Momentary hiatus from my hiatus. The agent got in touch!

Today I climbed out of the shower, dried and dressed myself and was just applying my antiperspirant/deoderant when my cell phone trilled at me from downstairs.  Thinking it was another mundane call on a mundane day I sauntered downstairs, picked up the phone and saw the New York city area code.  My antiperspirant/deoderant was rendered obsolete in that moment.

Heart thundering, sweat dribbling down my ribs I flipped open the phone and, trying to convey both professionalism and insousiance in one word, said 'hello'.  The caller asked for me and then identified herself as the agent who has had my full manuscript for the past couple of months.  Not her assistant, not her intern, but the lady herself.  I had to sit down.

She spent about an hour on the phone with me giving me constructive criticism and some ideas for how to make my book stronger.  Sweat pouring from everywhere, I feverishly scribbled notes and waited for her to close the conversation by thanking me for my interest in her agency and telling me that the manuscript wasn't right for her.  She didn't.  She asked me if I would be interested in revising with her critique in mind and resubmitting.  I had to keep myself from squeeing into her ear. I managed a polite and only slightly high pitched, 'Yes, I would.'

Folks, I'm in a strange place right now.  My emotions are in such a stew I'm not sure what precisely I'm feeling.  Gratitude mostly that she took the time to a) phone me b) spend so much time on the critique c) not write me off completely.   Mostly I think I sort of haven't gotten over feeling that it's all a bit surreal (although reality interjected itself quite forcibly during the conversation in the form of little blond person shrieking 'Mommy, I peed.  I really really peed!  I need a treat now').  I think I'm excited, probably almost as excited as llittle blond person was with her successful production of number one in her potty chair. This isn't half bad for my first foray into the publishing community or my first contact with a legitimate literary agent.  Right?  Maybe that's the problem.  I'm not quite sure if this is mostly good or mostly bad.  I'm leaning toward mostly good. 

I'd love to hear your opinions and thoughts on the whole thing.  Also anyone out there whose gone the revise, resubmit route could you share your thoughts/experiences on it?  Is it pretty standard practice for agents to do this?  Did you feel it was worth the time and effort that the revisions took? 

I hate to blog and dash, but I've got a brief window of opportunity for a badly needed nap and I still have my WIP to complete and I've got some revisions to get to.  Not sure when I'll be dropping by to blog again, but thanks all for your comments on my last post and for taking the time to read this one.   Hope there's some good news waiting just around the corner to interject itself into your day!

I'm pulling the plug (temporarily)!

Last night I sat down to work on my WIP and in an unexpected burst of inspiration I vomited up an entire chapter.  That's means, according to my outline, I have three (count them, three!) chapters left until I complete the first draft of my WIP. 

Since for me, like for many of you fellow writers, time is at a premium, I'm checking out of the blogosphere for a bit, so I can use every spare minute to pound out those final chapters.  Due to the demands of my enormously pregnant belly and little blond person, I'm not even going to begin to estimate how long before I finish up and can end my unplug.  I'm hoping about a month. If it takes longer than that Baby Boy Paxton will be here and nothing will get done, WIP, blog, nothing. 

I won't be checking into your blogs for a while, but I wanted to let you know I'll miss you all and your wonderful insights into the amazing trip that is writing.  Best of luck with your writing lives and your everyday lives.  Hopefully I'll see you all again in about a month!

P.S. Still haven't heard anything from the agent with my full.  Hopefully I have some good news on that front by the time I return.  To all of you waiting to hear back on a partial or full, I share in your anxiousness.  GOOD LUCK!

The bad stuff can work for you.

If you're planning on watching the movie Match Point don't continue!  This post contains spoilers, lots of them.

Rebecca over at Diary of A Virgin Novelist recently did a post posing the question is life too short to read bad books?  I've been thinking about that quite a bit since reading the post.  I know Stephen King says in On Writing that reading bad books can be more helpful for your writing than good ones.  I'm sorry to all you Stephenie Meyers fans out there, but that bit of advice was the only reason I slogged my way through The Host.  And guess what, I learned a lot.  I even made changes to SEEDS based on what, in my opinion, Stephenie Meyer did wrong in The Host. I think things can also be learned from watching bad movies. 

Case in point: Match Point with Jonathan Rhys Meyers (yummy!) and Scarlett Johansson, two big name actors who I think have actually earned their reknown with their talent. 

Based on the actors and the premise I really thought this was going to be a great film.  It wasn't, for several reasons, which I will now pontificate about here.

