A Slightly Late Friday Round Up

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's Saturday here in Australia, but it just seems wrong to have a Saturday round up. So you'll just have to live with a very late Friday round up. Think of it like you are in another country which lags behind the rest of the globe (maybe on a bit of string) so it is always more than 24 hour behind.

Anyway...what's happened out in the world this week?

Image thanks to icanhas.cheezburger.com

 

Well, I don't really know, as I've been sick in bed (yeah, great for all you Americans talking about the arrival of summer, but some of us are heading into flue season). However, here are some of the great things from the Interwebs.

Competitions:

The Writer's Digest writing competition is open again but closing in a week, final deadline 14th June.

What makes it so interesting? Check out these prizes:

• NEW-An announcement of the winner on the cover of Writer’s Digest
• A 30-minute Platform Strategy Consultation with Chuck Sambuchino
• A one year subscription to Writer’s Digest eBooks
• A chance to win $3,000 in cash
• Get national exposure for your work
• One on one attention with four editors or agents
• A paid trip to the ever-popular Writer’s Digest Conference in New York City!

 And last of all, more practice and exposure! 

Need Some Help?

The Huffington Post gives you the anatomy of a query letter, a useful breakdown of the important elements of a query letter. Having trouble in your first drafts? Take a break and practice writing the query letter for it, you will find that it helps you sought out some of your overarching ideas about the story.

To Make You Think:

As you know, I'm battling with my job and trying to find time to write. Therefore, this article really stood out to me: 10 Reasons Why 2013 Will Be The Year To Quit Your Job. 

It is aimed at the American market, but I think it pretty much holds true for more people than would like to admit it. It's not specifically for writers, but it includes us. 

Just For Fun:

 

Highly recommend the New Yorker's 8 simple rulers for being a writer, it will set you straight on a lot of things you thought you understood (such as making your characters three dimensionally, obviously it was talking about height, width and depth).  

Well, that's it for another week. Have fun!

End of the Weekend, Already?

Saturday morning always has so much potential, Friday night even better. And then suddenly it is Sunday evening!

And what do I have to show for it?

Well, since I last checked in:

-  I've not written anything on my theological book. Bad Buffy, bad. (Writing theology has a lot more issues associated with it than writing historical romance. I'm just saying, they tend to get annoyed when you make things up, or get stuck so add in a tall dark handsome stranger.)

- Have edited another 1/3 of the Five Day Writer's Retreat, which is great.

- I've also sent off to a few more agents (I also got a 'Thank You. We are reviewing' reply from an agent I queried at the beginning of Feb. This is pretty exciting, as it's not a straight out no, and they took the time to tell me, even though they could have just waited. Well, a girl's allowed to dream :D).

- I did do an epic post on how to do google keyword research, which I was proud of (if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.) 

- Finally got the post on choosing barefoot running shoes to publish on my fitness blog (with a bit of help).

- And the rest of the time has been on doing The Five Day Writer website adjusting.

 

So what are my goals for this week? 

Was sitting in church tonight and got convicted about ignoring the theology book. It was actually kind of freaky, as it was like the sermon was focused on me and what I was writing about, saying how necessary it was for people to hear this message. (This used to not be so freaky. When your Dad is the minister, sometimes you do get subtle hints which are more directed at you than other members of the congregation, but I'm now in a church of about 700, and my pastor doesn't even know what I'm writing about!) So, okay, I'll get around to writing it then.

And then there is Kait's call to do 5-10% more than we have been.

So, this week I'm going to get serious about the theology book. I want to try and write 3,000 words a day on it to come up with a chapter by chapter summary, and the first 3 chapters written by the end of the week.

I've also been slack with my blogging, so want to do two fitness and two strong content writing posts by Wednesday.

Add in there finishing off editing the last 1/3 of The Five Day Writer's Retreat, and I think that's pretty much all of my time used up.

(Except that I'm now in the middle of Alan Bradley's 'The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie', which I'll need to finish, obviously, and I've ordered from another library Cassandra Clarke's 'The Clockwork Prince' as I just finished 'The Clockwork Angel' and as much as it annoyed me, I have to find out what happened... hmmm, will see how it all goes!)

Finally, a big thank you to everyone for supporting The Five Day Writer. It is two weeks today until my 30th Birthday, which is scary for completely unrelated reasons! I'm excited about turning 30, just scared about getting everything done for the book launch in time! Well, it's one way to take the focus off aging ;)

If you still haven't done it, but want to receive a copy of The Five Day Writer's Retreat when it comes out as my gift to you, go to www.thefivedaywriter.com and sign up for the newsletter. 

The Continuing Agent Search

As promised, I have not been (completely) idle this December.

Okay, well maybe up until yesterday I had been sort of idle, but I'm trying to make up for it.

First step: I got my best friend/literary manager to go through my query letter with me and point out all the embarrassing bits. Was much better after that. (Did that on the weekend actually, so usefulness extends further back than I thought).

Second step: read through the website Writer's Digest which has really useful information on getting an agent (and other stuff, but I'm being focused!). Particularly they have a lot of interviews with agents who go through what they want, what they don't want, etc. This is great for personalising queries.

