Pushing myself

I am literally forcing myself to get going today. I've been sitting here pretty much doing nothing, finding excuse after excuse not to get my query and synopsis written. It's funny how I can sit here and crank out a book in 10 days with no problem, but it takes me weeks and weeks to write a simple query. It's the brief description of the book that I get hung up on. So much is hanging on those couple of paragraphs and I find it's really difficult to describe my own book.

Jamie finished reading Life After Death the other day, so last night I gave her some homework. I asked her to write a couple of paragraphs describing the book, kind of like you'd see on the back cover. I was gonna send her the description I had written and just have her give me opinions on it but I decided it would be good to get a totally fresh perspective on it. I was glad I did because she took a completely different approach than I did. Now I plan to take the two descriptions and find a way to meld them a bit. I wish I had some other people who were finished with it so I could get more feedback first, but I really need to get moving on these queries so I can start my next book.

Writing books is fun. Working on query letters, sending them out to agents, waiting for replies that are generally just rejections, none of that is fun. So I tend to want to just skip all of that and move on to writing the next book. I'm not letting myself do that this time. I need to get more serious about the publishing part before I've got 20 finished manuscripts sitting here and nobody is getting to read them.

A lot of it is confusing to me, though. Some agents ask for a query AND a synopsis. So I did some research on writing a synopsis, and found out that all agents are different. Some want a 2 page synopsis and some want 20 pages. I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to know what they want when all they say is "synopsis." Really, how much information should I be including in this synopsis? Should I go chapter by chapter and put everything in there? Or should I only put the key points of the book in there? I honestly don't have answers to this and I haven't really found an answer that I trust on the internet. So I figured I'd just write it, and see how it goes.

The synopsis was scaring me quite a bit. More than the query, actually, because I've written queries before. But as I was reading information on how to write them, I realized I've pretty much already done it. I always outline the story in a notebook before I start writing, and I update that outline as things change. So I should be able to easily turn that outline into a synopsis that I can send to agents.

Hopefully. We'll see. Gotta go get started on it.

I really am a pirate, I swear

I really hate it when I do this. Last night I was laying here on my bed reading through some agent's blog and I fell asleep....not because it was boring. I was just really tired since I only got 4 hours of sleep the night before. Anyway, it was only about 7pm so of course I woke up around 11pm and was wide awake. And now it's 6am and I'm STILL awake.

What have I been doing all night? Oh, you know, the usual. Sitting here for hours and hours on end compiling my list of agents to send queries to. It's entirely possible that I'm OVERLY organized sometimes. I've seriously spent the last 2 days just going through agency websites. I went to AgentQuery , of course. And if you haven't been there, you should go. It's a great site because you can look for agents who handle your specific genre.

So I wrote all of the agencies and websites down the day before yesterday. Last night I sat here and went to each and every website, went through their submission policies, read about each agent, and wrote it all in my notebook. I designated a page for each agency so I can make notes on when I send them queries and if/when I hear from them. I have 46 agencies to send to, which is a lot better than I originally thought but still not enough to make me feel confident that I'll find somebody.

My brain kind of feels full of this stuff right now. But I'm determined to focus on this part of the publishing process before I get started on another book.

Also, I'm a pirate. No, really, I am. Our cable and internet got shut off yesterday. Do you think that every author goes through this before they find an agent? I need to go find a job, but I know once I do that, I won't have as much time to devote to writing, and I don't like that idea. So, anyway, my bill wasn't that late. Only a week or so. But apparently Comcast hates me, which of course means that they don't know me. Cuz dammit, everyone who knows me likes me! (Just let me believe this, ok?) But, you know, it's just cable and I can live for a week or two without that, and luckily for me, I have some neighbors who haven't figured out that they should make their wireless accounts secure.

So I'm a pirate. Not a very good one, unfortunately. The signal is so low and crappy that my connection is sketchy at best. Ah well. It's better than no connection, right?

Some day......hmmm......some day I'll have my full-time desk job that brings in the bucks and doesn't suck too badly, and I'll have my agent and book deals to fulfill my creative side. And I won't HAVE to be a pirate. But, you know, just for those other struggling authors out there, I'll keep my wireless connection unsecured.

I'm all about encouraging pirates.

There's no such thing as green in my house....unless you're talking about vegetables and then....nope, never mind

I've been sitting here for the last couple of hours compiling my list of agents that I plan to send queries to, and, you know, it amazes me how many agents out there DON'T accept email queries. I really don't understand why anybody, in this age of technology, would demand all queries come in the mail. I mean, if they've got a webpage set up, then chances are they have email. It's not so hard to make a folder called "Queries" and adjust the spam filters so all queries go in there. Or, even better, just make a new email address altogether that's only for queries.

