Why Haven't I Updated Once Yet?

I’m dead. X___X

Okay, actually, it’s because I’ve been polishing House of Gears to submit it to the amazing @kimi-reads-and-writes so she can edit it for me in time for Pitch Madness. I’m hoping, anyway. I’ve got a good feeling. I’ve restored a lot of the original plot points I’d initially taken out because I thought they would make the book impossible to sell. Every time I do that, I end up regretting it, so I’m just going to stop now unless an actual industry pro tells me otherwise.

Me and Institutionalized Feminism

So, I was editing my book (I tend to obsessively polish a ms before a contest and there’s one coming up at the end of the month) and I realized how…not very girl-power it was. Which is weird, because when I came up with my girl Juliet, one of the reasons I set this ms where I did is because the Wild West was one of the few places in 1800s America where girls could be bad@$$ without it being as “shocking” because, like, farm girls and female ranch owners could ride horses, cook, shoot, do farm work, mend and often make their own clothes, knew some first-aid because doctors lived sometimes hours away…and if a girl was educated, for whatever reason, wanting to go to college, you basically had a recipe for Wild West Hermione - a nerd who could fight. And I wanted to make sure my girl didn’t disdain the “girly” stuff like makeup and dresses because hey, if Catwoman can look hot and kick @$$, any girl has the option.

But as I’m reading through my ms, I’m seeing all of these missed opportunities and inconsistencies. Juliet has a sister - they have one scene together. Granted, the plot of the book is the sister is kidnapped and Juliet has to save her, but as I’m editing, my brain is like, “Oh, we could have this cute sister-scene right there real quick!” and I’m thinking, “Why didn’t I do that before?” Especially because the sister is such a hugely motivating force for Juliet. Why didn’t I try to develop that more? I don’t know. It never occurred to me.

Juliet has a wicked stepmother and negligent dad, but she has female friends and more responsible and loving mother-figures…but only one of them (the group consists of like 6 girls) has a large role and I cut it short halfway through the book when characters have a parting of the ways. That second part isn’t so bad except that no other girl steps into the vacuum and instead the role is now filled by a boy - who had his own role already. Why didn’t I bring one of the other girls forward? I have no idea. It never even occurred to me to do it. No one even tries; there’s no “I’m not ready to have someone take So-and-So’s place yet” or anything. It’s a non-thing.

Even my mythos lacks some opportunities and world-building points. The whole plot spun out from two sisters who were queens who hated each other but I never even gave a reason why (I fixed this in my edits but still) and nobody ever asked and I never thought of one. Everyone in the story just assumes two sisters wanting to literally murder each other is normal, even though Juliet’s relationship with her sister is so strong (and a few other characters have good relationships with their siblings). But when a male character is shown to be a betrayer, Juliet asks why? She questions a lack of reliability from a male but not from a female.

This never even popped into my brain as being a thing, whether good or bad. I never noticed the lack of strong foundations for the relationships between girls. I never noticed the double-standard against female characters. I didn’t even realize it was there. And I was going out of my way to try to make this book girl-positive to begin with.

I don’t know…I’m not sure what I’m trying to say except to maybe wonder how terribly prevalent all of it might be in media I didn’t create myself and I (or other people) never even noticed…

How Many Fat Characters Do I Plan to Write? (And Why Did Someone Ask Me This?)

Quite a few. Janine is my current girl because I’m still working on Eidolon and she’s my MC. Juliet from House of Gears is built like Raven Symone and I’m going to hop back to HoG at some point in the future (it needs serious editing). My female lead in my unnamed VR book - I seriously need a name - is fat. So is my girl in Hit the Lights and my main girl in Frost & Fire. So is my girl in Empress of Ice & Oceans. That’s just a few off the top of my head. I’m sick today so I’m not firing on all cylinders; I apologize. :)

PS - why is this a question???

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!

#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.

#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!

Finally Got Around to Making This (and I'm So Happy)

Query Stats - 5/8

Here are my stats regarding my GEARS submissions so far.

One agent has the full; I queried with 3 chaps on 4/27, she requested a full yesterday, I sent it today. Really nervous about this! She seems like a nice lady.

