Weekend Update with LA Knight

So...not much to report. I've got:

HOUSE OF GEARS

- 1 partial (since mid-June)
- 2 fulls (been out since May 8)
- several queries

EIDOLON

- 2 fulls (since beginning/early middle of June)
- several queries

I'm going to be able to update Once Upon a Time, yay!

And I found out something sad. Diana Gabaldon doesn't like fanfiction authors. In fact, she compared us to husband-stealers and drugs addicts. :(  I love Outlander so double-ouch.

FINALLY FINISHED THE WISHING SPELL!
Loved Chris Colfer's debut fairytale for MG. Only issues I had w/ it, honestly, were 2 things.

A) Sometimes (like, maybe 3x) the prose suddenly skews adult-ish but in hokey romantic way, talking about passionate kisses and whatnot and I was kind of like, "Um..." but it wasn't a huge deal.

B) Biggest issue - the MC, Alex, is a bit of a fairytale snob. She talks about how peeps are awful because they don't know the original fairytales (there was a thinly-veiled slam on one of the Cinderella Story films, I think the third one). My only issue w/ this is that Alex is a bit of an H-word (*cough* hypocrite *cough*) because SHE doesn't even know the original versions of some of these stories. Like that Sleeping Beauty had babies because the prince knocked her up while she was out, or that Cinderella had no fairy godmother, or that the Little Mermaid risked death but did not, in fact, die. About 20% of the time I wanted to be like, "Pipe down, child."

Aand I finally got my bestie to read The Hunger Games. Actually, I didn't. Tumblr did. Thank you, Tumblr.

Query Stats - 6/20/15

Well, got another rejection for GEARS. Kinda stinks. But the fact that it took nearly 2x as long as the agent said it would to get back to me was pretty indicative of lack of enthusiasm. So back to the drawing board. Three agents had GEARS. Now only two. Hopefully one of them will bite and think I'm abso-fab. Fingers crossed, my peeps!

Whoop (Except Not Really)

My "foster-daughter" (I pseudo-adopted her in high school; I was a senior, she was a sophomore) now has a baby. And she took her baby to the doctor for an appointment and another woman's baby was coughing so loudly in the examination room, it just sounded awful. Like, the baby sounded like "an 80-year-old chainsmoker" to quote my girl, and she would know. And the door was ajar so people heard the doctor say the baby had Whooping Cough.

Whooping Cough. That garbage should've died out in the Edwardian Era before vaccines became so readily available. Maybe it was until the Great Depression, but the Depression ended more than 70 years. There should be no cases of Whooping Cough in a first-world country. And this poor thing had Whooping Cough. Why?

The mother screamed at the doctor that the Whooping Cough vaccine was poison and could give her baby autism. She would rather risk her child dying of a preventable disease than being autistic.

I don't understand this. Someone explain it to me.

Thank everything awesome and holy that my foster-daughter has the common sense to vaccinate her kid.

#SFFPit Results - 6/19

So #SFFPit was yesterday! So excited because I got 2 faves, one for each project! Sent in EIDOLON this morning and I'm sending in GEARS tonight. Cross your fingers and wish me luck! So nervous for this! These two ladies seem really cool. EIDOLON went with the first 10 pages, GEARS will be with a partial of 50 pages (if I can get stupid AOL to work, ugh). So nervous!

GEARS Pitch: Dybbuks. Cucuy. Golems. Cinderella w/ male Sleeping Beauty. Judeo-Spanish folklore. A kidnapped sister. Stolen memories.

EIDOLON Pitch:  The Red Death, a Ripper-esque killer, hunts the young aristo vigilantes of the Raven Society in the city of Nevermore.

Brenna Yovanoff Favorited My Fan Art!!

I tweeted a book aesthetic I did for her book The Replacement and OMG! She liked it! YAY!

Laini Taylor Favorited My Fan Art!!!!

So I may have made Laini Taylor a thing. And may or may not have posted it on Twitter. And she may or may not have favorited it.

EEEEEEEK!

Here it is!

Ghost in the Cogs & Love Hurts Results

So I sent in "Mark of Bone and Salt" to the anthology Ghost in the Cogs and I sent in "Ouroboros" and "Broken" to Love Hurts. All three got rejected. Boo. :(

But I won't give up. "Bone and Salt," at least, is so amaze-bunnies I'm going to send it to another anthology and see if they like it. Wish me luck, my peeps!

Blades of Fire and Ice

Something that helps me stay focused in the world I'm building is to create some art for it in Photoshop. Doesn't take too long and it really helps me keep the world's aesthetic in mind. So here's one for Blades of Fire and Ice. So much pretty!!

#PitMad Results - 6/4

So I got 3 favorites, 2 of them from the same agent! She favorited pitches for both EIDOLON and GEARS! Another agent favorited my GEARS pitch. I'm super excited. What's funny is the first lady previously favorited an EIDOLON pitch during #KidPit, which was last week. She really wants me. :D

EIDOLON 1: Re-imagined Poe: House of Usher rules a Victorian kingdom of magical beings & the Red Death is a Ripper-esque serial killer.

EIDOLON 2: 17yo Janine must stop a killer targeting the members of her vigilante team. Criminal Minds+Black Jewels+Batman.

GEARS: Nightmare world based on Spanish legends & Jewish mythology. Girl must rescue kidnapped sister from monsters.

OTHER GEARS: Juliet must fight for her sister, love for a rebel leader, her life, and her right to choose. Steampunk fantasy.

Already sent in my EIDOLON submission to the first lady and my GEARS submission to the second lady. Cross your fingers, my peeps!

Grand Canyon

So we went to the Grand Canyon with my awesome sister who is awesome! I even have a picture (posted at the bottom). It was hot, and I lost my scissors at a gas station bathroom, but we got to take a bus around to see stuff and it wasn't so hot I wanted to die. Also the drive was nice. Except for the twisty, windy bits of road with the sheer drops on one side because I like living. I rode with my parents and my husband rode with my brother and his wife (aaawkwaaard...) and my parents let me listen to whatever music I wanted. Whoo!

My sister had never seen the canyon. Neither had her new-ish BF who we all met last week. So awesome! But the poor guy got sunburned (he's a redhead). Now I've only got a few more days with my sister before she's gone again back to the frigid north! Cue sad panda.

But I'll make the most of it because my sister is amaze-bunnies.