Third step: opened up every link to an agency that I thought I might fit well with.

Fourth step: still took the time to read their submission guidelines. Sadly some no longer took Young Adults works, and others didn't want international authors, etc. :(

Fifth step: I used my new and improved query letter, matched with my personalised information on the agents I wanted to contact, mixed in their specific requirements (no manuscript, 5 pages of manuscript, 10 pages, first chapter, first three chapters... etc.) and sent off 5 new agent queries.

Note on simultaneous submissions: (which is different, I have found out, from multiple submissions, which means presenting one agent with two or three different ideas). Simultaneous submissions is where you send your manuscript to multiple different agents or publishers so they are all looking at them at the same time. A lot of agents and publishers really dislike this.

However, from discussions with Rochelle Manners at Even Before Publishing, and the suggestions on many agent websites, it is generally acceptable to query multiple people, but only send the actual manuscript to one at a time. If two or three get back to you, you politely reply thanking them for their interest, and say that the manuscript is currently with an agent, but when they are finished, you will be sure to send it on. (or something like that).

Over night I received three responses! (okay, you can probably guess from that that they weren't great news, but it wasn't all bad).

One was an auto reply saying they were not taking submissions over Christmas so to resend after that. Ok, can do.

One was to thank me, but they do not take international authors or young adults (I knew I was pushing my luck there.)

One replied that she thought it sounded interesting (win!) but she already had a sort of similar young adults she was trying to push so didn't want to take on another one, but another agent might like it. Yah!

So obviously not a total win, but definitely my query must be better because people are taking the time to reply.

One of the last two remaining is one of the ones I think I'm a really good match to and would really like to take me. But will have to wait and see.

Only 10 days until Christmas, and one never knows, Santa might give me an agent for being good :D

In the meantime, will keep working away.

I Need Your Help! Vote on My First Chapter.

First of all: 999 page views as I'm writing this: super cool! Thanks everyone for dropping by.

Wish I should have one of those flashing things that says 'Congratulations! You are the 1000th person to read this site!' But I'm not that tech savvy, and it would also probably look like I was trying to sell you something, or give you a virus.

Second: guess what? You know all those query letters (ie. the whole three) that I sent out? Well, one of the agents got back to me today saying I could send through a proposal!

So, I know that I'm meant to be all cool and like 'whatevs, I get agents emailing me all the time', but stuff that! This whole blog is about being new to everything and while it probably means nothing, I still think it is super exciting. Especially since the agent's website was like: yeah, we don't like international authors, and very rarely accept young adults stuff. So then I was like: yeah, hey, I'm an international author writing young adults stuff, you interested? So to have them write back and go: 'show me what you've got' is sort of big. They could have just ignored me, or written a copy and paste email saying: read our website, we don't want you. 

Now comes the problem: My First Chapter.

Here's the deal. I really like my first chapter. Everyone who has read it so far (except for my little sister) really likes (or at least says to my face they do). Even the reader who was critiquing it for the writing competition liked it. However, they also pointed out that young adult works generally jump straight to the action, and while she liked my description, she thought I should drop it.

So, I'm putting my first chapter (of my very first completed novel, exciting, no?) up in the tabs across the top of the blog. 

I've just put up a poll on the main page: Sally Hunt Chapter 1: Should it stay or should it go?

This poll is open until Monday morning (when I hope to send a reply to the agent with my proposal and first three chapters of my manuscript). 

Let the People Speak: should I shorten the first chapter and just jump straight into the action (Sally on dirt bike, riding up to greet friends), or keep it with its description?

All people who have said to my face they love it, are welcome to vote here with the truth. 

If you want to nuance your reply more than the set answers allow, feel free to just comment below. 

Hope to hear from some of you at least.

(And even if you don't know me, and stopped by here thinking it was a porn site, I would appreciate it if you took the time to have a quick read, even the first paragraph of the chapter, and vote. But no, I won't take my top off for you.)

Off to get some sleep.

A 9am - 5pm Day.

I did it! I sat down at 9am, had a tea-refill break at around 11am, 45mins for lunch, and then worked straight until actually about 5.30pm. Go me!

Result? Less words than I usually write, but more research, some editing, and finally getting around to drafting a query letter to send to agents.

Okay, so it is sad about not getting as many words written. Will definitely have to improve on that.

I'm currently  having a few issues with beginning this new story:

1. I had written the prologue and part of the first chapter about 4 years ago (did not think it was that long ago until I did the maths, which is very sad for many reasons.) At the time, I had thought it was a brilliantly written piece (though in need of minor editing), full of emotion and atmosphere. Looking back at it today...  well, lets just say I spent the first three hours this morning editing and then reediting. And I mean the type of editing which is cartoonised as someone standing over a screaming page with a bloody cleaver and a mad gleam in their eyes.  

