How I Spend My Time

When people hear that I've written a novel, a lot of time they ask about my writing routine, which is understandable because it takes a lot of discipline to write anything. When I was drafting I would write 8-14 hours a day, every single day.

Then I realized the whole second half of my book sucked, and I had to rewrite the whole thing. I spent a lot of time on the floor with long lines of taped together paper and post-it notes working on my plot lines and characters. It was a mess and I referred to it as my "Crazy". It pretty much looked like a serial killer or conspiracy theorist's board of tangled notes. Ry's got a picture of me in my pajamas with my Crazy all around me looking like a prime candidate for the loony bin.

Now I've put that draft in the metaphorical drawer while I wait on notes from my readers. I feel like I've edited it to death, but I know once I give it some time to breath I can come at it with a fresh mind. These days I spend my time either:

1. Working on my query letters. This is a different skill from writing novels, and one I'm still not very good at. Though better than some people. I found this site today which has a snarky agent sharing the most horrendous query fails I've ever seen. It may be brutal in the slushpile, but at least I'm not these guys.

2. Drafting the sequel to the book maybe no one wants. I'm discovering as I research the publishing world that there are a few things that agents are getting sick of. Vampires probably doesn't even need to be said, but also there's a rash of dystopian, and paranormal (werewolves, angels etc.) My book has angels and demons. It's hard to stand out in a pile of queries full of paranormal creatures.

3. Research/Plotting for my middle grade WIP. It's a revisionist history set in Napoleonic France and Italy. The research is going to be a beast. I'm actually going to have to go to a library. I've been sick since we got home from Cali, so I've just been watching documentaries on Napoleon.

4. Research/Plotting for my speculative fiction (YA) about what happens when the southwest runs out of water. It was originally going to be dystopian--and who knows it still might be, but this one's been stewing in my brain for months now. It had two main POV characters, and I just came up with a third today. I love multiple POV books, but I need to read some more to see what I like, which brings me to number five.

5. Reading. Call it market research. Call it studying craft. Call it whatever you want. A good write has to read. A lot. So I do. Hooray!

Demon Church

Ry had a conference at Stanford so we trekked across Nevada (I'm thinking it would be way more convenient for me if we could just relocate the whole state) to visit his family for a few days. It was great fun, and best of all, my father-in-law took me exploring around the abandoned part of Fort Ord to scout for a good location for a fight scene in the sequel to my book.

We found the perfect spot.

 Where better for a demon fight than an abandoned church? Isn't my f-i-l a great photographer? This church is being eaten by a giant eucalyptus tree that groans eerily every time there's a small gust of wind. I love it because not only does it have a great look, but it's got amazing auditory and olfactory details as well. It's going to be a great scene to write!

We decided to go inside and check it out. After all the front door was open.

After clawing our way through the ivy we peeked inside. It was perfect. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. Well, maybe. There was all sorts of crazy scrawled and spraypainted on the walls. The obligatory 666 was there, but also some more original crazy. After double checking that the serial killing cultists were really gone we explored some more.

 

There was a makeshift altar made from a door and some scraps of wood next to a charred spot on the floor that was clearly the remnants of a large fire. Creeptacular. And to think I was going to go exploring this place by myself. All the back rooms were also carpeted in newspaper like the cultists didn't want to track the blood of their latest sacrifrice on the nice floor.

I love the beams, and the golden light from the colored glass. Unlike most of the windows in this part of Fort Ord, many of the golden panes are still intact. This shot was taken from the choir loft. The rickety stairs were still solid enough to get us up there to explore. I am so in love with this church!

My other favorite part of Fort Ord was the aces and acres of oak trees draped in Spanish moss. The trees were bunched tightly together and the moss was swaying in the breeze. I imagine it would be very spooky at night.

Well that's all for now. I've got to get to work researching for my newest WIP. If you like these pictures you can check out more of my f-i-l's stuff at samsgallery.com. A lot of my scenes are inspired by his images of California's central coast.

Golden Ticket

I stumbled upon this delightful little contest that made me giddy with excitement. A free pass to the SF Writers Conference? For the weekend that I'll already be in the area? Squeee! I'll just copy and paste the juicy details, and if you want to win you better get to writersdigest.com quick, because the contest ends today. There are already almost 200 people entered, but I've got my fingers crossed!

WHAT THE WINNER WILL GET
The registration pass includes all sessions and keynotes in the main conference of the SFWC, at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel in the neighborhood of Nob Hill in San Francisco. It also includes two luncheons, two breakfasts, and one drink & pupus at the opening Welcome Gala. The pass also allows attendance to the agent Speed Dating potion. (Again … WOW!) All in all, this is worth $745.
If you do not know about the SFWC, see all the details online. For starters, at least 22 agents will be there, to say nothing of all the authors and editors, as well.

