August 29, 2007: Ink, Paper, Favor
I've learned a valuable lesson in the two hours I've been up and about this morning--printing a 340 page manuscript in 'Draft' mode is much faster than 'Normal' mode. I went out last night to buy Office Depot Enviro Copy paper instead of using the luscious Office Depot Color Inkjet paper the husband came home with because if I'm going to scribble all over something, there's no reason I have to use super good paper and double the ink. It's not like I'm drafting The Declaration of Independence. I've asked my editor, Sulay Hernandez at Touchtone Fireside, for a week's reprieve to allow me a a bit more time to go over the draft and make sure what I send her is not total crap.
August 21, 2007:
Tripudium! Gaudium! Laetitia!
I'm done! Done! Done! Done! Final word count for this draft is 76,161 and 339 pages--don't worry it'll go up. I've strong armed my sister into reading it by Monday knowing she'll be cruelly honest with her critique. Then, after working with her notes, I'll print it out, read the whole thing and go through it with my favorite red Flair felt tip pen and make my own notes. After I'm done inputting my edits, then I'll send it to my editor Sulay Hernandez. It's going to be tight, but I think I'll make the due date of September 1st. Maybe I'll ask to turn it on the 3rd since the 1st is a Saturday. To celebrate and prepare for the middle leg of this marathon (Sulay still needs to read it make her notes and I need to work on that draft until we're happy, then there is the copy edit draft I'll be facing in a few months after that), I'm taking the day off tomorrow and going to the movies. Yes, the movies. Where I'm going to watch Super Bad and enjoy myself immensely.
August 17, 2007:
Atrox Primitus
Diei
If anything else goes wrong today, I'm packing it in and taking to my bed. I woke up with two huge zits after dreaming I wasn't eligible to graduate from college, I have no email access as a spambot has taken over my email domain and I've given myself until next week to finish draft number whatever of More Than This. Well, at least I have my health.
August 17, 2007: Multi-Tasking Mania
I used to put this skill, multi-tasking, on my resume many moons ago when I worked a legitimate job. Nowadays I find myself reaching way, way back to remember how the hell to do it. See I have to finish More Than This by September 1, prep for the mediabistro Novel Writing class I'm teaching in L.A. this September and help organize a few events in support of Life Over Easy (which is also out in September). And I have to write a speech that will inspire or at least entertain young women who have way more on their plates for the Planned Parenthood young women's health conference. Which makes me think...remember that one episodes of Desperate Housewives where the mom to too many kids started popping her kid's Ritalin? She seemed to get a lot done in the day. Of course she ended up freaking out on the high school football field or something, but still...Either way, I have to go walk the dog now or else I'll have to add 'scrub floor of office' to my to-do list.
August 14, 2007: Cruel Summer
Actually, the weather has been pretty darn mild in my part of Los Angeles...at least what I've been able to see from my office window. But being chained to my desk has given me plenty of time to think up schemes to entice readers. I'm going to be giving out an advance reader copy or two of Life Over Easy in a couple of weeks as well as posting free short stories once starting in September.
August 11, 2007: Travel Plans
I'm going to Phoenix to take part on an author panel sponsored by the 22nd National Hispanic Women's Conference. This is pretty exciting since it'll be my first out state trip in the official capacity as a published author. Even so, I still expect the whole airport experience to suck big time.
August 08, 2007: Tooting My Own Horn
The official Publishers Weekly announcement is whizzing it way electronically to their server for publication tomorrow, but I got it here first and permission from my editor to share it with the world. (She feeds my ego.)
More Than This, Margo Candela's third women's fiction project, where Alexander Velazquez, an ambitious lawyer from a working class neighborhood and Evelyn Sinclair, a daughter of privilege trying to make it on her own terms, fall in love while believing that neither is aware of the other, to Sulay Hernandez at Touchstone Fireside in a two-book deal, for publication in Summer ’08 by Jenoyne Adams at the Levine Greenberg Agency. (World).
August 07, 2007: Publishing Housekeeping
This morning my editor sent along the deal announcement for my OK and it's working it way through channels and will eventually appear somewhere more official than my website. To make things seem even more binding, I just got the pdf of my contract, all 18 pages of it written in legalese. I'd attempt to read it but I already get plenty of fiber in my diet. I'll just wait for the half page memo with all the highlights from my agent after she's digested it. Hey, if the GWB can run a country like this, I should be able to manage my publishing career the same way.
August 06, 2007: Titillating Title Teasing
Just sent my editor the first two chapters (55 pages! I may have broken myself of my super short chapter affliction) of the maybe titled More Than This (waiting for confirmation) so she can include the pages in her "tip sheet." Now, I'm not entirely sure what a tip sheet is, but I have a vague idea it has to do with marketing and publishing hocus-pocus. I'm dying to see it if only to find out what she really thinks of me. Maybe, when I get to New York in the next few months, I can get her liquored up enough so she gives me a peek. Despite the busy weekend--The Bourne Ultimatum was awesome and the trip to Knott's was fun and family filling-I got some work done and am at it today with renewed enthusiasm as I've broken the 60k word barrier (on page 178 and current word count to 60,305).
August 03, 2007: Super Friday
Plodding along with the rewrite (if you think you're sick of reading about think how sick I am of typing about it?) and made decent progress up to page 132 and a current word count of 58,979. Once I get over the 60k hump, I expect things to rapidly develop from there. It's a mental things, you see. I'll be committing some time to working on It (as I will refer to the manuscript until I'm told what it'll be called) this weekend between going to see The Bourne Ultimatum and a trip to Knott's Berry Farm. Woohoo!
August 01, 2007: Dog Days of My Favorite Month
I have to say that because I was born in August, which after having a kid of my own, should mean I celebrate my mother more than myself on my actual birthday. She did all the work, I was just a mostly pleasant result of all her efforts. Either way. This month is going to be chock full of writing but at the end of the month I'm taking part in sormag.com's (FREE) online writer's conference and will be paying a visit to my local child and teenagehood library to give a (FREE) talk on how to get published. Other than that, I expect news to be scarce as nothing ever happens in August. Except for my birthday, of course.