Another agent has a 50 page partial and I'm waiting for her to respond. She said 4-6 weeks, and that was 5 weeks ago...

I queried two other agents and haven't heard anything. Hopefully this all works out for me!

March Pitch Madness Results!

So I did #PitMad and omg I got a favorite! Sending GEARS in as soon as I go over my proposal. Don't wanna make any mistakes, right? Wish me luck, everybody!

Revision: The Waiting Game (dun-dun-DUNN!)

I used to think that the advice about "finish your manuscript and then sit on it for a month" was silly. Why would I do that? I was good enough, fast enough, I could zip through my revisions right after I finished my rough draft!

I was wrong. So, so terribly wrong.

See, here's my typical process:

1) I come up with an idea

2) I figure out where I want to start

3) I figure out where I want to end

4) I write a mock-query letter to give me some idea of what goes in the middle

5) Then I break it down into a very basic outline of the main events that need to happen

6) Then I start writing

Now, if I'm having trouble connecting my super huge plot-dots (I like that phrase, hee), then I'll go back and do a chap-by-chap outline to help me get to where I need to be. So then I write. And unlike most authors who give the internet interviews I read, I don't just sit down, write it out, and edit later. I have to edit as I go or else I lose my mind. Too many times with my fanfics have I had to scrap whole chapters because there was a major issue that was bugging me but I couldn't figure out at the beginning and I didn't go back and fix it, and so my whole chapter had a lousy foundation and then it crumbled and fell on my head. Let me tell you: ow.

So I write and revise as I go. In fact, every time I sit down to write some more, I skim over the last chapter or two and make any changes I feel are necessary (maybe I forgot a bit of foreshadowing, maybe I found a typo, maybe I mixed up a name, whatever). And then I finish my manuscript. This has seen me through 20 (almost 22) manuscripts, so I'm not worried about this part of my process not working.

(Memo: from what I've seen, they recommend not worrying about revision until you've done your first draft because a lot of aspiring writers look at what they've written and then get hung up on revising but never finish writing their piece. History shows I needn't worry about that little pitfall.)

But here's what happened. In February, I started a novel called HOUSE OF GEARS (which was and is awesome, by the way). And I finished it, and went back and had it beta'd by my critique partner and did my revisions, all in about a month. And then I queried it and actually got a partial request from the amazing Hannah Bowman and a full request from the also-amazing Lana Popovic.

Go me, right? Yeah, just one problem - GEARS wasn't ready. It was really good, even with only a month's work into it, but it wasn't good enough. So I despaired and then decided I would write a new novel and take off with it. Woot, woot!

Yeah, I did that. I have a habit of starting like 6 novels before narrowing my focus to the 1 or 2 that set me on fire, and then going back to the other ones after I've finished the first 2 (usually some plot changes inspired by distance from the project make the less-than-fiery ones burn me up to write them at this point). And I started some really great pieces that I'm going to go back to later. I also got a job, yay me! But eventually I thought, "I really miss the world of GEARS."

See, here's the thing about that - you need to write what you love, and I was IN LOVE with that book. It is, in my opinion, the best thing I have ever written (and finished). Of course, it's also my latest project, and each novel you write should get better, so there's that. But I was so depressed because I knew that GEARS was good enough to publish...wasn't it?

NO! No it wasn't. And this is where time and distance come in! Because I pulled it out a couple months later and I realized it needed some polish. It was good, don't get me wrong - but it wasn't great. My plot was awesome. It needed to be stellar. My prose was cool. It needed to be fantastic. And I needed to rein in my imagination a bit (in the words of one amazing agent who gave me some great advice on the manuscript) because while imagination is great, you need to give other people a roadmap into your head, too.

So I went back and I revised and I revised. And then I gave GEARS to my beta group (a team of mine I assembled at work consisting of about 7 people) and they checked it out. And they're not done yet. But when they are, and I revise based on what they say and what I think after not looking at GEARS for the month that they have it, only THEN will I query again. Because you really do need that time and distance to be more objective about your work.

Listen to agents, editors, and published writers. They really do know what they're talking about. And don't rush! I mean, I have to rush on my rough drafts because if I don't I can't sleep, but NEVER rush on revisions. You're only hurting yourself and your awesome project.

Laters!