Posted by Christine on May 14, 2010 in Follow Friday |
This week my Follow Friday goes to Angela Crocker, she is a great woman, a member of the Book Broads, and a soon to be published author. I connected with Angela for the first time via twitter, this is oddly coincidental (And oh how I want to use the word ironic here- but I know that would be improper usage of irony.) considering she is currently writing a book about social networking ( The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Creating a Social Network) that is scheduled to be released in Feb. 2011. I can’t wait to get my signed copy. 🙂 We met for the first time in person at SiWC this past year (Oct. 2009) and we really clicked. Wait, I’m seeing a theme in my Follow Friday’s – I know and follow a lot of people related to SiWC. 😉 What can I say, it’s an awesome conference. I very much enjoyed spending time with Angela and getting to know her more. I’ve since had the opportunity to share dinner with her and get to know her further through social networking. I chose Angela for my #FF this week for many reason, first off, I consider her my friend, and friends are vitally important in life. Weather you write, or work a nine to five desk job, or do both or neither, you need to have friends. Life was not meant to be lived in isolation. Friends keep us grounded through the day to day issues that come up and to help us laugh and enjoy the moments that we want to celebrate. Also their great for helping us face our evil doppelgangers when they pop up. Those things should NEVER be fought alone. (So Angela, how are you with evil redheads?) Recently, Angela and I participated in a Word Count Challenge together and while neither of us reached the “ultimate†goal we set for ourselves (darn illnesses) it was a lot of fun to check in with each other and to be challenged. Not only that but I know the challenge gave me a great start on my new YA novel and I hope it got Angela a great start on her project as well. 🙂 Angela is also a wonderful example of using social networking to interact with PEOPLE – not just to sell THINGS. This deeply impresses me and makes me think she is the perfect person to be writing a book about the subject. I’m glad the publisher thought so too. I love it when the people who should be writing the books are the people actually writing the books – it makes me smile. So on this beautiful Friday I recommend to you my friend Angela, who not only knows about, but uses, Social Networking to its best and fullest...
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Posted by Christine on May 12, 2010 in Randomness |
Welcome to my Weekly Update. Rejection Queen Status Update: – I have currently received 4 rejections – Deb, I think that makes us tied. I have to admit #4 hit a little hard, not entirely sure why, but I’ve moved on and am looking forward to the next round of queries. – I still have 6 outstanding queries, one will be a rejection if I don’t hear anything by June 8th as per the agents web site guidelines. – I have 12 agents researched and I hope to do some further research this week to add another 5 to 6 agents. I would like to have between 15 and 18 for my next round of queries. I hope to send my next round of queries by the end of the month. – The next round of queries will have a slightly tweaked query letter – nothing major, and off course it is personalized to each agent but the body essentially stays the same, and most will be accompanied by a **shudder** synopsis. Other writing News: – The Synopsis: I work on this in chunks of time until it drives me crazy then I put it aside for a few days and come back to it. I really don’t understand why it’s so hard for me but my brain has a mental block against this particular document. It will get done, and I will do it to the best of my ability but it will get done slowly. – The Youngest Brother: I had an idea that led me down a thought path and I think I am going to significantly change the direction of one part of the plot line in this story. It should solve one of the major problems I was facing and I think it will also open up some other avenues I wanted to explore. – YA Urban Fantasy: I’m having so much fun with this story. A great deal of research time has gone into it and I am learning a lot about the Navajo People and the roads in Arizona from Google Maps. 🙂 I don’t actually know how the story ends yet, which is odd, generally I know the end fairly early in the story. This time the end is eluding me. Personal Life: – Mothers day was wonderful in our house and I wish a happy belated mothers day to all the mothers I know. – The “day job†is going great and I am enjoying working with kids who aren’t mine again. I have started saving pennies for SiWC. Thus concludes my weekly update. I wish you all happy writing (or reading) and sunshine this...
