Sorry for the absence of a fresh new blog yesterday. I was too busy cradling my thumb drive and whispering sweet nothings into its USB port. Yes, I found it. After taking a looooong lunch at work yesterday -- scouring the land, walking every parking lot, bugging every receptionist about their lost and found, agonizing over my stupidity - It was in the my car the whole time. Yes I'd looked there before, but then I last night I dropped my mailbox key and it slid down the hole where the seat belt comes through. I stick my finger down to retrieve it and what do I pull out? MY thumb drive. Hallelujah!
Check this blog out to learn about your options in backing up material, so you don't have to have a panic attack like I did.
Just found out about a new game called LieBrary over at WordVixen's blog. Sounds like a blast, but not sure I could talk any of my friends into playing it with me. Maybe my critique group, but that would mean taking a week off from doing actual works on our novels and I'm not sure playing games is the best use of our time. But I would love to find someone interested just to try it out.
A lot happened at the mailbox yesterday. besides finding my thumbdrive I found a rejection letter. For a complete I sent off to an agent back on in early November. It wasn't all bad though. She offered a few suggestion about the beginning, which I have actually changed quit a bit (Yeah I know, I should have made those changes before I started querying but at the time I thought the beginning was as good as I could make it. The light didn't dawn on me until later.) She questioned one secondary character's motivation and whether I really need him for the story or not. I'll go back and read with her views in mind, but off the top of my head the character serves an important role, albeit short-lived. However in her letter, nearly a page and a half long, this agent said the reason she ultimately had to pass was not because of the the writing or story itself, but the fact she'd already taken on several projects from debut authors of similar material and she didn't want to flood the editors she knew that might be in the market. She ended by saying not to give up, that another agents might feel more confidant taking the novel on, but if not and I was again seeking representation on a future project to send it her way and she would be glad to read it. She also highlighted a few things in the manuscript that she thought I did extremely well - dialogue and capturing the essence of human emotions. Those are her words not mine.
This means I'll spend Thursday researching and sending out more queries since I only have one full MS and two partials still out. The one full is for a fabulous agent, the one I blogged about after THE CAll a couple of weeks ago, but I've learned not to put all my eggs in one basket. So what if that is a cliche, can't writers use a cliche every once in a while? Cut us some slack. We're people too.
3 comments:
Thanks for the link! You know, I was thinking that Liebrary would be a great community blog game. Maybe someday when there's more than 24 hours in a day...
To use another cliche' I would have to say that the rejection you found in your mail box today wouldn't be a rejection, but a feather in your cap, in disguise no less...
And I will be more than happy to play liebrary with you after you get done reading and crit my MS and after I do the same with yours and of course after we finish the rewrites on both of our WIP's and we both sell them for enough money to be able to quit our jobs. SOund good?
~Me
That sounds like a lovely rejection letter, if you have to get a rejection letter. And if she's taken on two similar works, the market must be hot, right? Best of luck to you.
And if you guys figure out how to do a blogger liebrary game, let me know. My friends are all math and econ majors. Excellent people, but not so much interested in writing.
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