Archive for the ‘Progress’ Category
What to do, what to do?
I’m at a bit of a loss again. After writing more than 1,000 words on Meg and Matt’s story yesterday, I’ve hit a block. If I take a page of advice from the “write quickly and often” book, I’ll sit down and make myself write something — anything.
But maybe I should continue working on my new synopsis for “Operation Snag Mike Brad” — the one that puts more emphasis on the conflict (you know, the one that may or may not actually exist in the story. I’m trying. It really does have more conflict than it used to.)
I’m not sure it’s worth sending out more queries on that one until I resolve the conflict issue.
Or perhaps I should do something else altogether. “Blind Date Bride” needs a query letter and synopsis. I’m thinking about taking an online synopsis-writing class that starts in March, though … so maybe I should wait on that.
This is the story of my life these days: I seem to have a short attention span. I can’t settle down to any one project. Yet I need to keep making progress on my Word Count Club goal. I don’t want to be the one to fail.
I also need an editor’s note for the next NARWA newsletter. I’m thinking my topic will be … drumroll, please … rejection. I’ve certainly handled enough of it lately to consider myself an expert! 😉
I was all set to complain about how doing rewrites is much slower work — until I realized I wrote 900+ words today.
That’s right. All I had to do was launch into a new sex scene — one of those “more almost-sex, less food” scenes Kelly suggested — and bingo! Those 900 words practically wrote themselves.
I do, however, find myself wondering why I seem to do my best sex-scene writing in the Barnes & Noble cafe. You wouldn’t think the crowds and noise would be conducive, but I have no trouble shutting everything out so my characters can get busy.
Today’s racy scene, the first time Kari and Damien finally get to finish what they’d started, even Meg & Matt’s first big moment were written at the cafe.
I’m not sure what, if anything, that says about me. Perhaps I’m an exhibitionist at heart? 😉
Anyway, my second draft of “Blind Date Bride” is coming along quite nicely. As I’ve added things and taken others away, it has grown to nearly 95,000 words and 354 typed, double-spaced pages.
Just think: A few short months ago, I was struggling to hit 90K. I’m glad those days are behind me — at least for this manuscript.
E-mail was not my friend this morning.
Remember the agent who requested more of my MS a couple of weeks ago? Rejected. After careful consideration, they decided it wasn’t right for their agency.
Sounds like a pretty standard rejection, I suppose.
However, there was also an encouraging note.
A very cute concept but this didn’t feel big enough to be single-title for me. Good luck with this project.
So it would seem (though I don’t recall seeing this in their submission info) that they only represent single-title manuscripts. I’ll definitely submit the query on “Blind Date Bride” once I work it up.
Guess I’d better get busy on that, eh?
Since I launched “Operation Treat Writing Like a Day Job,” I’ve been productive … very productive … more productive than I was most of last year.
I wrote a couple thousand words on Meg & Matt’s story and sent out three more query letters.
There’s room for improvement, of course. I only logged a word count on four of the last seven days.
I’ll try to improve on that number this week. I also have some prep to do for our NARWA board meeting this Thursday.
I also need to start getting ready for my talk on dialogue at our next regular meeting. I’m a little worried about that — I know what good dialogue sounds like, but I’m not quite sure how to go about explaining it to other people.
I sense some research coming on! 😀
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