Posted by Christine on Jun 18, 2007 in Publishing, Scottsdale |
This morning when I opened my e-mail I saw it sitting there among my many other e-mails. A reply to one of my queries. They are all sent now, but this was the first reply I received. My stomach knotted and my heart beat picked up. Where they requesting a partial, or was it my first rejection. I tried to coach myself, it’s a rejection, no big deal, all authors get rejections. But still I couldn’t help the little thrill of excitement that it might be a request for a partial. Maybe someone wanted to read my story. I opened, read and replied to all my other e-mail first as an exercise in patience, and because I was dreading opening that particular e-mail as much as I was desperate to read it. When all my other correspondence was done and I had no more excuses I opened the e-mail. It was a rejection BUT…. It was the kindest most polite and gentle rejection I could have imagined. The agent didn’t rip apart my query, they didn’t say my idea sucked, they simply pointed out that this project was not right for them. They encouraged me to continue to submit to other agents. So I want to tell them Thank you. Not that rejection is ever easy to take, but it is so much easier when it is done gently and with kindness. It was in my opinion the perfect first rejection. One that was harsh would have been shattering. Not that I wasn’t disappointed, even after all my coaching I felt the little lurch you feel in your stomach when you have received bad news. I felt terrible they didn’t want to read my story. Then I realized something- I am an author now!!! Not just a writer but an author. I have received a rejection. How many published authors and even FAMOUS authors received a rejection? I will not venture a guess at the actual number but I will say from what I have read A LOT. So I am in good company. So what does this mean, well I still have 6 queries out that I mailed as a first round of queries. This is only my first rejection and I am working on my second round of queries now. So this basically means that I am going to keep going. There are still many many options out there. I will keep everyone up to date as the responses to my queries come in. I can only imagine that this is the first of many rejections. But I look forward to the “YES” that is coming. Who knows, it may get here today...
Read More »
Posted by Christine on Jun 8, 2007 in Randomness, Scottsdale |
After so many many hours spent with Lexi, Damian, Meredith, Sonya, Levi and all their friends and families I am in need of a break. I am officially putting aside this manuscript until Monday. Three whole days without them. To some this might not seem like a lot, but to any mothers out there, imagine three whole days without your children. What do I plan to do this weekend. Hang out with my hubby and kids (we are all going out to dinner tonight), play outside if the weather is nice, catch up on housework, and if I get some time to write in the evenings I am going to work on something different. I pulled out four older stories I had started about 6 months ago. I reread the beginning of them all. Two are unsalvageable at this time, thank God for progress! They helped me see exactly how my writing has improved over the past few months. Two I think have potential. I think I might revisit them, if not this weekend sometime in the future. I also have another idea that has been bouncing around my brain for a few weeks now. A fantasy with political intrigue, religious intolerance, rebellion and a bit of romance. I put the first chapter on paper yesterday afternoon and I don’t hate it. The idea is not fully formed yet, for example I don’t know how it ends. However I think I would like to play with it for a while. Once all my query’s are out for Coradonna Lost I will be putting that aside for a month or so waiting to hear from the agents. I think during that time I will visit these other worlds and see how they might develop and evolve. I wish you all a happy and relaxing weekend....
Read More »
Posted by Christine on Jun 7, 2007 in Publishing, Scottsdale |
There is so much information on the Internet. It’s an incredibly useful resource and I cannot image not having it at my finger tips. When I decided to start writing queries I naturally began investigating the Internet to learn how. I learned a great deal. One of the most useful sources of information I have already mentioned was agents blogs. (Have I mentioned Thank you to all the agent who blog and give such helpful and informative advice.) Even now that I have crafted a query I am still reading the blogs of five agents regularly. One problem is that I find myself running into information that I wished I had known 10 minutes ago. It happened this morning… I was reading on an agents blog, the post took apart a query and was very helpful over all. The agent advised only using your pen name once you adopted one. Honestly I had asked myself about this when crafting my query. Should I use my real name or me pen name? I thought since I had nothing published maybe it was best to use my real name with the agent and editor until after I had been published. I guess my thought was Christine Brant does not really exist till her name is on a book. But I know I exist, at least I think I know – ok that’s a discussion for another day. Really though the advice makes sense. I mean I have adopted my pen name for this blog. I have adopted my pen name for the critique group I attend. It makes a great deal of sense to adopt it for my queries as well. I used my real name on my first query, no big deal, but all the queries I send from today forward will use my pen name only. You can read the post here BookEnds...