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Posted by Christine on May 9, 2010 in General, Randomness |
I’m a huge proponent of watching TV with your kids. I mean, it’s essential to know what your children are watching on television so you can discuss it with them if they have questions or concerns. Also, it helps you understand where they are coming from. But mostly because I’m a member of the infamous Generation X and, according to some at least, we never grew up. I seem to enjoy some of the superhero cartoons almost as much as they do. 😉 This week my children learned three important life lessons from superhero cartoons, we discussed them all as they came up and I enjoyed exploring the deeper meanings. 1) NEVER split yourself into more than one – it may seem like a good idea at the time but it never works out. Not once this week, but twice we watched a show where the super hero tried to split himself in two so he could battle the villain and keep personal commitments/have fun. In both instances this came with similar problems. First, the split caused a divide in the hero’s personality that was unpleasant at best and downright unlikable at worst. Second, the split caused a divide in power. As a complete whole the hero fought better and was stronger than their parts split up, even when those parts tried to work together. So we can see it is never a good idea to try to split ones self into more than one. On a deeper level, what this reminds us is that life is full of difficult choices we have to make every day. We can’t do everything and be everywhere. Something my kids are learning even now, and an important lesson for adulthood. Being able to decide what’s important and being able to say no and walk away sometimes is vital. Unfortunately, upon occasion that means sacrificing what you want to do for must be done, and this is part of learning responsibility. 2) NEVER fight your own evil doppelganger – they know all your strengths, weaknesses and secrets and they WILL use them against you. After all, they’re evil. So on the surface it might seem like a good idea to fight your own doppelganger if they show up, after all you know all their weaknesses too. But being a hero lets face it you are a lot less likely to use what you know against someone. The evil doppelganger on the other hand – not so inhibited. So get your teammate to fight the other “you†because they have secrets, and strengths that you probably don’t know about. You simply cannot fight yourself. It doesn’t work. Wait let me say that again – you can’t fight yourself. You just can’t. Granted I don’t actually think my children have evil doppelgangers and I hope I raise them not to fight their dreams. With any...
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Posted by Christine on May 7, 2010 in Follow Friday |
My Follow Friday for today goes to a wonderful author and a beautiful human being. She has been an inspiration to me and has given me valuable and honest feedback about my writing and my chances of being published, which I appreciate. So following the trend of the last two weeks this week I am following an author I met at SiWC her name is kc dyer. I clearly remember the first time I spoke to kc. She called my house on a Saturday morning, and asked me if I was sitting down. I laughingly replied no, and she recommended I do that, then proceeded to tell me I won the Surrey International Storytellers Award. WOW! A real life published author called my house. I believe this is one of Ms. Dyer’s many gifts, she makes those around her feel special. When I met her at SiWC in 2007 she made me feel like a minor celebrity, and a “real writerâ€. When she sat down with me at SiWC this past year (2009) and took a few minutes to give me advise and share her convictions about my writing she made me believe that I would one day truly be a published author. I have copies of her books (signed of course 🙂 ) for my kids and I would recommend that you check them out too. More than any of this though is that kc has treated me like a real person and a friend. She has joked and laughed with me and had drinks with my husband and I. She made time in a very busy schedule as conference coordinator to spend a few minutes with us.She became my friend on Facebook and laughs with me on Twitter. So perhaps what kc has taught me more than anything else is that authors are real people. Thank you kc, for being honest and inspirational. Thank you for helping me become a better writer through your honesty. Thank you for being a friend as well as a writer who has inspired me. You are truly an author worth...
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Posted by Christine on May 5, 2010 in General, Updates |
Rejection Queen Status Update – My rejection status is up to 3. Watch out Deb, I’m gaining on you. 😉 – I have 7 outstanding query letters at this point. One says that no response within eight weeks should be taken as a rejection. That means if I haven’t heard from them by June 8th then I will count them towards my rejections. – I have 12 agents researched, several of them require a synopsis with submission. *sigh* I have spent significant time working on my synopsis this week – see below – in preparation for submission to these agents and I hope to submit by well, hopefully by the end of the month. Other Writing News – My synopsis. I have to admit I have no idea why this is so hard for me, but there seems to be some sort of mental block between me and the synopsis. I worked for 16 of the last 48 hours on it and I am taking the next 48 hours off of it. At moments I worry that publication hangs on this particular piece of fiction then I will never achieve that elusive dream. However, I don’t give up easy and on Friday I will once again tackle the synopsis with renewed vigor. It is after all, just one more dragon to slay. – Writing challenge, bronchitis got the better of this one. The goal was to write 14,000 words in two weeks, or 1,000 words a day, usually this is pretty doable for me. However I was sick and went away for one of the two weekends with my hubby to celebrate our 15 yr anniversary. (Yeah – I’m still excited about that one.) Anyway my partner in the challenge and I extended the deadline to midnight tonight and I will be spending my remaining hours between now and midnight working on getting my word count up – weather or not I’ll hit 14,000 is still a mystery. 🙂 – The Youngest Brother has been on my mind a lot lately even though I haven’t been writing on it much. I decide to make some minor changes in how I am going to develop the story and I think it will flow better because of the changes. As a result it will also open up the option of writing some short stories about Red, so that’s exciting. Personal Notes: – I have resumed work at a day job, just part time, but it’s a very good thing for my writing in at least one way. It means I will be able to afford to go to SiWC this year. WOO HOO!! – With mothers day right around the corner I just want to take this opportunity to say** I have the greatest kids in the world and I adore them**. They encourage me to be creative and make me...
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