NaNoWriSe Day 11 (Little progress in writing, but the editing keeps coming)

I've been doing lots of editing today in order to prep my chapters for my editing group. I find that straight up writing has been eluding me for the past few days. Its a shame, since I have lots of time on my hands.
Its always when you're busy that you have the most inspiration.
Still, editing continues to be a rewarding experience. It feels as if my work is rising in quality with ever little error I correct. Not to mention those who have given me edits have great suggestions that have helped me improve upon my novels.
I'm beginning to think NaNoWriSe won't be as fruitful as I might have hoped in the writing category but I think it will be in the editing end of things. Even if I don't write six books, I should get a few rough drafts done at least. That's enough for me.
Writing is such a long, seemingly endless process. You have to wonder sometime why so many of us enjoy it so much. Are we masochists or do we genuinely love each moment we spend hovered over our keyboards, typing away.
I'd like to believe the latter is true. If I didn't enjoy this with every fiber of my being, I wouldn't be doing it. There is no love hate relationship with writing. There is only love.
The love-hate relationship is reserved for querying, but you can't adore EVERYTHING you do.
Keep following my journey, all you who are out there (That is of course, assuming anyone reads this blog). I imagine I'll have some success by the end of it.

NaNoWriSe Day 4 (The wonders of Editing)

I was so busy yesterday I forgot to post last night. Oops.
No matter. Busy is a good thing. I got a descent amount of writing done on my YA Fantasy and I've gotten my query for my speculative fiction novel mostly edited. Now I just have to finish editing the actual novel. Still, having the query done kind of makes me feel good.
Let's talk about query letters shall we? One of my first posts was on query letters and how hard they are. I've actually come to terms with query letters now. They are no longer as hard for me to work out and they come a bit more naturally. That way when I post them on forums for critques, people are more nitpicking than rewriting my whole query.
It's nice because I can offer everything I've learned from writing queries to help other writers who are in the same place I was a year or so ago. I actually enjoy giving people feedback and helping them rearrange their work.
Editing is actually kind of fun, at least when it comes to other people's work. This is a strange revelation for me because I HATE editing my work. But helping other people can be very entertaining. I wonder why that is.
Speaking of editing, that's what I'm doing today... Sigh... wish me luck!

That special moment (When you almost die of joy)

So, I don't know if you've been keeping up, but since going on submission, I haven't been getting a lot of positive feedback. Just form rejections. I was starting to feel a little discouraged, as everyone gets, and even starting consider all the reasons my project wouldn't get represented. I was thinking about moving on and trying again later with this manuscript. This afternoon I half heartidly sent out a few more queries.

Then one agent (Who apparently has an 8 week response time) asked for the first 100 pages within two hours. And I. Just. Died.

First came the shock. The "Am I really seeing this" moment. It lasted for about two blinks. Then I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I was such a ball of energy in that moment that I could have won the Olympics in track. So I ran about my house, shouting my news to the world. Then I collapsed on the floor of my bed room, muttering incoherently.

Familiar with this feeling? If you're not, I hope you will be soon.

The funny thing is, even if this isn't the agent I end up signing with, it doesn't matter. This was just the right sign I needed to know my idea is worth pursuing. Maybe my writing still needs work or the actual book needs fixing but I have hope.

And hope is a great thing.

But it would be nice to sign with this agent too.

-Authoress Anonymous

Query Letter Writing (The secret 8th level of hell)

OK, maybe they're not that bad, but I do have a special hatred for query letter writing, especially now that I'm about ready to start querying. There's so much to squeeze into one little paragraph. Four hundred words just isn't enough.

Of course it does help that I have no publishing credits so I don't have to take up word count with it (Though I don't know, I guess it would be a good thing to have credits too). Still four hundred words is very little space to have a hook, an intro of major characters, an intro of the conflict and villain and a theme.

I've written five separate queries thus far, all of them pretty decent but I don't think I've gotten any of them down pact. Still pressing on though.

Hopefully the letter will be sent out by the end of this week. Lord almighty help me.

-Authoress Anonymous