Read More »
Posted by Christine on Jun 1, 2007 in Publishing, Scottsdale |
You can actually see that but you know – I had to state the obvious. I hope everyone enjoys the updates. In other news I have a synopsis written. I cannot tell you the hours and hours I spent researching how to write a synopsis and what agents were looking for. I visited many different agent and author blogs. I read critiques of other synopsis’s. I read articles on how to write a synopsis, articles on how not to write a synopsis and articles on why the synopsis is important. I think that the hardest thing was when I found conflicting information on what should be in a synopsis. One thing I did find over and over was that almost uniformly people dread writing a plot synopsis. However I also found everyone has to do them. Even published authors write them for future projects. So I guess in writing, and dreading, my synopsis I’m in good company. So now I’m ready. I have a synopsis written that I hope is what agents are looking for. I have a query letter written that I can adapt to the agents and editors I plan to send it to. I have a manuscript that flows well with an opening chapter I hope will really hook the reader and still stay true to the rest of the story. Now I need to start sending the query letters. I am completely terrified of the coming rejections, but also totally excited by the idea that someone somewhere will love my story....
Read More »
Posted by Christine on May 31, 2007 in Scottsdale |
The first chapter is back up in it’s new and updated form. I have done a lot of revision on this chapter for those who read either of the first two versions you will see that right away. Hopefully this works better. I hope you enjoy, please feel free to leave any feedback in this post.
Read More »
Posted by Christine on May 27, 2007 in Publishing, Scottsdale |
I worked on the rewrites of a couple chapters that had to change to accommodate the changes in the first chapter yesterday. I think that the rewrites are truer to the characters as they evolved later in the story so that is good. Also I am hoping it makes the information I have to give the reader a little more spread out this may be good or bad depending on your point of view. In my opinion it makes it easier to take in, but it leaves the reader waiting longer for certain details. Speaking of Point of View… I have been working on that too. I have been reading several books in my attempt to become a good writer. One of these is Orson Scott Card’s book Characters &Viewpoint. I have read and re-read the section on point of view (POV) as I know this is a major point in storytelling and editing. I struggled with what POV to use in my story. I started writing in the limited third person, and then switched about midway through to third person omniscient. I knew I would have to go back and pick a POV and stick with it throughout and I am working on that now. So what did I pick? Well, after much indecision I decided to go with a shifting limited third person POV. What does this mean, in different chapters we will see the story through different people’s eyes. In a few chapters the point of view will change mid chapter to let us see the scene from more than one persons POV. I try to limit in chapter changes though to where it is REALLY necessary. So why did I choose limited third instead of omniscient. There are so many characters in the book and most of them will have at least one chapter told from their personal POV. Including Lexi, Damian, Meredith, Sonya, Farrell, Micah, Tali, Brinna and in a few places/chapters Drew, Garin, Ellsa, and Levi (I probably forgot someone). It would seem that the omniscient view would be easier to adapt to this many characters. I made the decision based on primarily one thing. A quote from the above mentioned book by Orson Scott Card in which he shares the best way to get the reader emotionally involved with your character is the limited third POV. (Characters &Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card page 162 copywrite 1988.) That is my goal; to get the readers to emotionally connect with the characters I have written. Consider this, a portion of my query letter: As an avid reader I am always searching for characters I would want to know. Often I feel let down by characters who are either too perfect to be real or to flawed to be likable. In Coradonna Lost I have created characters the reader will wish they could know. These...
Read More »
