Friday, August 20

All Sorts of Random Awesomeness

            I’ve recently received my first-ten crit back from Roni @ Fiction Groupie.  She’s an amazing critter!  She addressed the issues I’ve been struggling with (see my struggle), and I’ve since rewritten my first chapter—again.  But it’s so much better now.  I prefer a good, old-fashioned gory crit as long as the suggestions are valid and constructive.  I suppose it’s also a good thing if the person critiquing has some interest in your genre, whether it’s writing or reading.  I, however, fared well.  No blood loss here :) 

            Tuesday’s visit to Alex J. Cavanaugh’s blog was fun.  I met a lot of new people, joined quite a few new blogs and gained new followers.  Which is all why I blog in the first place.  Keep your eye out for Alex’s new book, CassaStar, to be released October 19.

            I’ve posted a couple new contests in my sidebar, including an agent pitch to Mary Kole of Andrea Brown Literary.  I can’t participate, but I highly encourage all you YA/MG/PB authors to get in there.  Please take a look at a great opportunity to win a critique, publicity, copy editing and more from The Writing Show.  The show is an informative and inspirational resource for writers, offering in-depth interviews, reality shows, podcasts, and a wealth of knowledge on writing, publishing and anything related.  By entering, you'll be helping to save this great support for writers.  Also Christine at The Writer’s Hole is hosting a Rainy Day Blogfest as well as a 100 followers contest.  Check out all of the great blogfests coming up!  I’ll be posting one soon, but as I finally get to go home to my hubby and children tomorrow after six months apart, I’ll wait until I’m settled.

            One more major plug before I go.  I recently found new blog buddies, and I can’t say enough how much I enjoy their work.  It’s edgy.  It’s dark.  It’s suspenseful.  It’s fun.  It keeps me hanging on the edge of my seat from Monday to Monday.  Stilettos and Shirley Temples is a serial post written by Simon and Mercedes.  Go there, read it, love it.  You’d think these two were married, the way the story’s progressing.  Also you will be intrigued by Mercedes’ post today about the virtual masked ball.  Join in if you’d like.

            Finally an update on my current projects.  As you can see in my sidebar, I have five on the burner.  Well, only three now, the others are set aside.  My first is just about done, but I’ve got about a week or two left.  I have one major scene rewrite, which is what’s holding it up.  I open the scene to work on it and then promptly turn to my other WIP to work on that instead but, hey, at least it’s still productive. *feels guilty anyway* 

My second is smooth going and the fairly clean first draft should be complete in a month or less.  I am really having an easier time with this one than the first, maybe because I used a balanced ratio of pants to plot.  IDK.  I might like my characters even more than the last ones.  What makes one story easier to write for you than another?  Any thoughts?  And does it necessarily get any easier the longer you’ve been at the writing?

Now I just started a NEW WIP yesterday.  It’s different from the others, written in first person this time.  I am initially planning on making it a short story for the Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction competition, but we’ll see where it goes from there.  Their Short Story and Poetry competitions are now open as well.  Anyone else submitting for these?

14 comments:

  1. Way to go... Keep writing, writing and more writing.. you'll get there someday!

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  2. Its hard to say what makes one story easier to write than another.

    For me, my recently completed WiP (April) took me about two months to write from beginning to end, totally about 65K words. Which is really quick by anyone's standards.

    However, another one that I just put on the back burner because I'm getting my WiP back from a friend of my soon and thus will need to do another round of editing and..yeech...synopsis writing, took me four months to write less then 40 pages.

    I guess it boils down to how much a particular idea grabs you. For me, a woman (with a symbiont) who does adult movies to earn enough money to pay off a loan shark grabbed me harder than two non-humans battling over one of the non-humans human husband.

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  3. And I was thrilled to have you visit!!

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  4. You're a busy writer! I'm impressed :)

    Thanks for the links!

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  5. Thanks so much for that plug! You're great!!! :o)

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  6. cool beans.

    Thanks for joining Just the Cheese

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  7. Wow Angela...Somebody's been busy, busy! I'm trying to enter the Mary Cole pitch contest but only 140 characters will be so hard for me and you already know the ordeal I just had with 175 words...Not sure I can do it. But I've got to try Have a great w-end :)

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  8. Just finished my 30+ hr ride home to Vancouver, WA, and I was so excited to go home, I couldn't concentrate. So much for writing I'd planned to get in. I did finish my short story, though :)

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  9. Wow, you have all those projects on the go at once. I can only work on one at a time. I think I'd go crazy with different scenes from different novels popping into my head all the time. Maybe after the first draft's done I could manage more than one at a time though. - worth a thought.

    If you're interested in what I've written, you can read ch1 of 'Lethal Inheritance' (YA fantasy) at
    http://publishersearch.wordpress.com/lethal-inheritance/

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  10. You are an insanely busy writer! Just the way I like it. Thanks for the S&ST plug! The new chapter went up tonight. Simon's all helpless and stuff, bwa ha ha.

    -Mercedes

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  11. You are crazy busy. New projects are always fun. Wow, did I read that right 6 months away from your family? That must be so hard.

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