In Which I Reveal A Few Things I Love Because I Know You Totally Want To Know About Such Things

1. Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley.

2. Billie Holiday (Holiday) Pandora radio station.

3. Gingerbread lattes.

4. The dreary weather that forces me to stay inside and write things like stories and such.

5. Dan in Real Life.

What's keeping your spirits up?

I Never Win Contests! Ever!

I won a contest! Yeah! I enter them all the time, whether writing something is required or just simply a comment. I never win, I swear, and yet I continue to enter them because that is the nature of me.

This time! I won a 30-page request from an agent! Yeah!

Check out the Operation Awesome Blog, if you don't already. It's pretty cool. Every month they have these Mystery Agent contests and what an amazing opportunity not only to get your work in front of an agent in a different way other than Query World, but I really love to see what other writers are working on. If you check out the entries you'll see what I mean. There's such a wide range of amazing work out there. Pretty cool stuff and it makes me wonder what bookshelves will look like in another year or two.

Anyway. I entered my completed strange little manuscript Slumber. My Twitter pitch and the first 500 words are up on Operation Awesome, if you be curious about this dark wierd book.

Happy Writing! Happy Friday!

Patience

Ugh. I'm losing patience again. What is my problem? I want to finish this new book NOW. I want to query it NOW. I want an awesome agent NOW. I want the book deal NOW.

I'm not ready! I know this! I need to prove to myself that I can write a good book. A book I'm totally completely mega-hotness in love with. A book that doesn't sag in the middle and fizzle out in the end. A book that stirs. A book...A book I can see on the shelves. I'm not there yet. I'M NOT.

Someone smack me across the face already!

Sometimes I think I've given up on my books too soon. I finish it, I'm done, and then I don't want to look at it ever again. I'm ready to move on to the next idea. But I refuse to give up on the current manuscript. I will exhaust all options for this one. I will make the BEST BOOK IN THE WORLD. Okay, exaggeration. How about the best book I've written? A book with a strong plot? With conflict all the way through?

33,600 words y'all...moving right along...but I want to see this baby shine already!

Are you patient?

Progress

I feel like I'm writing slow, but really I'm going at a pretty steady pace! Maybe it seems like I'm writing slow because I read about other writer's chucking out first drafts within a month, sometimes two weeks, two days, two hours (okay, maybe not).

I believe progress on a draft is more than word count. I'm getting out about 500 new words a day, but I'm also brainstorming, figuring out the structure, moving things around, fleshing out characters, jotting down notes for edits.

This story is following me around more than any other one I've written. It's always in the back of my mind. Cutting words is progress. Dumping a bad scene is progress. Figuring out a new plot point is progress, even if I don't write a word of it yet. Each day, this book is feeling more and more like THE ONE. Have I felt this way before? Sure...but this feels a different. I can't explain it.

I'm not sure where I got all this optimism from. It's annoying, isn't it? Do not worry. Another couple thousand words and I'll hate this book. I'll be sure to grumble here. Happens every time!

How do you measure progress?

National Novel Writing Month

So I don't think I'll be doing National Novel Writing Month this year. I feel kind of sad about it. I've done it for the last few years. I really like the manuscript I wrote last year for it, although it sits untouched right now because it needs a lot of fixing and I don't want to do that right now. Go me. I am now 25,000 words into my new romantical WIP. It's slow-moving, folks. The words drip out like honey, but do not always taste so sweet. I wrote large chunks out of order, and am now in the process of filling in the blanks, threading scenes together. I edit slightly as I go along. I'm enjoying it. I think I finally found a process that works for me. I figure if I didn't have a day job, the process would go faster but alas I have a day job. I do hope to have a solid first draft by December. I figure I'll let it sit over the holidays. Edit in January...Perhaps! Perhaps! I shall query in February. In fact, maybe I shall send out a small batch of queries on Valentine's Day...which would be kind of perfect for the story. Oh, I love that idea!

What's your writing process? Are you writing a novel this November?

Re-Reading

Do you re-read books? It's a rare thing for me. Honestly, most of the books I read are okay, entertaining enough. But I don't love, love, love them enough to read them again. This is sad, I know. I'm a tough audience I guess.

There are those precious few that I will pick up again.

1) The Bell Jar (I read this at least once a year.)
2) The Dogs of Babel
3) Catcher in the Rye
4) This weekend I re-read The Disreputable History of Frankie-Landau Banks. I love this book.

Are you a re-reader?

I'm Sick...But Check This Out...

Well, I'm sick. Which means writing is going to be super hard. Bleh.

Anyway.

PLEASE GO CONGRATULATE SHANNON MESSENGER ON HER AWESOME BOOK DEAL! HOORAY!

Shannon's an inspiration and mega-awesome!!!!!