Of course, I'll admit that most agents do, and many of them ONLY accept them via email, which is awesome. It makes the whole process much easier for me, definitely much cheaper for me, and it cuts down on the amount of paper that's wasted on a daily basis.

Now, if I can just get my kids to quit going through 48 rolls of toilet paper a month, I'd be happy.

Playing God is fun

Last spring, after I finished writing my second book, Wren came to me with a book title, Life After Death. He thought I should write a book about a girl who had been dating Death but broke up with him.

I thought it was cute, but I wasn't overly fond of the concept. First of all, as much as I absolutely love reading paranormal romance books, I didn't think I could actually write them. Second of all, it sounded pretty boring to me. I needed more than just that general title and idea. And anybody who reads paranormal knows that I'd need a lot more action in it. It needed conflict and tension.

I kind of disregarded the idea. Then I brought the title itself back and thought maybe I'd just write a book about a girl who was dating some daredevil guy who went by the nickname "Johnny Death" or something. lol As you can see, the idea still wasn't there at all. I just felt like I needed to change the concept in order for me to be able to write it. After all, I'm no Katie Macalister or Mary Janice Davidson.

Eventually, though, I came back to the paranormal idea. This was all in a matter of days, of course, because once the idea was there in my head, I didn't want to let go of it. I wrote those first 3 chapters, then put it away.

But over the course of the last couple of weeks, while writing Life After Death, I realized something. Not only could I write paranormal, I really enjoyed writing it. One of the greatest parts of writing is being able to play God. It's like playing The Sims, really, and I love The Sims (which you could tell if you saw the sheer volume of Sims games and expansions on my shelf). I get to decide who the people are, what they do for a living, where they live, what their house looks like, what kinds of things they like, etc. And even more, I get to control everything they say and do. What could be better than that? Seriously, how many times have you watched a friend of yours screw up a conversation with a guy? Or watched your sister continuously go after guys who treat her like crap? Or seen your brother, who is a great artist, decide to go to school for accounting? (*Side note: I'm not saying there's anything wrong with accounting. If that's what you're into, I mean. It's just not a job that most creative people will be happy with. It's not like there are a slew of creative accountants out there who carve your taxes on slabs of marble then ship them off to the IRS. That would be cool, actually.)

Where was I? Oh yes. Any time you see somebody making the wrong choices in their lives, and it frustrates you....just write a story about them. Or turn them into a Sims character. Suddenly you get to play God and see what happens when they choose the path you wanted them to take.

But paranormal was different. Not only did I get the fun of controlling people, I also got to make up my own world. I got to create Limbo, which I could totally see in my head. It was like starting my own corporation in a lot of ways too, since I got to decide the business side of Limbo. And nobody could tell me I was wrong because this was MY world.

I think I'll stick to paranormal for awhile. It was certainly fun, and I'm looking forward to building on that world and expanding it outside of Limbo.

I may have broke my thinking cap

My brain just doesn't seem to be working lately. I know there are things I need to be doing...but I can't get my brain to control my body. It's like something is disconnected in there. A wire or something. So my brain sits here saying "Come on. Get up. You need to work on your synopsis. You need to get your query written. You should go do some more editing. You have 3 or 4 more books in you that need to get outlined. Get off your ass dammit! Turn off the damn Food Network and get to work!"

But you know what? My body says "Screw you. I like Iron Chef. And Bobby Flay is the shit. Leave me alone and let me veg."

My body wins out most of the time. It's bigger than my brain, you know.

Oh, but I did manage to get this drawing done last night:



I like her. I think she'd make a good book cover...if I computerize her, that is. And as much as I know I need to get started on some things, I'm thinking about working on a potential cover for Life After Death instead. Yeah, maybe it's stupid. I don't care. It would be fun, at least.

There are more things in this brain of mine that I want to say so I'm sure I'll write more later. That is, if my body lets me.

There's a purpose to this, I promise

There's a reason why I started this blog, and I'd like to explain it. I have other places where I write about my general life. But I needed some place where I could start keeping track of this long road to publishing that I'm on. As a writer struggling to get published, it's wonderful for me to see people who have not only been published, but have made it pretty far. It's even more wonderful if I can look back at their journey and see that they really did go through all of the crap I'm going through in the beginning.

So while I figure this blog might be boring for a lot of people to read, anybody struggling to get a book published, or even just struggling to write a book, may appreciate knowing that they really aren't alone in that boat. Look closely. See that short girl at the back of the boat. *waves* Hi! That's me. Good to see you. Hang on. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

I have a lot of determination. I've stopped saying things like "if I can find an agent" or "if I could get this book published." No, no. Now I'm saying that WHEN I find an agent and WHEN I get a book published, and WHEN I make it big in the publishing world, I'd love to be able to look back at the path I took and know that, while I may have had a few times when I was literally dangling out of that boat, I managed to pull myself back in and make it through the rapids. Hopefully relatively unscathed.

