Come and Get It! Contest: Finalists

So, as a judge for Cupid’s Come and Get It! Contest, I had to choose four finalists out of the original ten entries I was given.  The judges all agreed that it was a rough choice.  I was pretty highly critical of all my entries and gave a LOT of feedback, and I really hope it’s helped everyone—not just my four finalists—in their search for an agent.

My final four (“original entry” links to where you can read my comments; “finalist” links to where you can see if agents bid on them):

I must say it was an interesting experience being on the other side of the fence in a contest.  It wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be, though.  It took some time, effort, and energy, but I was very confident in the entries I chose and enjoyed giving feedback.  If anyone wants to ask questions about my feedback, let me know.  I’m an open book!

In a nice nerdy blog post, Kristy Shen has analyzed the chosen entries and processed the data on genres overall, genres by judge, and age groups.  Very cool~!

Come and Get It! Contest: My Last Five

As a judge for Cupid’s contest, Come and Get It!, I received my second set of five entries to judge.

If you’re interested to see the kind of feedback I gave to the second five authors on their query letters and their first 250 words, please check them out:

My feedback is in the comments at the bottom.  My lucky four (from the full ten) will be finalists and will get to be bid upon by agents.  Maybe some of these folks will go on to be agented because of this contest! :)

[Edit: My previous five entries, with links to feedback, are here!]

Completed New Short Story: “In Love With Love”

I just finished a new short story and I’ve decided to call it “In Love With Love.”

It’s very short (for me), weighing in at about 3,500 words.  It’s about a woman named Catherine who’s seeing a therapist because she doesn’t know how to love her son.

This one has a very weird story behind it.

I have a strange sleeping arrangement on Thursday nights/Friday mornings: I go to bed at midnight, and my friend Victor calls me at 3 AM on Friday so I can work on my webcomic and we can talk.  (Obviously he’s a night owl, like me.)  This past Friday, he woke me up with his phone call as usual, and I had been chatting to him for a couple of hours before I needed to go look at something relevant on the computer.  I switched the screen on and there was a Word document open on the screen.

It was five pages’ worth of a short story that I’d written sometime between going to bed at midnight and getting up at 3.  And until I saw it there, I hadn’t realized I’d actually done that; I’d had a vague recollection that I’d just been writing something when the phone rang, but I’d assumed it was a dream.  With some surprise, I told Victor that I’d written part of a short story sometime between going to bed and getting up.

He laughed and said he wanted to see it immediately, with no editing, because he wanted to see what kind of mind-blowingly ridiculous thing I must have written in my sleep.  So I sent it to him as an attachment without reading it over, unsure of what exactly I was even sending.  Later that morning, after he’d read it and I was already at work, he e-mailed me and acknowledged that not only did the story make sense; it was a good beginning in his opinion.  (And, not so surprisingly, it was completely free of spelling errors, and everything in it made sense.)

I went ahead and finished the story over the last couple days.  I don’t know if it’s really one of my best, but it’s pretty good for something I began while half asleep.  I guess I’ll go try to find a home for it next.

Come and Get It! Contest: My First Five

As a judge for Cupid’s contest, Come and Get It!, I was given five entries to judge for this week.

If you’re interested to see the kind of feedback I gave to five authors on their query letters and their first 250 words, please check them out:

My feedback is in the comments at the bottom.  After I see the next five, I’ll have to pick four out of the ten and send them on to be judged by agents. 🙂

[Edit: My next five entries, with links to feedback, are here!]

Come and Get It! Contest

Cupid’s Literary Connection is hosting a contest called COME AND GET IT!

I’m one of the judges.

This contest is for un-agented authors with polished, query-ready manuscripts who’d like a shot at getting bid on by agents, but they have to make it past the gauntlet of writer judges first. Those who get selected will have agents look at their work.

The genres we’re accepting are Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, Women’s, Romance, Historical, Thrillers, Commercial, Literary, and Memoir. Woo-hoo.

On Editing

So you wrote your book and then you ran the spell-checking program.  Now you’re done!  Right?

There’s that laugh I needed.

One popular misconception among writers is that spelling, grammar, punctuation, and all the little language-correctness tidbits aren’t really all that important because surely real professionals can look past inoffensive mistakes and recognize a wonderful story when they see it.  Right?  Well, no.

