.

God bless.

2 wk Hiatus

Did you miss me? First of all I want to thank all of you for all your comments--so helpful. I love my virtual and virtuous friends.

I feel like I can take a breather now. I know my book still needs a little revision, but I'm printing it out for my husband to read. I want a completely biased review to begin with. Then I need to get it proofed because, as you have probably noticed, my punctuation isn't always good. This is due to a mental block and commas are my main downfall.

I finally got my printer to work. Not that it didn't work before, but it took me awhile to find and download the drivers for it. It's a few years old, but works wonderfully.

Now I'm wondering what to write. I'm not like a lot of you. Ideas for a story aren't flooding my mind, popping out the top of my head, or even present inside my brain.I don't have a backlog I can access. So I sat with my hands hovering over the keyboard last night, and had a thought. It's not fully, or even partially developed and I don't know if I have it in me to write. It's going to be futuristic and I'm going to write it in first person. I suppose the genre for futuristic is fantasy, and I want to add lots of suspense. I could also make it an YA. At this point, I haven't decided how old my MC will be. I know it will be a man.

I like writing in a man's POV. I'm not that in tune with my psychic to tell you why. I guess because I like men and I can mold a male MC into anything I want him to be. And no offense to my men friends, but men are much less complicated than women--IMHO.

I'm thinking of having a celebration give away. I have two books I can give away. No, not mine. It's far from the finish line. I still have to write a synopsis, a cover letter, and a query. I might pop over to the Public Query Slushpile and other helpful blog sites in the blog-sphere to get me through that. No, I have two Christian YA books, never been read. I've never had a giveaway, so I'm going to do a little research on how to do it.

So, I hope everyone has a happy and productive weekend. Stay safe, and God bless.

Borrrring

It has occurred to me that I am bored with this book. I love the story and I love writing it, but I want to move on. I don't dare.

I'm not capable of writing two stories at once. I'm having enough trouble just finishing the one. Why would I elongate the process by writing another one simultaneously.

Yes, I know, some of you will tell me it would be a good idea to step away for clarity. Like being presbyopic when your arms aren't long enough to read the small print. (Presbyopia: After 40 when your near vision fades. It's the first physical symptom of old age after the occasional loss of bladder control)

I don't know, maybe you'd be right, but I'm not going to put this down until it's done, dangit. Still, it's boring and a lot of dang work. There I said it.

What would be wrong with writing an outline of each characters function in the book? Just sayin'. It might clarify that character's function. It might also find a lot of missing peices like, I don't know, the occasional detail while you are writing that comes up toward the middle when you think, Oh, crap, I forgot to mention that earlier. This is the part when you say, "Maybe no one will notice," or leave it to the reader to assume this little detail. Do that too many times and the reader's gonna wonder if they were meant to be mind readers. Just sayin.

Like what I did above when I jumped from being bored to leaving out details. I actually had a thought precess in the blank space between paragraphs. So what's being bored with my book have to do with writing an outline? Maybe these are the things making me bored--or more like crazy. Here's the problem, I've revised and edited so much that I fear I have removed some detail in the process of removing unnecessary text.

Or maybe I have and adult form of ADD.

Happy Easter

To all my friends, I wish you and yours a very peaceful Easter.

Non-offensive edit update.

Oh no, it seems my last post offended someone. It wasn't intended to do so. It was just a quirky book idea. Therefore, I have removed anything controversial from my post with apologies.

The following is my edit update:

I am halfway through the third edit of my book. That's half way in two weeks. I've found each edit takes less time to get through. I breezed through the first half because it's pretty much edited to death. Each time through a few more chapters become exempt to editing until at last, it's perfect. It's quite a process and I am enjoying it so much.

Happy editing my peeps.