Compulsion

As I cyberstalk various literary agents I get a taste of each of their personalities. It's kind of like dating. I look at their interests the books they've sold, things they like to read, movies they like. I can get a sense of who they are by reading their blogs or twitter pages. If I don't like their personality, I move on. Occasionally I'll develop a huge nerd crush, and agonize over personalizing my query to speak to them.

I've been perusing through the interviews and blogs of the agent who sold THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH, and I came across a quote that sums up why I spend 14 hours a day editing, polishing, and querying. Why I can't stop plotting the sequel or percolating new ideas.

"If you think you can give up writing, then give it up. If you can't ... if you know that no matter how much stress or rejection or frustration you face, that you can never stop writing? In that case, never give up. Publishing is too hard to face if you aren't in it for the right reasons. But it's not too hard to break into if it's what you need to do."
  -Jim McCarthy

Rejection

Last year at the Phoenix comicon my wonderful husband, Ryan, came with me to some of the writing panels because he knew I wanted to be an author. I had no manuscript and no ideas, just a burning desire to be a writer.

One of my favorite authors, Aprilynne Pike, discussed the query process and shared how she had something like 50 rejections before finding an agent for WINGS. When I was getting close to finishing the first draft of my book, Ry and I sat down and I tried to remember what it was I was supposed to do next.

He recalled the river of rejections that even good authors receive, and in an effort to keep me from losing hope in the face of the inevitable onslaught he decided to make a game out of my rejections. We set up prizes for reaching different numbers of rejection.

Because the first one is a big deal and officially takes me out of the realm of "I wanna be a writer some day" and puts me squarely in the "I'm a real author with a finished book who just got rejected" realm, we celebrated with a steak dinner. Most people might think celebrating a rejection seems insane, but we're just a little bit insane.

Back to the drawing board

Two very swift rejections have me reconsidering my query letter. I'm an optimist when is comes to my writing career, so two isn't a bad thing. Some of may favorite authors talk about the scores of rejections they received before finally finding an agent. So because all authors must have a (public) blog, and because I cannot find a decent poll app on facebook I've created this today for the purpose of soliciting some feedback.

So here are two options for the synopsis part of my query. One that I've sent, and one that I just typed up today. Please let me know which you like better, or if you've got questions or comments.

A) 

 Ana Owen knew her life was over when a deliciously familiar boy she’d been having dreams about walked into her real life and kissed her in front of her boyfriend before vanishing into thin air. She expected her friends to hate her. She didn’t expect the whole world to go mad.

Eden wasn’t the birthplace of humanity but the most fertile place in an already inhabited world that Heaven could use to create cherubim—winged immortals from whence sprang the angels and demons.

And the world isn’t just divided into Heaven and Hell, good and Evil. Ana’s pretty sure Aletta, the angel working for Heaven who wants to wipe her mind is a Heavenly bitch. And a demon saved her life. But he doesn’t make up for the other countless demons attempting to kidnap her. There’s even a third neutral side, the elendi, who are sepratist angels, banished from Heaven and sworn to protect mortals. It’s almost too much for Ana to keep track of. And this doesn’t even take into account the rogue angels with no affiliation, switching sides as it suits their needs.

What Ana needs to find out is why. Why is Hell after her? Why do the demons recoil in pain at her touch? Ana must decide who she can trust, and find out the answers before it’s too late.

B) 

Tam’s a rogue angel running from his past. He attends a meeting in Hell about a bounty on a girl named Ana. He starts to question what’s really going on when he finds her, and she’s not at all what he expected.

For Ana it all started with a kiss. The perfect kiss from the perfect boy. But he was only a dream. Until he waltzes into Ana’s real life, kisses her in front of her boyfriend, and vanishes into thin air.

But Dreamboy ruining her life isn’t Ana’s only problem. Someone’s trying to kidnap her. When four strangers attack Ana, she only escapes because the kidnappers have a strange, violent reaction to her touch. They can’t grab her without suffering horrible pain. One even breaks into boils.

 Ana can’t tell her friends because they all hate her now, except one. But it turns out Laith isn’t even human—he’s Elendi, a disenfranchised group of separatist angels, banished from Heaven, and sworn to protect humans. It’s his job to protect her. Because the kidnappers keep coming and they aren’t your average bad guys. They’re demons. But stubborn, secretive Laith won’t give the answers Ana craves, so she must turn to another source.

Tam. He’s charming and handsome, and Ana finds herself drawn to him despite the fact that she knows almost nothing about him. Tam has the answers Ana’s looking for. But the more answers she gets, the more questions she has. Like why is Hell after her in the first place?

Ana struggles to answer this question and to figure out who and what she is before the demons succeed in dragging her down to Hell.