I also realize that I have a lot to say on this blog right now. So expect to see many, many posts over the next couple of days. And then don't expect to hear from me for awhile. And then expect to see many, many posts over a short period of time. Because that's what I do and who I am. I get on blog writing kicks and then save it all up in my head like a blog camel.

Sometimes it take a frying pan to get things through my head

For as long as I can remember, it's been my dream to be a published author. I've always loved reading and writing, and I'm sure it helped that my dad loved both as well. I had a lot of other dreams when I was a child, of course, like being the first female president of the United States of America. But my dreams of being an author never faltered. They got pushed to the side sometimes, but they never really went away, just hovered in the background waiting for me to remember.

I think a lot of people want to be authors when they're younger. They think of it as this glamorous lifestyle, flying off to grand locations for book tours and signings, movie deals, huge royalty checks, etc. I'm sure I only thought about those types of things when I was younger. After all, that's what being an author was to me.

I also know I didn't have any real understanding of what it took just to sit down and write a book. A few times over the years, a story idea would come to me and I'd just sit down and write. One time I wrote 10 chapters in just 3 days...then I never wrote another word of that book.

Almost 2 years ago, about 5 months after my dad passed away, I decided I needed to focus on one of my life goals, which was writing a whole book. I was tired of starting books and never finishing them and I needed to find the drive to get all the way through 100,000 words. I was pretty proud of myself when I finished that book, Just Average, in only 11 days. I couldn't understand why it took some authors years to write one book.

Then I started doing my research to figure out how to get it published. And that's when it all hit me. The query letter was the first step, and I have to say I tend to have a hard time getting past that step. I just want to write. I wish I could hire somebody to take care of all the rest of it for me. But still, I got a query letter written, then started researching agents to figure out who to send it to. I was super organized, with my Word file open where I had tables inserted to keep track of each agent, what type of material they represented, what their email addresses and websites were, the date I sent them a query and the date I received a reply.

And I sent out a whole 5 queries.

Impressive, right?

It wasn't fun. I didn't get those immediate emails, begging me to let them represent me, telling me they would fight with other agents for the pleasure. And it became increasingly clear to me that even if I managed to find an agent, it could be years before that agent sold my book to a publisher, if it ever happened at all.

So I told myself I needed to work on my query before I sent any more out, and I didn't touch it for a year. I discovered a funny thing about writing books. While you're writing it, you can think it's the best thing ever written. Set it aside for a month or two and then go back and read it. I discovered that Just Average was just that....average, if not horrible. The writing wasn't awful, the concept wasn't terrible, but it was so scattered and unorganized and there was really no easy way to fix that.

Instead of working on that book, or rewriting the query like I kept saying I was going to do, I started on my next book, Unrequited. I took some more time on this book....a whole 14 days. lol Oh, I actually took much longer in the grand scheme of things. I planned it out, did character sketches, wrote outlines, I even got 3x5 index cards and wrote down each plot point and played around with the order that I wanted everything. I decided that I could put my "super organizing skills" to use in writing, as long as I didn't get ahead of myself and start writing the book before it was planned out.

And really, Unrequited wasn't awful. It wasn't great. But it wasn't awful. I was extremely happy with it while I was writing it, of course, and even right after I got done. I spent over $80 printing and binding copies for friends to read so they could tell me what they thought. I wanted to get some editing in before I started on my query. But then....nothing. I did the same thing really. Put it away for a month or two and then when I went back, I realized how juvenile the writing sounded, how immature my main character was.

But it was a starting point. I think the scary process ahead of me was a bit too daunting and I just kept telling myself that I'd get to it eventually.

Well, it's been almost 2 years since I first started researching that process. And you know what? I'm ready now. I'm not walking into this blindly, and I'm not that same naive girl who dreamed about the glamorous life of an author. I realize it could take me years to get any interest in my work. I realize that even if I manage to get one book published, there's no guarantees that I'll ever publish another one. I also realize that any advance I get would be minimal at best, and I'll be lucky if the royalty checks are enough to keep me in Mountain Dew long enough to write my next book.

But you know what? I don't care. Now that I've accepted all of that, I'm ready to get back to the reason I wanted to be an author in the first place: I love to write. I just finished writing my 3rd book, Life After Death. I wrote this one in.....about 8 days. And I spent a whole 2 days editing it. (*Side note: I spent about 8 months on this book really. The idea came to me last spring, but the story wasn't completely there. So I let it marinate for awhile. Then spent a couple of days outlining it before I started writing.) And yes, for now, I'm pretty happy with it. Give me a month or two and we'll see if I still feel the same way. In any case, once I get some feedback from my test audience, and do my 2nd edit on it, I'll begin working on my query.

Until then, I'll keep writing. Because that's what I'm in this for. The writing.