I’m not even going to touch the importance of test readers for story, character, and concept purposes right now.  I’m going to pick on the nuts and bolts and explain why proofreading is super important.  Why should you have a near-perfect manuscript before you even think of trying to submit a book to an agent or publisher?

Because thinking those things aren’t an important part of the writing craft is about as unprofessional as you can get.

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Representation Settled: Bad Fairy

Today I accepted an offer for literary agency representation and signed a contract for my novel Bad Fairy.  I am officially an agented author.

What this means: Once we get the contract finalized, we will develop some materials to introduce and present my book (and me) to publishers.  It’s a lot like authors querying agents to find representation, except that the agent is querying acquisitions editors at publishing houses based on what they’ve purchased in the last 12 months.  The goal is to find editors eager to buy books that are similar to those they’ve recently sold. If they like the idea, they’ll ask to see the book. If they like what they see, they’ll offer to buy the rights.  Negotiations begin.

We’ll be approaching publishers soonish.  I hope to be able to share good news when I have it.

In the meantime, please continue to tune in for blathering on any other projects I embark upon as well as news on this one.

Everyone, please meet my agent, Michelle Johnson.  We both like coffee and books and spend too much time on the computer.  I can’t wait to start working with her, and I’m so happy that she’s on my team.

Results of Querying: Bad Fairy 2012

I know 2012 isn’t over yet, but I have to stop querying agents for Bad Fairy

Happily, it isn’t a depressing reason, though (like it was the last time).  It’s because I’ve been offered representation.

I don’t want to go into detail because I still have some decisions to make before I sign with an agency, and I have a bit of a dilemma I don’t want to discuss publicly, but I will have specifics ready for you soon.

In any case I thought I’d show you this year’s track record so far, since it stops here.

Agents queried: 20.

Query rejections: 10.

The rest were not rejections.

One was a partial request that turned into a rejection after 100 pages.  That agent had puzzling feedback which I won’t share here.

There were also three full manuscript requests.  Ffffffffffff.

Once I actually sign a contract, I’ll share more . . . and I’ll be sure to keep everyone in the loop on what happens next. Which hopefully will involve a book deal.  (Yay.)

Whew!

Editing, tweaking, clipping, fixing

Editing of the new book (Stupid Questions) is going well with the help of my massive test audience. (Okay, maybe not so massive. Twenty-two people volunteered and confirmed. Exactly half of them have given me comments.)

It’s interesting how consistent the comments are. Nearly everyone who is commenting on which lines they like best identifies the same lines. Nearly everyone who didn’t like a certain scene in the third chapter had the same reason. Nearly everyone has said something about the dialogue that was at least somewhat in the ballpark with what everyone else was saying. And most of the readers seem to really like my characters and concept.

There are always a couple I don’t know what to do with, though, and so far I think it’s just two:

One person says a guy character needs to be presented as less layered and multifaceted and whatnot because guys aren’t very complex. (The reader clarified when I disagreed, but I still disagreed after the clarification, and so far the other male readers who have commented on that issue explicitly appreciate the choices I made supporting him NOT being the stereotypical straightforward disconnected guy.)

And another person has noticed that this story includes people with psychic abilities, and is indicating in the commentary that he’s looking forward to finding out the “explanation” for it. I wonder how many people get disappointed at the very small percentage of these kinds of stories that don’t have an “explanation” and don’t happen to be about why or how? (Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever written a story about such things that DID include an “explanation.” Maybe I’m weird.)

I’m not criticizing my critics, though—I’m grateful for input. Just kinda rambling here and pointing out that sometimes the comments or criticism I get confuse me. 🙂

On Self-Publishing

What do you know about publishing?

Do you know what the traditional path to publication is?

Do you know what self-publishing is?

I’ve run into a lot of people over the years who truly believe that self-publishing is the norm for books that later become successful.  What non-writers (or just people who don’t research) believe is that all a writer must do to become “published” is write a book, have it printed and bound by a service (or just down at the copy shop), maybe register a copyright and get an ISBN/barcode if they’re sort of sophisticated, and boom, set up book signings and become famous.

They have no idea that bookstores won’t suddenly start carrying their book.  That all of the hype surrounding their book will be generated by them and whoever they have on their team.  That there aren’t a multitude of shrewd, kind “publishing scouts” wandering the bookstores and shopping malls looking for the next big thing.

You might as well make a plan for becoming a movie star by moving to Hollywood and walking around dressed in your best, expecting a talent agent to discover you and put you in a movie.

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