I read something on an agent’s blog about how at some convention they did a workshop where they read page 119 of a bunch of novels, and tried to decide if the novel might be good based on page 119.<\/p>\n
Why page 119? No idea.<\/p>\n
Out of curiosity, I of course flipped to page 119 of my novel to see if it would seem “good” if this was all you got.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately it kind of makes it seem like a straight romance novel, even though it’s not. Heh.\u00a0 Here’s my Page 119:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what, I never understood why people say roses smell \u2018sweet.\u2019 They kind of stink if you ask me. I prefer honeysuckle or gardenias.\u201d<\/p>\n
I almost spilled the drink I was pouring when she said that. I steadied my hands and tried like hell not to conjure up the scent of gardenias in my mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, tell me about him,\u201d she needled me as I brought the beverages into the living room and set them on coasters on the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe flower\u2019s not from a guy,\u201d I said. \u201cI bought it from a gas station.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGas stations sell roses?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, haven\u2019t you ever seen those little cups of roses sometimes, by the cash registers? The one across from the McDonald\u2019s has them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy\u2019d you buy a rose?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut there is<\/em> a guy, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
My cheeks got hot as I tried to cover it by sipping my drink. I glanced at her and saw that familiar mischievous expression. She wasn\u2019t going to let me go. I was going to have to give her some semblance of an answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually, I\u2019ve met a couple<\/em> of guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, jeez, really?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I\u2019m into two different guys at once. And they\u2019re friends, and I don\u2019t know which one to chase, \u2019cause they are both sweet guys and they\u2019re talented and hot as hell, and probably not interested in me at all because I\u2019m a boring, stupid freshman.\u201d Okay, that had been more than I had been planning to say.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And that’s that. Amusing exercise!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I read something on an agent’s blog about how at some convention they did a workshop where they read page 119 of a bunch of novels, and tried to decide if the novel might be good based on page 119. Why page 119? No idea. Out of curiosity, I of course flipped to page 119 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,6],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-novels","tag-finding-mulligan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliesondradecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliesondradecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliesondradecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliesondradecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliesondradecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=770"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/juliesondradecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1004,"href":"https:\/\/juliesondradecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770\/revisions\/1004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliesondradecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliesondradecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliesondradecker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}