Despite my looming paper (Well, I have been doing some reading for it, plus I know what I'll write about) I have been paper-reading The Heir, and it's going well. I really like this story. PE is turning out to be sweeter and funnier than I thought, and GML is just hot. Moved a chapter.
posted by Carolyn @ 4/29/2004 04:16:00 PM Permalink
So, I had to delete some stuff that took me down to 60K but now I'm slowly creeping back to 61K. I will probably have to take some time off to write my paper for school. Oh well. When that's done, I'll have the whole summer. . . On Saturday, I did a book signing with several other writers, one of whom was Christine Feehan. Blast it, she's really, really nice. She has an assistant. People were waiting for her to arrive. And here's some additional math. Every time I do a signing, which is not all that often thankfully, I buy books and spend waayyy more money than books sold. $60 this time, about that last time, too. Plus, I noticed all the other writers going in with a pile of books to pay for. No wonder bookstores have signings. Who cares if no one shows up, the authors make them rich! Ok, ok, it was fun, I sat between nice people, bought everybody's books and so I have a stack of stuff to read, including Christine Feehan, and all of them are signed, too. And people did come. Some people didn't buy my book because they'd already read it. Someday, I want to have an assistant. Actually, someday I want to need an assistant.
posted by Carolyn @ 4/25/2004 11:02:00 PM Permalink
So, Toby is dead, poor guy. But it helped a lot. Still doing a paper read-through (Killed off Toby, reprinted those pages, kept reading. As I recall, he died in an earlier version and I guess he should have stayed dead. Only, now he's dead from the start, pretty much.) Now I have what I think might be a really brilliant idea about the middle of the story. He's going to leave in a snit and then write PE a story, and of course it sounds really dumb here, but it'll be really, really cool if I can pull it off. Naturally, I think I can. I have a looooong paper due for school, no real idea what to write it on, and I've lost the book I'm supposed to read by Monday. Can not find it anywhere. Paper's due in less than 3 weeks, and I'd really rather be working out GML's story to PE and whether it's explicit or referential. Son is dawdling in shower, must get him out before he's permanently a prune.
posted by Carolyn @ 4/21/2004 08:09:00 PM Permalink
At 61K. Doing a paper read through. Hit a boring part. It must go. Well, actually, a character must go. Poor Toby. He must die. Because well, it was just too messy. The only person with a hurt head should be GML. The question is, if GML finds Toby murdered how does my hero hurt his head? I'll think of something. Also, the counterfeiting stuff needs to come back in a bit more. Mostly feeling a bit anxious about stuff. Have I done anything about an agent? No. Do I know I need an agent? Yes. But, I ask you, how am I supposed to get an agent now, while my story is still fixing itself? If I send a partial now, it will need to have a disclaimer that says, "This kind of sucks right now, but it won't by the time I'm done." Also, and this is kind of interesting, I've decided to start doing something about my other writing, and maybe transferring from the MA program to an MFA program.
posted by Carolyn @ 4/17/2004 10:45:00 AM Permalink
60K+ Reordered many many chapters, wrote a new one, added a lot. Mostly, it was front-loading the story into the country. Heck, maybe they won't go to London at all, ok that's probably too drastic but London will be on the downslide to the end, I believe, which I don't even really know what it will be yet. Also, I wrote a part where there wasn't much happening, but I got it deleted pretty quickly in favor of stuff that does happen Repeat after me - no transition scenes. Only transition sentences. Repeat this, too: do not write a scene that doesn't advance the plot AND the characters' romance. Both, dammit! At any rate, the story's not settled in yet, and some stuff is not quite right, but on the whole, since I had today off, I got a lot done. Am well behind in reading for school. GML is a steamy hunk and I want to --- Umm, better not be quite that frank.
posted by Carolyn @ 4/09/2004 11:10:00 PM Permalink
Up to 58K, but I think I have a chapter to delete. On the other hand, two more to write. I have begun deepening the complexity. Pansy has an unhappier childhood than I thought. Also, I think PE and GML are going to be a little naughtier sooner, but this decision will reverberate later. More and more of the story is moving to the country, where, I do belive it belongs. Also, King is turning out to be pretty interesting, too. Life feels compressed, but there's not much I can do about that right now. The synopsis is still not ready and the story is changing so fast right now, in terms of the characters being complex, I just don't know. Arghh. Also some of the middle wasn't very good, but some of that is the chapter that is scheduled for deletion. I don't know what I was thinking. The hero isn't doing anything in the chapter, for gosh sakes.
posted by Carolyn @ 4/07/2004 10:19:00 PM Permalink
P.S. I hate writing the synopsis.
posted by Carolyn @ 4/03/2004 11:44:00 PM Permalink
I've been working hard on materials to send to agent(s). I hate, hate hate hate hate writing a synopsis. But there's no getting around it, darn it all, so I have been spending a lot of time on that. However, I have changed PE back to an orphan which means the stepfather is an uncle again and the mother is an aunt again. I do have a new chapter to write, but I'm not 100% sure where I'll put it. It's actually probably too late for this particular agent, because I didn't follow up fast enough. But I was buried with school and work and edits for The Spare and plus, the Heir kind of sucked, so she would have rejected me for sure. But maybe she'll read this stuff and think it's worth taking me on. We'll see. I hate being back at work full time. I heard on the contest loop that one of the judges was really a low scorer and really mean and for about two days I thought that must be me since I had just emailed back my scores, and that I'd just never judge again because I can't help pointing out what I think are weaknesses, only it turns out I wasn't the meanie judge. Whoever it was scored people in the 70's and none of my entries were anywhere near that bad. And, apparently, there were unkind remarks made which was definitely not me. Even if I want to say, "Go learn to write you hopeless hack" I never actually write that down because I know that's exactly how some of my very early work reads. Well, actually, even at its worst, my worst isn't as bad as some of the stuff I've been asked to judge. At least I don't think so, but then there's that whole incompetance thing. If I think that, it must not be true, because only incompetent people think they're any good. And I do think I'm good. Sometimes.
posted by Carolyn @ 4/03/2004 11:43:00 PM Permalink
Liz Maverick
Jennifer Ashley
Sandy Schawb
Patti O'Shea
Marjorie M. Liu
Megan Frampton
Kristin Nelson
Miss Snark
Dystel & Goderich
The Rejecter
Evil Editor