In my opinion there was a lot of belaboring the point also known to us writers as beating the reader over the head.  I don't know if it was because the director delighted in seeing two hot young stars groping each other or what but I felt like the viewer was subjected to so many gratuitous sex scenes when one, perhaps two was sufficient to show the audience that these two had incredible sexual chemistry and couldn't get enough of each other. 

Then, there was the problem of motivation.  The director/writer/whomever spent the first half of the movie establishing how much JoRhyMys's (came up with that one all by myself) character Chris wanted ScarJo's character Nola.  After getting the girl and with hardly any indication that money was significant to him at all, Chris turned into a money grubber who came to the conclusion that he had to murder Nola in order to ensure he got to roll in the dough (rather than the hay) for the rest of his life.  What? He spent the majority of the film trying to get Nola into bed and once he had her he up and decided money was more important than her continued existence.  Not buying it!

I also didn't believe that Nola wanted Chris enough.  The scenes where she was trying to get him to leave his wife and marry her instead came across like a petulant, spoiled child who was being denied a toy. I didn't believe for a moment that this man was central to her existence. 

This brings me to the third and I think biggest problem of the entire movie.  I didn't like Nola at all.  She was nutty and whiny and needy.  When Chris killed her, I was like 'meh, good riddance.'  I didn't like Chris much either.  He was a cheating schmuck who put his own comfort above the life of another human being (albeit a nutty, whiny, needy one) and there was nothing, absolutely nothing to redeem him throughout the entire movie. 

I can't say I learned anything new from this, but I did have some very important lessons reiterated:  1)Make your point and move on.  This is where editing comes in.  You don't need three scenes establishing your antagonist is a psycho killer.  You just need one really great one.  2)Motivation is everything.  If you don't show that what your character is trying to obtain is central to their existence or at least that the character is totally convinced it is your readers won't believe it is and the story will fail.  3)Finally and most important give your characters, especially your protagonist and even your antagonist, some quality that makes the reader care about what is happening to them.  If your reader doesn't invest themselves in the characters no way are they going to stick with them through 1 or 2 hours or 200 or 300 some odd pages. 

Roland at Writing in the Crosshairs did this post post about Hollywood's deficiencies.  While I agree there are many in today's movies I challenge you next time you're faced with a bad movie or bad book, keep plugging and see what you can learn and apply to your own writing.

Unexpected gifts

Last Friday, I climbed out of bed, pulled the sheet up, straightened and smoothed the bedspread, looked at the pile of pillows on the floor that needed to be put just so against the headboard and felt - daunted. Seriously, my fortitude felt challenged by a pile of microfiber, cotton and 300 thread count pillowcases? It was going to be a bad day.


Turning my back on the heap of pillows, I went downstairs and tuned into PBS Kids for little blond person. Then, I got on blogger to do my Friday post and well, let's put it this way; if the throw pillows were daunting, the blog was insurmountable.  I hurried away from my blog to one of my go to time waster sites and found myself wondering what the crap I was doing all this for. Did I really want to write? Was it really worth all the time, effort and energy I invest into it every week? What else could I be doing with all that time that would perhaps be more beneficial to myself and to my family?

That feeling dogged me for the rest of the day. That night I opened my WIP, scanned the first three sentences and shut down the computer. I'd been daunted by the throw pillows, defeated by the blog. My WIP sent me dashing to the haven of my pillowless bed with my tail tucked between my legs. I couldn't do this anymore. Writing was a waste of time. I didn't love it enough to continue, to put in what I had been.  And really what was the point?  It wasn't like it was paying off in any way.

Saturday, I woke up to one of the few gorgeous days spring has favored our corner of Idaho with this year. After hurrying through my house cleaning, I put a sundress and sandals on little blond person to remind her what a glorious feeling it is to bare your shoulders and toes to the sun. Then my husband and I took her to a little amusement park. I watched her dash from one ride to the next, sturdy little legs pistoning, sunlight sparkling on her hair as it swished about her pinkening shoulders.  She continually called to us to 'c'mon, c'mon', so full of enthusiasm she literally couldn't stand still for a second. After she finished all the kiddy rides, we all climbed on the ferris wheel and squealed in unison with little blond person each time our seat began its tummy tingling descent. I didn't think about writing once.

Yet, Saturday night after she was bathed and soothed and drifting of to dreamland, I found myself as eager to open my WIP as little blond person was to ride the pink horse on the carousel; an unexpected gift at the end of a wonderful day.

