From "My" Agent

"Please do query me on the YA when you have it completely done."

My very first reaction (aloud): "Is there such a thing as 'completely done'?"

I gave myself a July 31st deadline. I wish I'd given myself a one-month plan.

As much as I love revising and tinkering with manuscripts, I still find the idea of revising and editing a book manuscript daunting. I need to develop a system, a method. Or find someone else's that works well for me.

Where do I get stuck? I get stuck in the flood of "perhaps-es" and differing suggestions all of which have merit. I tend to want to discard the suggestions that require extensive re-writing, but is that because I know the story or because I'm lazy about doing that much revision? I get lost in looking for strong verbs and active nouns. Or is it the other way around? LOL! Of course it is. I worry about what I don't know, what I do know and have forgotten, and what blatant thing will slip under the radar and brand me as incompetent or foolish. There goes my friend Carol's voice, "You have to have POSITIVE thoughts!" Well, I'm positive that I'm feeling my way through the dark in this endeavor.

So I guess I need to set goals. I need to number the pages and set a page revision goal. Or I need to divide the book into chapters and set chapter goals. Or I need to develop a method of working though the manuscript, focusing on different areas and set goals based on that.

I worry about the reality of the dialog. I worry about the strength of the setting. I worry about word whiskers "pretty," "very," "really." I worry about rushing the ending, minimizing the conflict. I worry about not deepening the emotional pull enough. I keep coming up with good ideas to tie little pieces together with little golden threads. Will the "sewing" be recognized? Or appreciated without being recognized?

Ack! Think I'll post over on Momwriters.

Of course ANY feedback would be appreciated.

And look for my Book Tag response tomorrow.

I'm hitting send from my ds's computer. Hope it goes through. I'll look before I post it a second time. :)

A beautiful day

I can hardly drive for watching the clouds these days. Last night's sunset was one of those that made me wish I had a great camera at hand and the skill to use it well. Today's clouds are softer, high, and almost look like the end of a wave when it washes out over the sand. The air is crisper today, energizing. We haven't had the AC on since we got home at 9 last night. It probably feels delightful because the air has been silverish with water the past few days.

My flowers are exuberant. Unfortunately I've not been putting my morning ritual first these days--decide to start laundry or empty the dishwasher first--and the sun has been too strong to sit out there. It almost blinds me because it rises directly in line with my front porch. In fact, when the door is closed, the sunlight makes a rainbow on my wall when it sneaks through the peephole. I keep thinking I'll try an evening to sit out there, but it's not the same. The TV blares from inside, and the neighborhood is alive and noisy--as it should be--till it gets dark. I enjoy the quiet of the morning.

I've set myself a deadline of July 31st to finish my YA novel. I did some intense word-by-word work on the first two chapters last week. It's tiring. I think mostly because I have to keep dragging myself back to what I'm trying to do; I just want to keep on reading and I can't afford to become a reader now. At any rate, I have requested permission to send it to an agent at the end of July; had to set that firm commitment out there so that I had the incentive to get it done.

The Oklahoma Chapter of SCBWI is meeting at a park in Oklahoma City on Saturday for a critique-a-thon. I'm trying to work up the nerve to carry my carcass and my manuscript down there. I wish people were easier for me. It curls my toes to think about walking into a group of strangers. But once you walk in and a few minutes pass, they aren't strangers anymore, are they? I should look up a map to the park and start talking myself into it NOW.

I'm boring myself, so I'm going to quit for now. I did make progress on the short story I started two weeks ago in workshop. Of course, when I was staring at the ceiling trying to sleep the whole thing mapped itself out nicely, but the second I got up to put it on paper, the details were gone like water through a sieve. I started writing anyway, having an idea of where I wanted to go, but caught none of the excitement I'd felt dreaming up the ending in bed. Oh well.

Till next time!

The Seven Deadly Hurdles for My Poor Blog...

I originally attempted to post this from my ds's laptop in the wee hours of Saturday morning, but for some reason I cannot post blog entries from his machine. Thankfully I remembered that I might have trouble and e-mailed the text to myself.
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For one my nails are too long. Typing is becoming a chore. Cut the nails; type easier; get back to blogging regularly. Not the most serious of the seven, but there it is. Probably the most easily remedied. I can read this, change it, and feel a sense of progress! :)

For two, I'm learning to fit in a 30-minute workout every other day, that is really almost an hour by the time I dress, get there, work out, and get home and showered and ready for whatever's next on the nevereinding list. But I have to say that I am feeling so good as a result. I have yet to see the weight start coming off, but I have reduced by 7.5 inches in the last 9 weeks. For seven of those, all I was doing was walking regularly, and then the last two, and this week, I've been working out at Curves. I absolutely love the workout and the people and should have done this long, long ago. So this is an "intrusion" that is likely to be around for awhile. I signed up for three months, but I doubt I'll want to stop then. Hopefully by then I'll have learned how to fit it in and still get everything else done. Yeah.

For three, I am being so creatively pulled right now. It's like I have almost no control. The urge hits and sucks me in and before I know it a couple hours have gone. Which is good. It really is. It's not just characters, and scenes, and conflict that swirl around in my head and land on the page, but letters to family and friends as well. Not e-mail. Letters. Stick-a-stamp-on-it-put-it-in-the-box-and-hope-no-one-thinks-it-contains-a-check-and-steals-it letters. Who would have thought we'd see the day when we needed locks on our mailboxes, for heaven's sake!

For four, I have a project I HAVE to finish that has been weighing on my shoulders for a long, long time now. My school room has become a storage room and I HATE it. I want to turn it into my personal space. I want the stacks of books and papers and crap gone. But the task is so overwhelming, so crushingly time consuming that half the time when I go in there and look, I end up standing in the doorway and shaking my head in utter disbelief of the immensity of what is before me. I know I need to make a plan, and I know I need to work on it bit by bit daily until it's done. But it seems I get started and then life folds in on me, and things start unraveling faster than I'm knitting. It's almost like yo-yo dieting. The room looks good for awhile then whoosh! It's worse than when I started.

For five, the POOL is open and I have a ds who loves to be there and who needs the exercise. Whenever I see him springing off the diving board and swimming across the pool, instead of bouncing out of the chair and heading for something to eat, I feel like I'm doing him a huge favor being there. But of course that's one more thing to fit into the day. And with the Oklahoma wind like it's been, it's tough to get the paperwork organized I thought I might do while he was swimming, so as not to have the time completely idle. Ha. So I do some water walking but after about a half-hour I'm ready to go. Not so with him of course.

For six, I have reconnected with a woman who used to be a neighbor. She's moved about 20 minutes from my house, but has made some tremendous changes in her life. As a result, she's stopped running with all her old friends who don't understand this new approach to her life and she's lonely. She desperately needs a connection, and right now, it looks like that connection is me. I don't want it to be just me, and I'm working on ways to introduce her to others to make sure that it's not. But in the meantime, I feel an obligation toward her. One I hope someone would feel toward me, if I were in her shoes.

For seven, there's the continuing need to improve with the ASL. I watch my sons and realize I have been left in the dust, and part of that is because I don't devote the time I used to. I understand it now on the videotapes. I can usual pick up a good signer's conversation the first time through on video. But put me in a ring of deaf people, and my mind goes into hibernation. It is absolutely the most irritating thing I have ever experienced. But I must say that I did sign with a hard of hearing young man at the pool yesterday without much trouble. He had a knack for making a relaxed atmosphere, so I know it's all in my tension and anxiety. Mind mud, my hubby calls it. I have to learn to relax.

Seven's enough. :) Enough whining. Now it's time to count blessings.....