Posts Tagged ‘GH’
What do you do when one trusted friend tells you to scrap the first chapter of one of the stories you plan on entering in the 2012 GH?
If it’s a chapter you love, chock-full of hilarious lines and
you’re not ready to hear the fateful directive to “chop it,” you seek a second opinion.
And when the Starcatcher sister offering said second opinion concurs, saying that she, too, thinks the beginning makes both hero and heroine look less-than-heroic …
Well, you bite the bullet and cut your beloved first chapter, which began life as a prologue to begin with. (I should have known that no one would be fooled by my slapping it with a “Chapter 1” header.)
It wasn’t easy to cut a chapter that starts out like this: “When Melinda’s now-ex-fiancé admonished her to grow up, she doubted playing tonsil hockey with a man old enough to be her father was what he’d had in mind.”
Okay, maybe a wee bit of “ick factor” lurks in that beginning. (Thanks, Anna, for putting your finger on that one. It may be why I didn’t final in the Rubies’ first line contest this time.)
Finally, I was willing to admit to myself that the pages didn’t paint either of them in the best light — even though they you see right away that Mel was overexaggerating Dave’s age.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t as painful as I expected. I plan to work in some of the funnier bits as part of the backstory — and when this novel makes it to publication, don’t be surprised to see Dave and Melinda’s “how it all began” pop up on the blog as an online extra.
I will survive my MS’s massive surgery — without too much bleeding, I hope.
I’m glad to have friends who’ll tell me the cold, hard truth — even when I’m not quite ready to hear it.
Longtime readers of my weight-loss blog know that when I go AWOL from the blog, it’s because I’m not doing so well at the whole diet and exercise thing. That’s not the case here. I’ve been writing up a storm — I just haven’t had any time to blog about it.
With my 40th birthday looming — as well as the 2012 Golden Heart contest deadline and the NaNoWriMo, it’s time to reassess.
Unless I sign with an agent and get a publishing contract in the next two weeks, I’m not going to be published by 40. That’s okay. I know I’m getting closer. It shouldn’t be long now.
I can’t believe September’s almost gone, leaving the big-40 just 13 days away, on Oct. 7. Where did it go?
But I’m beginning to think it’s impossible for me to write another 25,000 words on my single title WIP and prep it (and another entry) for GH entry by the end of October so I can clear November for the NaNo.
With that being the case, I might end up throwing two contemporary series MSs into the ring — thus competing against myself (and hundreds of other entrants). Yikes.
Guess I’ll see what happens with the Rubies’ Make it Golden first line contest. I entered three first lines — from three potential entrants — on Friday. Finalists will be announced Tuesday.
I have a sneaking suspicion that my best first line is the one I hadn’t been planning to enter, from Dave and Melinda’s story. Beth and Cody (single title) and Kenny and Kristi (CS) were going to be my go-to entries. But Dave and Melinda’s story might be the strongest of all.
Who knows? Maybe I can write 10,000 words this weekend.
Yeah, right.
We’ve all heard someone say it, usually in connection with the Oscars … And if you’re like me, you probably snicker.
“It’s an honor just to be nominated?” Yeah. R-i-i-ght.
Well, I’m here to tell you, in the case of the RWA Golden Heart® award, it really is true.
I’m not just saying that because I didn’t come home with the little golden necklace around my neck. (I didn’t. The GH in my category, contemporary series, went to Jo Anne Banker. Click here for a full list of Golden Heart and Rita winners.)
But I started saying it long before the awards ceremony. It hit me while I sat at the Golden Network retreat on Tuesday. The conference hadn’t officially started yet, but as a GH finalist, I had the chance to attend a day of panel discussions with agents and editors — a chance offered only to current and former finalists.
Win or lose, we were part of an elite group. Not everyone gets to put the words Golden Heart Finalist beside the title of one of their works. Heck, very few do. And I’m one of them.
As my conference roommate, Karla Doyle, pointed out while I was lamenting the fact that I didn’t hand out all of my business cards with the “2011 GH finalist” notation on the back, I can still use them next year.
She’s right. Come what may, I’ll always be a 2011 Golden Heart finalist.
Doors are beginning to open, golden necklace or not. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
P.S. Look for updates on what I learned from the conference (including a few photos), in the next several days. I’m still catching up on sleep and trying to digest it all.
I have a confession to make: I have story ADD.
Raise your hand if, like me, you have trouble concentrating on one story at a time. … If characters start talking to you, demanding you tell their story now — even when you’re in the middle of another one. … If you have a bunch of half- or two-thirds-finished manuscripts moldering under your bed.
They all get finished eventually, but I’ve always had a little trouble focusing on one story from start to finish.
Since March’s call notifying me that I’d finaled in the RWA Golden Heart®, the affliction has intensified. Reasoning that if “Beauty and the Ballplayer” was going to be the successful MS, I ought to have a companion, I decided to start a new story related to it. So I started working on Dave & Melinda’s story while actively writing Beth & Cody’s and trying to edit Kenny & Kristi’s.
That left poor Drew & Lainy waiting waiting in the wings. I’d planned to finish writing their story after I started querying with Kenny & Kristi.
Nearly three months later and I still haven’t even written the query/synopsis on Kenny & Kristi. I’ve written only a handful of pages on Beth & Cody’s story and am just five chapters into Dave & Melinda’s.
Every time I get any momentum, I end up coming to a dead stop to do something else entirely. “Beauty and the Ballplayer” needs revising … or I need to shop for stuff to wear at Nationals … or I need to do other conference prep (business cards, pitches, schedule planning). The list goes on and on.
I’m not complaining, mind you. As far as problems go, this is one a lot people would love to have — me included. I’m thrilled to be a GH finalist — and going to Nationals in NYC is a fantastic opportunity that I hadn’t counted on getting.
I’m just saying all this planning/panic does nothing to help my story-related ADD.
Please tell me I’m not the only one with this problem.
How do you cope with conference prep while still managing to get any writing done?
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