My dearest wish for all of you out there is that next time you're overwhelmed by a funk you find yourself in possession of the unexpected gem of a day that Saturday was for me.

I'm cheating

I'm cheating. I hope you forgive me.  I'm going to do two posts today because I forgot about The Alliterative Allomorph's internal conflict blogfest.  I really want to enter, hence the double post.

This scene from my WIP takes place the day after the excerpt I posted for the Primal Scream blogfest, so if you want some context go ahead and check that out.  Please note, however, that the following excerpt has been severely edited to get it down to the 800 words required by the internal conflict blogfest.

Here's my entry:

Cold feet, cold hands, cold, cold, cold. I chafed at my bare upper arms, then lunged to my feet and began pacing the room.

“Honey, come here.” My mom grabbed me by the shoulders, directed me until I stood facing my reflection in the full length mirror. “It's your wedding day.  We finally got here and look at how gorgeous you are.”

Instead I looked at her. Strands of her gray hair had pulled free of her French twist and wafted over her temple. The bruise I noticed there the night I picked her up from the airport had all but faded. However, there was still a slight discoloration near the lobe of her ear. It's shape was reminiscent of the ring her current boyfriend wore on his right hand.

I wondered how many men left just such a mark on my mother’s skin, wondered if she kept a tally of hits and kicks and bites and bruises.

I wondered just how many blows it would take before I looked as defeated as my mother.

“I’m not going to do this.” I murmured.

“What, sweetheart?” My mom met my eyes in the mirror. Her eyes were brighter than I’d seen them all weekend, but it was suspicion and a dawning anger that glowed through the haze of alcohol, not pride or hope.

I held her eyes in the mirror, feeling my mom’s need to have me settled, to feel she’d done her duty by me crushing my resistance. The weight of expectation from the fifty or so guests most likely already seated and waiting for the bride to arrive seemed to filter through the wall, shoving at my shoulders, my waist, my legs, forcing me to move toward the door, then around the corner, down the aisle to David’s side. I thought of the world he belonged to, the world of education, art, culture, travel, money, the world I’d been seeking a way into perhaps my whole life as I scrabbled away from the stigma of 5515 Somerset Lane. I thought of David, how much, despite all, I still loved him.

“I’m going to do this and it will be alright.” I told the shaken looking pixie cut blond peering out at me from behind the mask of her veil.

“Damn right.” My mother said. “Now let’s go.”

We left the room together. Once in the hall my mom poked her head around the corner. “Set to go, folks.”

Then my mom offered me her arm. A moment later we rounded the corner and paused just outside the room where I was to be wed. Craning my head around the doorjamb I peered in and saw David smiling, so brilliant to look at him made my eyes ache. I watched him gesture as he talked to the minister, thought of his hands wielding the scissors the night before, the tip of them coming within centimeters of the jelly of my eyeball, convincing me to be quiescent while he took away pieces of me.

The string quartet eased into the strains of The Bridal Chorus and all the guests got to their feet, turning toward the door. I jerked my head out of sight. My mother straightened, lifting her chin, throwing her shoulders back. My gaze returned to the small bruise near the lobe of her ear.

My mind then ran over the course of my relationship with David, seeing the small toxic ways that fiend lurking behind the wall of his self control seeped into my life and tainted it. I didn’t need to use my precognition to see it would continue to do so. That I would end up exactly like my mother, except comparing the abuse David would mete out over the course of our relationship with what my father had done to my mother was like comparing what happened in an army field hospital to the work of a brain surgeon. One was mindless butchery, a brutal whacking and hacking and then onto the next. The other was a fine tuned skill, an exquisite manipulation of the organ upon which everything else depended. That was David’s particular method, a tearing down that began from within until there was nothing left but a hollow shell.

I reached under the veil with my free hand, fingered my cropped hair and wondered even now, how much of me was left to destroy. How much there would be to salvage if I ever decided to leave him. If he would let me go.

My vision went fuzzy and vague at the edges and it felt like all the oxygen in the world wouldn’t be enough to inflate the vacuum of my lungs. I yanked my arm from my mother’s, staggered back a few steps.

She reached for me. “Ruth?”

I clutched up huge handfuls of my wedding gown. Then I kicked off my heels and ran.

There's no accounting for some people's tastes

Lately I've been reading books that are represented by agents I've either queried or plan to query in case the agent that has my full decides to pass (she returned from vacation yesterday.  Let the obsessive email checking commence!).  I must say reading all these books has been an interesting literary ride. 

