Just When I Thought I Had It Figured

So, you do know that stories speak, right? Some of them say, "Write me!" which is good. The best will say, "I'm ready, send me off!" Others will say, "I need more work before you query me." But I absolutely hate it when a story says this:

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I was ready to be queried off I wasn't. I'm actually in need of a major rewrite. I know you've already submitted me to the agents you want most, but I really need this rewrite before you send me off again."

That is exactly what Khaladin did to me today.

The rewrite will make it a better story. It's all for the best. But I thought I was done with this one and now it's like, think again. Oh well. I will begin the revamp process and probably try to sell Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! And if that one calls out for a rewrite, I will send out The Heart and the Horn. And if that one calls for a rewrite again, I might just throw in the towel on writing.

Believe me? Yeah, didn't think so. You all know I love writing too much to ever quit. :)

Rejection, Dejection, Whatever You Wanna Call It, I've Got It

Well, you've probably already guessed that the agent I queried, the one I really wanted, decided to pass on my work today. Ah, well. Guess it's time to hit the old drawing board again.

Which leaves me with a problem. Normally I always have a plan for querying agents, but this time around, I don't. There is one agent out there that I am really thinking about querying, but I'm not sure yet. Why? I have no clue. I really don't know why I have ever queried him. He's one of the best in the biz and I have never sent him a query in all my five years of querying.

Who is this mystery agent, you ask?

Well, it's Ethan Ellenberg. He represents everything that I write (but that doesn't mean he will want my work) and I know he's good and what he does, so why don't I shoot him an e-mail?

That's a very good question. So, which story should it be?

The Heart and the Horn: a YA high fantasy where a Princess is dethroned and has to destroy an evil shape shifting Unicorn

Khaladin: a MG fantasy where a horse gives birth to a unicorn foal and Judy has to keep him hidden from all eyes

Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space!: a MG science fiction where a girl finds out her adopted parents are aliens and she has to save two worlds before it's too late

Which is your fav? Which do you think I should query off? Khaladin is a very emotional tale, The Heart and the Horn is epic good verses evil, and Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! is a fun, humorous story that makes you laugh.

So, help me out here, guys. Please?

Another WIP In The Works???

There might be.

I am currently working on yet another YA fantasy, this one titled My Reality, Your Fantasy. A little vague, you say? Well, yeah, it is. I'm not revealing too much on this one at this point in time. But I will tell you that there are two main characters and each will be telling thier story in first person. Yikes! Can I pull this off?

I think so. I enjoy a challenge. *rubs hands together gleefully with strange glint in eye*

Anyway, I have a lot of completed manuscripts right now. I have The Heart and the Horn, Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space!, and Khaladin. I also have a middle grade fantasy trilogy called The Mirror's Portal Trilogy, which is complete, but in editing. If I could just find an agent, I'd be in good shape.

Then again, maybe not. Just because you have an agent doesn't mean said agent will rep all you write. Gotta keep it real here, folks. ;)

Anyway, sorry my posting has been sketchy lately. I've been lazy, there's no other word for it. But I'm going to try not to be anymore. Please don't quit reading and, if you like what you see on this blog, feel free to follow me. Really, I don't bite all that much. ;)

Why The Revamp?

I just recently read a book that said if you don't condense your book in your revision, then you are doing something wrong.

So why am I doing a revamp of The Ultimate Evil that's clearly making the story much longer?

Simple: It needs it.

The Ultimate Evil, I believe, has the potential to be a great story. It was good in the old version but the reason I'm revamping is to flesh out the story and edit those iffy parts that every story has, whether it's to keep or chuck them.

With this new version of my fantasy, I also have to re-work the query. Heck, I had to do that anyway because my query, which I thought was good, turned out to be crap. And with new plot twists, I have to focus on different things than I used to. But I have to say, writing a query for this story is hard. Khaladin and Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space!'s queries were easier. I guess it's because they don't have as many twists and turns as The Ultimate Evil does.

Another thing. I normally keep you all updated on my word count progress, whether it increases or shortens. Well, I'm now going to hold you in suspense. I will not post The Ultimate Evil's word count again until it is finished.

Happy writing! :D

Revamp In Progress!

Some of my regulars will know that I have been working for a long time on a story called The Ultimate Evil, a high fantasy young adult novel. Several of you know that I was planning on revamping it.

Well, this is where the planning stops and the action begins!

I have begun my revamp of The Ultimate Evil. I'm super excited! It doesn't even begin the same way anymore. The original beginning paragraphs were kinda boring and now I'm going to change all that. The story is going to be longer, more dramatic, more desperate, and a MUCH more exciting read! I have no plans for how long it will get. Right now it's sitting pretty at 55,000 words and I gather it will exceed that now, but I don't know by how much. I have learned not to stress over length. If your story is good, then length doesn't matter.

Literary Update: The Ultimate Evil was completely rejected by all 17 agents I sent it to. Are you surprised? I'm not. Also, I just recieved another rejection letter for Khaladin. Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! has still not been submitted to any agencies. Still focused on Khaladin.

