While I've posted quite a few videos lately, I haven't said much on the blog in a while about the whole writing thing. Which, you know, is problematic when I claim that this is supposed to be a blog dedicated to my writing and life and things.
And so, time for an update!
Due to the total lack of response from my earlier post when I gave the Internet the POWER to tell me what to write, I've had to think for myself and am going with option number three: the story that started as a title and now I'm figuring it out. I've never had an idea come to me this way before, but hey, I'll take it. I've got my composition notebook with me, filling with summaries, scenes, characters, and the ever-important playlists, so hopefully awesome writing will be happening in the upcoming month.
Now, as some of you may know, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and I actually did a post on it over at my other blog here. The short version is this: yes I signed up, no I don't actually think I'll get a 50,000 word first draft written over the next 30 days, yes I'm okay with that because even if I don't "win" at NaNoWriMo, it's okay because I know my writing and it just doesn't work like that. All that being said, I'm just hoping to use this month as a push to get me back into writing regularly. All the rejections (and rejections via no response) that I got this summer in Queryland got me down more than I like to admit. It's especially hard when I'm on QueryTracker.net and seeing people who 'first started sending queries on Monday and now four days later I already have an offer for representation!' - it hasn't been an easy road for me, but I still have hope and ideas so I have to believe some day, it will be my turn.
Which leads me to my final bit of news: I've returned to Queryland. I refuse to let this keep me down. Someone, somewhere will want my story. I just have to take the time to find them. Good things come to those who wait, right? Keep your fingers crossed for me, and if anyone out there knows of literary agents who are currently accepting submissions and particularly like contemporary YA, PLEASE TELL ME! =)
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Day #8822 - Like vs. Love and Tell Me What to Write!
If I had to pick a Facebook relationship status for life with me and my writing ideas right now, it would be "It's Complicated."
And I hate that phrase. Because is it really so complicated? Yes, but no. Let's look at it in it's simplest form: I haven't written anything creatively for a while now. I'm stuck. I have had ideas, sure, but the three main ones dancing around in my head don't feel good enough. I like them, but I don't love them. With the first book I wrote, I LOVED it right from the very beginning. Even through the edits and rewrites and query process and rejections, I still LOVE that book. And though I'm still agentless (though I'm going to restart my search once I can find someone to help me with my query AGAIN even though it got really good responses from other writers during WriteOnCon) and that book only exists as a file on my computer and not as a book on the shelves at a library near you (yet!), I still love that book. The few I've let read it have generally liked it. I can't wait to have agents and editors and Publishing People go through it and potentially tear it apart because I love it, and I want it to be the best book it can be.
But then I think, I also loved my second manuscript. At least, I thought I did during the idea stage, and for a lot of the writing stage, too. But it didn't exactly last - it was NaNoWriMo and sprinting out a first draft like that is taxing and I knew it was hardly my best writing going on. I wanted to try the experience, but in the end, one month and 61,000 words later, I had a first draft that I hit "save" and have not looked at since December of last year.
So it makes me think, is loving it really necessary? Or does it just blind you to the fact that maybe it's not such a great idea after all? Does my love for my book cloud my ability to see that it's perhaps not so awesome, as shown by the fact that every rejection but one was a form rejection and I only got one request for a full which also ended in a form rejection? I say no, because that one request gave me hope.
But it still leaves me with time to write and fear that my ideas suck and are not worthy.
So here's my proposition: I'm leaving it up to the Internet. Below are three incredibly vague descriptions of the ideas floating around in my head and you guys tell me which one to work on. And whichever one gets the most, I'll start with that and we'll see how it goes. Ready? Ok!
-science-fiction/dystopian-ish idea in a The Giver or Never Let Me Go sort of way
-contemporary YA/new adult centering around two characters, a guy and a girl, who share a gender-neutral first name
-What I think would be a cute title in my head and other than that, I really don't have anything but I do know the protagonist likes swimming
So yeah. There they are. Let me know what you think! =)
And I hate that phrase. Because is it really so complicated? Yes, but no. Let's look at it in it's simplest form: I haven't written anything creatively for a while now. I'm stuck. I have had ideas, sure, but the three main ones dancing around in my head don't feel good enough. I like them, but I don't love them. With the first book I wrote, I LOVED it right from the very beginning. Even through the edits and rewrites and query process and rejections, I still LOVE that book. And though I'm still agentless (though I'm going to restart my search once I can find someone to help me with my query AGAIN even though it got really good responses from other writers during WriteOnCon) and that book only exists as a file on my computer and not as a book on the shelves at a library near you (yet!), I still love that book. The few I've let read it have generally liked it. I can't wait to have agents and editors and Publishing People go through it and potentially tear it apart because I love it, and I want it to be the best book it can be.
But then I think, I also loved my second manuscript. At least, I thought I did during the idea stage, and for a lot of the writing stage, too. But it didn't exactly last - it was NaNoWriMo and sprinting out a first draft like that is taxing and I knew it was hardly my best writing going on. I wanted to try the experience, but in the end, one month and 61,000 words later, I had a first draft that I hit "save" and have not looked at since December of last year.
So it makes me think, is loving it really necessary? Or does it just blind you to the fact that maybe it's not such a great idea after all? Does my love for my book cloud my ability to see that it's perhaps not so awesome, as shown by the fact that every rejection but one was a form rejection and I only got one request for a full which also ended in a form rejection? I say no, because that one request gave me hope.
But it still leaves me with time to write and fear that my ideas suck and are not worthy.
So here's my proposition: I'm leaving it up to the Internet. Below are three incredibly vague descriptions of the ideas floating around in my head and you guys tell me which one to work on. And whichever one gets the most, I'll start with that and we'll see how it goes. Ready? Ok!
-science-fiction/dystopian-ish idea in a The Giver or Never Let Me Go sort of way
-contemporary YA/new adult centering around two characters, a guy and a girl, who share a gender-neutral first name
-What I think would be a cute title in my head and other than that, I really don't have anything but I do know the protagonist likes swimming
So yeah. There they are. Let me know what you think! =)
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
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