I won't name names here, but over the last week and a half I completed two books that are represented by the same agent.  And that fact astounded me.  The subject matter, writing style, genre, characters, everything in the two books were completely different. However, here are the things the two novels had in common:  The first was that the voice practically jumped off the page and dragged you into the story willing or not.  The second was that both were finely crafted, engrossing books from sentence one to the end. 

Here's what I took away from this; buck up aspiring authors.  There are thousands of literary agents out there.  As long as your story has a strong voice and is well written, with their eclectic tastes, one of those thousands of agents will fall in love with your book and will agree to represent it.  Query widely, query well and eventually you'll find the set of literary agent tastebuds that likes the particular flavor of your book.

A game of tag and some awards.

I'm playing a game of 'Tag You're It' as little blond person says.  I was tagged by two people, Creepy Query Girl, who I think has one of the best monikers out there, makes me laugh every time I read it, and Amy Jo Lavin at Ramblings of a Novice Writer.  Thanks for the love, ladies!

Because I was tagged twice I originally thought I should do ten answers to each question, but there is such thing as too much of a good thing.  Fifty answers about moi would definitely fall under that category heading, so I'm sticking with the regular 25.  Now onto the questions!

Where were you five years ago?

1. Living in a dump of an apartment in Golden, Colorado trying to figure out what the red bumps all over me and my husband were.  Turns out our neighbor brought some bedbugs home from Mexico and those intrepid little travelers popped over through our electrical outlets and moved on in.  Most disgusting experience of my life!  Needless to say we moved.
2. Working as a legal secretary *yawn* for a federal attorney *double yawn*.
3. Not writing a thing besides legal correspondence and briefs.
4. Wondering how a girl from a little ol' town in Idaho ended up in the big bad city of Denver, Colorado.
5. Completely weirded out and a little confused by the fact that I'd been married for almost a year, to a Colorado native no less.

Where would you like to be in five years?

1. Published! Hopefully multiple titles. (Has this answer been different for anyone?)
2. Mother to two happy healthy children.
3. As much in love and as happy with my husband as I am today.
4. A bigger house with a yard for said happy healthy children.
5. In a contracted relationship with a literary agent that I adore and who adores me in return (in a strictly platonic way of course).

What is on your To-Do list today?

1. Go to the doctor and find out if Baby Boy Paxton is well on his way to being the second of said happy, healthy children.
2. Go to lunch with my mom.
3. Finish The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory (decent book, not my favorite of hers).
4. Get my daughter to take a nap.
5. Write!

What snacks do you enjoy? (Are you sure you want to ask a pregnant woman this?)

1. I just discovered Ben & Jerry's Boston Cream Pie Ice Cream.  To die for!
2. Salt and Vinegar potato chips.
3. Cadbury mini eggs (good thing they're only around at Easter)
4. Lately, as much watermelon as I can get my hands on.
5. Peanut Butter M&Ms but for some reason I enjoy these doubly when I'm eating them at the movies intermingled with popcorn.

What would you do with a billion dollars?

1. Buy a Victorian mansion and restore it and hope that it has a least one little friendly ghost. Heck, with a billion dollars maybe I could buy a ghost.
2. Buy great works of art to hang in said mansion.
3. Donate and volunteer for charities that provide medical care in third world countries.
4. Have a real library with leather bound first editions and rolling ladders and everything in said Victorian mansion.

5. Travel to every continent, perhaps every country if I could find the time.

Kay, *running, fingers outstretched to their fullest length* 

1. Tracy at Forever Endeavor

2. Katie M.

3. Melissa at a Writer's Reality

4. Michelle McLean

5. Lindsey at Dangerous with a Pen

Tag! You're It.

And now to the awards

Charmaine Clancy at Wagging Tales gave me the Sweet Blog award.  Thanks Charmaine!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


I'm going to give this one to
1. Julie Musil
2. Old Kitty

3. Alexandra Crocodile

4. Anne at Piedmont Writer

5. Office Girl

 

The Superior Scribbler Award is a new one for me and was given to me by Creepy Query Girl *smile*.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm going to send this one out to

1. Roland at Writing in the Crosshairs

2. Raquel Byrnes

3. V R Barkowski

4. Shannon McMahon

5. B. Miller

 

And now I gotta go.   Can't miss that doctor's appointment.  I'll pop over to your blogs later.