Literary Updates

OK, I'm going to update you all on all of my stories and their statuses so far:

The Ultimate Evil: Submitted to 17 agents and rejected by 11. Do not believe query will hook remaining agents. Once I have heard back (or not) from all of them, this story is going to be put on hold for revamping. It's missing something, but I can't pinpoint it yet.

Khaladin: Submitted to 26 agents and has been rejected 10 times. This story I will query till I have exhausted all options. May re-write my query before querying more agents, though. It might not be reading as well as I thought. Plan on submitting to all e-mail query friendly agents first before going to snail mail agents (I am in the process of moving, so that's why I have it this way).

Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space!: Never rejected! OK, so that's because it's never been submitted. But the query letter is done, should I ever need it. This story is still in editing, but not in need of a major overhaul that I can see at this point.

The Unicorn Queen: All 13 adventures have been planned and all major characters formulated. The first five chapters of book one are complete. I plan to write all the adventures and then go back and edit them. I will not pitch this series till every book is complete, which I don't think will take too long. I'm hoping each story will be around 15K-20K.

So, that's it. I'll update again when I have something new to report. Till then, happy writing! :D

Discouraged

So, today I received more rejection letters. The ninth for The Ultimate Evil and the first for Khaladin. This is the third time my dream agent has rejected me. Maybe it's just not meant to be.

Anyway, I've begun to wonder just what a person has to do to break into this industry. It's harder than becoming an actress. You can be an actress even if you never get a speaking part. But with writing you're either published or you're not. Simple. That's they way it works.

So, I sound a little depressed right now, but I'm OK. This isn't the first time this has happened to me, and I know it won't be the last. I've got to build up a tough skin if I want to go into this industry and I know I can do it. My chin is still up! :D

OK, my little venting session is over. On the bright side, I got Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! back from my second Beta and she enjoyed the story and gave me some fabulous comments. Now it's on to more edits and agent hunting. :D

I Love It When....

....people read my work and give me great comments as my Beta for Khaladin did. She helped me SOOOOO much and I am very grateful. She pointed out several places where I could tighten up my writing, which is great because I don't easily spot that on my own. Guess I need to work on getting better at that, huh?

February is fast approaching and that means 10 more query letters will be going out for The Ultimate Evil soon. If I get rejected by these ten, I don't know if I will continue to query this story, or put it on the back burner for a while as I try with another. It will depend on how complete Khaladin and Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! are. Both are finished, it's just editing now.

The query letters for these other ten agents are already written out. All I have to do is e-mail them. As of right now, I am working on query letters for Khaladin and Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! just in case The Ultimate Evil doesn't sell.

The Edits Never Seem To End!

More edits have been started in both Khaladin and Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! My Beta for Khaladin finished and sent me her comments, but my stupid computer wouldn't open them. Hopefully we can get that straightened out soon. I want to read her comments! I hope there are some harsh ones! :)

My Beta for Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! hasn't had time to read the story, which is understandable when you're juggling a college schedule. I told him there's no rush. It's strictly on a "read it when you're ready" basis.

A lot of writers I have met hate edits. LOATHE them! Me? I LOVE editing! It's wonderful to see your story morph and change into something better than it was before. I don't mind the editing process, though there is a part of me that wishes it wasn't so long. :D

I Need Your Advice

Many of you know that I am seeking an agent with my YA novel, The Ultimate Evil. However, I'm wondering if that's my best course of action.

Huh?

You see, there's been a lot on the web lately about agents and editors wanting (needing!) middle grade fiction. I have my two completed MG novels, Khaladin and Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! What I'm wondering is this: do you think I should query those ten other agents I found for The Ultimate Evil, or do you think it'd be a better decision to wait on that novel and pick one of the other two to pitch?

Speaking of pitching these novels, there's a poll in the sidebar of my blog about which MG story I should pitch. Even if you already told me your opinion several posts ago, please vote over there. It's an easier way for me to keep count. :)

A New Look!

Hey, everyone, I made over my blog! I was getting tired of the old look and wanted something a little bit more hip and cool....and I found this template. Awesome, isn't it?

I wanted a new look to go with my new outlook. I've been doing a lot of soul searching recently and I just feel so much more peaceful inside. So....every thing's good (even with rejection after rejection!). :)

More writing updates. More story ideas are in progress (what, again?) and I finally have a dedication for Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! I had a hard time finding out who to dedicate it to, so I asked one of my friends if he'd want it dedicated to him (no one else I know really likes SF all that much) and he accepted.

Anyway, with three completed manuscripts and two in editing, I'm looking for my next story to write. I'm teetering with two: another MG sci-fi called (tentatively) Space Kids or a YA fantasy called The Prophecy. I don't know which one to choose yet.

A Short Post

Just to keep you updated:

The Ultimate Evil was rejected by two more agents. That's 4/7. I found ten more agents to submit to, but those won't go out till February (unless I get rejections earlier).

Khaladin and Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! are with thier Beta readers.

And that's all I have to say right now.

More Agents, More Queries

I submitted The Ultimate Evil to four more literary agencies yesterday. It is now with five agencies. I have submitted to a total of seven, but two have already replied with rejections.