2. Having not actually finished writing the book before turns out to have consequences. Sad, but true. I know in my mind that the main character is going to get framed for murder and possibly treason by a group of bad guys, ends up floating at sea (somehow), is picked up by a Spanish privateer ship and this book starts three years later. However, I hadn't actually got around to working out: what treasonous things, exactly, did the bad guys do that he was framed for? Who are these bad guys, and how many of them are there? What did he do for three years on the privateer ship, exactly? I had brainstormed that he started chasing down the guys, or running secret missions for England, but when it comes writing from that point onwards, a bit more detail is sort of necessary.

Not knowing all these little bits did have quite a large debilitating effect on my ability to write. So I will need to spend a bit more time brain storming, and then just free writing to see what comes. I'm past the prologue and onto an entirely new bit, so that should help in my next session. Will try the technique of writing out my problems with the story just as I go to sleep, and see if I can answer them as soon as I wake up in the morning. Though, to be honest, 10 to 1 I will wake up and the first thing I will think of will be breakfast, and it will be while I'm biting down on my toast that I suddenly remember I was meant to write out my first thoughts, by which time it will be too late. Toast is the downfall of us all.... well, not us all, as it was the making of the Roman Army, but you get my point, I think/hope/wish.

On the actual business side of things, today was great. I've been meaning to get my act together and start the not so creative process of actually getting my Sally Hunt books properly published. I know we discussed self-publishing, and I think I will do that with the Castle Innis series, as it is unlikely to be taken on by a traditional publisher as it is not in a clearly defined marketable genre (not enough romance to be considered historical romance, and I don't think historical adventure is so big at the moment.) But for Sally Hunt, my first ever series, which I love deeply and actually think is really pretty good, I want to try and do the best by it.

So, I'm starting with trying to get an agent. Is it bad of me that I'm looking to America instead of Australia because their Christian market is so much larger than ours? It makes it sound like I'm doing it just for the money but not really. I'm doing it just for the fame! Well, not fame for me personally, I just want the largest number of people to read Sally Hunt and hopefully feel a bit brighter about the world because of it.

For those of you thinking of looking for an agent, there is a lot of information out there. I spent four hours today basically just reading info on how to write a query letter, which is the letter you send before you send the proposal, which is what you send before you send the full manuscript, which is what happens before it actually gets seen by someone who could publish it. It's a slow process, what can I say?

Looking around I came across another writing blog which again appears to be super famous and also really informative. The blog is written by Nathan Bransford who is himself a published young teens author and literary agent.

I just want to copy out some of his advice on writing a query letter, because it is priceless. This was written in 2008, and he has added some updates since then, so please check out the original post if this amuses you as much as it did me:

You know those "mad lib" games you'd play as a kid, where you start off by writing down a list of verbs, places and adjectives, and inevitably the words "snot" and "farted" were involved, which made any story HILARIOUS?

Well, we're going to play query letter mad lib today. Here's how it works.

First I'm going to need these things:

[Agent name], [genre], [personalized tidbit about agent], [title], [word count], [protagonist name], [description of protagonist], [setting], [complicating incident], [verb], [villain], [protagonist's quest], [protagonist's goal], [author's credits (optional)], [your name]

Now, look how your query turns out:


Dear [Agent name],

I chose to submit to you because of your wonderful taste in [genre], and because you [personalized tidbit about agent].

[protagonist name] is a [description of protagonist] living in [setting]. But when [complicating incident], [protagonist name] must [protagonist's quest] and [verb] [villain] in order to [protagonist's goal].

[title] is a [word count] work of [genre]. I am the author of [author's credits (optional)], and this is my first novel.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best wishes,
[your name]


That's all you need.

Now, granted, this is the most formulaic query ever written (you know... because it uses a formula), and I'm crossing my fingers that I don't now receive a thousand virtually identical letters. But if you can't fill this mad lib out in two seconds and craft a pretty decent query letter, something might be wrong with your novel. 

The saddest thing? I had spent about an hour prior to this drafting a complex and meaningful letter, and then just for fun tried this out. It kicked ass over my carefully crafted, way too self-centred and long earlier attempt. I then went on and fiddled with it a bit and plan to check over it again tomorrow, but over all, it is super awesome.

Am thinking of typing up templates like this for Arts essays for my tute students.

Eg. [name of scholar1] has argued [outline theory] in their seminal work [title of work]. This has been roundly trashed by [name of scholar2] who complains that [objections to theory] clearly demonstrate that [name of scholar1] should be teaching elementary school instead of running a university department.

Could be so much fun.

Anyway, other benefit of 9-5 day is that I felt absolutely no guilt about curling up after dinner and watching Grimm. Can't watch TV all the time I'm not writing, as I still need to be reading and spending wordless time, but it was nice to know I had fulfilled my duty to the world, if not myself.

Tomorrow might be a bit less structured as need to take car (whose name is Tommy, by the way, and it suits him very well) in to get a roadworthy and then go out to lunch with my aunt (which I'm looking forward to, in case that didn't come out in my sentence structure). I'm also possibly being forced into slave labour by my mother to help unpack all my grandmother's boxes. But that should be my charity for the month, so can then be super rude to everyone I know and sit down and write. Yah!

Ta ta til then, darlings!