Sunday, October 17, 2010

Nerves

I think my nerves are getting to me. I'm really nervous that the agent won't contact me back because she doesn't like my sample pages of Dark Seduction. I'm constantly thinking that the book isn't good enough, and I'm always tempted to make changes to it.

I'm over 12,000 words now on Thrash's book, but I'm having a terrible time at keeping my concentration on him.

My wonderful hubby keeps telling me to not change book #1 until I hear feedback from an agent, but the issue is, if they don't like it, they don't even contact you back.

Stupid nerves...

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Prologue for Book #2

I think I've nailed down the Prologue for Thrash's book. His novel is now at 11,000 words so the story is just flowing out of me whenever I have enough time to type it up.

It looks like the pain-in-the-ass (and faaaar too tempting) Thrash is winning in the battle against Draven for my typing attention.

Go Thrash!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Holy Crap!... and then, not.

Wow, I got really excited today. I looked in my email and saw a message from the agent that I pitched to (and submitted my 10 pages with synopsis).

HOLY CRAP, right??

Haha, not so much. It was the autoresponder coming through saying that she got my submission. I guess I'm just playing the waiting game now. *pout.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Oh, the crazies in my head

So I'm back now, and the Guardians are vying for attention in my wee little brain. Draven wants me to keep at it on his book, but Thrash is quite a bit louder and much more pissier when it comes to getting what he wants. Not to mention the others who still haven't gotten any attention and are just throwing hissy fits...

/sigh

What's a girl to do? Maybe I'll just open up both Draven's and Thrash's books and try to give the boys equal attention.
The others will just have to wait their turn.

The Pitch

Dun, dun, duuuun (scary music).

The Pitch...
Could there be scarier words when it comes to an author? I doubt it. Well, except for the dreaded "Your book sucks."

For weeks I've been trying to write my synopsis, perfect my first 3 chapters, write my cover letter (which I kicked ass at by the way), and type up my pitch.

At first, I tried to use my cover letter as my pitch, but it filled a whole 2 minutes instead of the minimum of 4 that I need to fill. So, scratch that one! Instead, I started using parts of my cover letter (because again, I really did kick ass at writing that thing up), but I had to make it flow a bit better for the way I talk. I didn't want to go in there and sound like I was reading something. I wanted to be bright and cheerful and... me.

Welllllll.... nothing really goes as planned, does it.

I had the hardest time memorizing my pitch. Even in front of my wonderful husband, I would freeze up and giggle. (Yes, I'm a giggler). I started to panic.

I can't do this, holy crap I'm going to puke on the agent...

So, my friends and I get to the conference. On and on, I kept memorizing my pitch, and I finally got the dammed thing memorized. I had it flowing well (in my head), and I thought that maybe I could really pull it off! Yeah, not so much... As soon as I tried it outloud (meaning on the phone with my husband while trying not to look at my cheat sheet), I blew it.

Panicking... Shaking... Sweating... Urge to puke building.... This is going to suck.

So, my time comes up, and it is time for me to pitch. I walk to the elevator and hit number 6 to go up to the suite for the pitch appointments. I feel sooo sick. I'm going to screw up this chance and I'll never try it again...

I get to the suite, and sit down. The agent took a quick break to grab some food, which left me some more time to rehearse my memorized pitch in my head. My shirt was sweaty under my pits and I just knew I would die if I eff'd this up. The agent walks in and sits down, and the strangest thing happened.

A calm came over me. Now, really its the strangest thing. Every time I go in for an interview, I'm nervous as hell before it. But as soon as I actually see the person I'm meeting with, I calm down. Cue "me."

I smiled. I introduced myself. Introduced my novel as Dark Seduction, and that its currently 100,000 words. Yes, I said currently, I couldn't help myself. You just never know if you need to add a little or take a little away. The only thing I said to her that I actually memorized is my hook line. Everything else I pulled out of 'Calm Kristie's" mind, and I nailed it! The agent actually liked my idea and asked me to send the synopsis along with the first ten pages of my novel.

And here I thought I was going to puke on her and screw the hole thing up. I guess things never go as you planned. Sometimes they are better!

The Synopsis

Okay, so my book is 'completed.' (HA!)
I knew I was going to the RWA Conference and I had signed up to pitch to an agent. Well, that means I need to get everything ready for that pitch, right? Cue the Synopsis...

Wow, that sucker is hard to write. I researched online about the best ways to do it, and found some helpful sites. I tried it their way, and within a few days I gave up on their idea (because my 1-2 page synopsis ended up being 11 pages). I decided to go my own way. I closed my eyes and watched a fast-forwarded view of my novel and wrote down the parts I felt were the most important.

Anything involving the hero and heroine that were important to the storyline went into the synopsis. It was pretty quick to type it all up, but the darn thing was still too long. I had a friend from work critique it and we got it down to just the right size.

All I can say on that one is: follow your gut and type up the synopsis on things YOU feel are important to the storyline. They don't need to know that the grass was wet, or at that the sky was blue. They just need to know what's important to the storyline that would keep readers a-reading.

HAHA... Not!

Okay, okay. So I thought I was done at 80,000 words. Silly me, I keep going back and adding things in. "Oh, they need to know about this, and they need to know about that," (Yes, that was my brain).

My friends (and critique partners) are going to kill me...

Since I 'completed' my book, I've added over 20,000 more words. Scrambling to 'make it perfect' before the Romance Writers of America Conference, I just couldn't stop myself. But I must say, I'm glad I've gone through and added/edited more. The changes have made me happier, and I feel like it flows a bit better.

Well, honestly, I've found out that a book will never be 100% perfect.
Hopefully my friends won't really kill me, even though they don't have the most recent copy. :o)

A little bit of background

So, here's a little bit of background on my wee little journey (so far).

I started writing my first novel in December of 2009. My working title since day one has been Dark Seduction. Its a Paranormal Romance set in modern day.

I started writing it because my imagination started running away with me one day. I couldn't get certain scenes out of my head. I would dream about them, both day and night. So, I sat down and started typing one day. Now, I didn't type up the entire outline from beginning to end; that's just not me. I typed as the story unfolded in my head. The characters were navigating ME.

So far, probably the most intense and detailed scene that went through my head has been...
Nope, sorry ladies and gents, it was not a (cough, cough) romance scene. Those are detailed enough, LOL.

The scene that literally just slapped me in the face is what I call 'The Ascension.' I was driving to work one day, and I had just bought a Muse CD. I got to track #9, and as soon as it started playing a scene unravelled in my head. Ever since, every single time I hear Exogenisis Symphony Part 1, the Ascension plays out. Probably the only exception to that is when I saw Muse in concert. They played that song and I was soooo overwhelmed that I may have started tearing up a little. (Love you Muse!!)

Anywhoo, I got off track. After starting my book way back in December of '09, I've gone back and forth on if I wanted to even continue writing. I had a few friends who have urged me to continue. But finally, after a few times of giving up, I knew I couldn't just ignore the story that was unfolding in my head.

I continued to type, sometimes ignoring it for a week at a time, sometimes writing every night after work, until I (thought I) completed it at 80,000 words.
Yay! Done!

RWA Conference

Wow! I just got back from the Heart of the West RWA Conference.

It. Was. Amazing.

I learned so much at the conference:
      Tips on discipline, marketing, pitching, querying... You name it, they taught it.

There was an incredible panel of agents, editors, and publishers there. Even a buyer for Borders was there to tell us about what is currently selling. So I've decided to start this blog and start keeping track of the processes entailed in writing, pitching, querying, et cetera, et cetera.