You know how sometimes when you query an agent, they will send you an e-mail two minutes later that basically says, "Hey, we got your query!"? Like I said, two minutes later. But I'm super confused about something. When I submitted yesterday, on a Saturday, I got one of those letters, but four hours after I sent my query. For all you who find out all the scams, this is a reputable agency. Andrea Brown Literary. So, do they have those e-mails sent out on a timer on weekends, or did this agent look at my query on a Saturday and send me this as a "hey, I may be interested in your work" type deal? I don't know, so I'm not reading anything into it.

Speaking of reading, I finished my second round of edits in Khaladin. Even though I took away a lot (as I can get wordy) I added about 1,000 more words. There's more to be done and I'm thinking about getting a Beta reader for it. Not the whole thing, only part. See, with my Beta reads, I like to see the mistakes people find and then correct them and find them on my own throughout the rest of the manuscript. That way I'll learn. Unfortunately, AW is down right now (which stinks!) so I can't post that I need a Beta reader. I do need to go back and see how many chapters I want read before I put that post up though. That way I can get the word count. Khaladin has twenty-eight chapters, but is only 33K. But I know if I just say I need the first ten chapters read and don't put down any word count, people aren't going to want to read it. At least, that's the pattern I've seen.

I'm over halfway done with my first round of edits in Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! Those are going really well and when I finish them, I'll send the manuscript to a friend of mine who has offered to read it. He said he wanted to read something of mine that did not contain unicorns, and this new story doesn't even mention them. I think he's happy about that. I am too. The last thing I want to become known as is "The Unicorn Writer" though I can't not write about unicorns. I love them too much. :D

Rejected....Again

So, yesterday after I a rejection letter from Ms. Nelson, I sent a query on a complete whim to Nathan Bransford. About twenty minutes later he sent me a (personalized!) rejection letter. Getting him would have been really tough, anyway, considering the fact that he doesn't normally represent fantasy.

But though I am still receiving rejection letters, I am still optimistic. I kjow that if it is God's Will, I'll find the perfect agent with the perfect story one day. :D

I have also been editing Khaladin and the edits are coming along nicely. I've been able to get rid of some of my wordiness and passive voice. For some reason, that story got loaded with passive voice. Agh! Not good! At least it's fixable. :)

Poll results:

Khaladin: 2

Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space!: 2

Yeah, I have a tie. I have to ask more people. If you're reading my blog and haven't voted yet, please do. Help me choose! :)

Rejected

Well, as you can tell from the title, my dream agent just sent me a rejection letter. :(

But, you know what? That's OK. YA fantasy is a tough sell right now.

So, here's my stratagy. I am only going to query The Ultimate Evil to a few more agents. Most agents are really looking for middle grade fiction right now and Khaladin and Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! both fall into that catagory. So, I'm going to try The Ultimate Evil a few more times while I REALLY work hard on finishing up these other two manuscripts before I start querying them off. I have read several stories about authors getting thier first work rejected, the second accepted, and the first gets published because of the second. Pretty cool, huh?

And, if no one wants The Ultimate Evil, then I can dismantle it and turn it into another story. I'll make things work.....somehow.

Anyway, I have a question for everyone. If I were going to pitch one of my middle grade novels now (but I'm not yet, they're not ready) which one should I pitch?

Khaladin: Horse gives birth to unicorn foal.

Or....

Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space!: A girl finds out her parents are aliens and, after a great, kinda messed up adventure, has to save two worlds, her father, and the President of the United States.

So, which would you choose to pitch?

So, I Finished

Yeah, last night, I finished the first draft of Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space! I already had about half of the manuscript written, so it didn't take me long to finish.

So far, it has 26K and 20 chapters. It's been a lot of fun to write because it's in first person and my first time finishing a novel in that format as well. Since I'm so used to third person, I'm learning new things and it's been great! It's harder to write first person because if you say something that is completely out of sync with your character, it shows more. There's not as much leeway in first person as there is in third, not that there's much in third anyway! :)

Also, I just submitted The Ultimate Evil to my dream agent. I hope she bites! :D

And My New WIP Is.....

.....a MG sci-fi story called, Help! My Parents Are From Outer Space!

I have been working on this story for several years (I came up with the idea when I was ten) and only since last year has it really started to come together. I had writer's block on the project, but that seems to be gone now, as I am MUCH closer to the climax of the story.

Here's the basic low-down: This story is told in first person by Stacie, a typical teenage girl who wakes up one morning on a spaceship (surprise!) and soon discovers that her adoptive parents are really aliens in disguise. Now she's being forced to live on thier planet, called Z'ghon, and can never see anyone from Earth again. Her life becomes a MAJOR rollarcoaster when her father and the President of the United States are both captured by the evil Z'ghonian leader and she has to save them, not to mention both Earth and Z'ghon. Pressure? Just a smidge.

It's been a lot of fun to write and I'm even more excited about it right now because I am nearly done with the first draft. I don't know how close I am, but I do know that I've passed the half-way point in the tale. This is my first real attempt at first person so I'm learning new things about storytelling as I go and it's been (and will continue to be) a great ride! :D

Question: Has anyone noticed that a lot of my ideas I say I've had since I was little? Does that strike anybody else as being weird? Just curious. *shrug*