News 

February 25, 2008: Fresh Eyes and Honest Notes

My agent, Jenoyne, had her readers go over my YA proposal and a full manuscript I've been babying for years and all I can say is a big fat "Thank You!" I'm not one of those writers who is comfortable asking people to read my stuff, much to my own determinant, which means I work in a vacuum most of the time. I'm also not anywhere near competent when it comes to copy editing or editing myself. When I do, I miss things and I need to step away from a manuscript for quite some time to gain perspective on it before I can attempt an honest revise. But thanks to Angela and Naomi and their notes, I'll have a much better understanding of what I need to do to get those two projects ready for submission. They've saved me months of banging my head against the keyboard and have pointed out, in red, just where I fell short. As a writer, I can't ask for more and in the end, I hope it results in some good news, not just for me, but for all of us.

February 25, 2008: Cinematically Speaking

Had a long chat with my agent today and we discussed a plan to send out ARCs of More Than This (Touchstone, August 2008) to film agents. The movie business is a whole different beast, contracts are way more complex and, in my opinion, generally a harder nut to crack. If this makes any sense, I think it's actually easier to get a book published by a respected and known house then to write a screenplay that will make its way into the right hands at the various studios and production companies around here. Living in L.A. I hear all the time that writers are on the low end of the ladder and are seen as expendable commodities and I believe it! But still, part of doing my job is to make sure my work reaches the widest audience possible and way more people watch movies than read books. The plan is to send out ARCs of MTT to a small selection of film agents my literary agent thinks would be a good fit in the hopes of having them take it on and then moving More Than This through the many hurdles it'll face to get into the right hands. Hey, I'm not going to lie to you, it'd be nice to get something optioned--I'm not even going to spare an ounce of hope that something more than that happens--but I'm not holding my breath. In this business you never know what's going to happen and Hollywood is a whole other sphere of uncertainty.

February 21, 2008: Blurb Please

So it's that time in the publishing process where ARCs are sent out to a fantasy list of authors in hopes that they can spare some time and a few words to give More Than This (Touchstone, August 2007) a little extra kick on the cover and give readers a little reassurance that what they're about to plunk $14 on doesn't totally suck. I won't name names as that is just an exercise in cringe inducing neediness, but lets just say the list of names I sent to my editor are pretty well known and gave even me the impression that I'm a bit delusional, sorry, hopeful.

February 20, 2008: More ARCs

Another box of More Than This (Touchstone, August 2007) ARCs means I don't have to be stingy as I thought I would. Besides sending them out for review, I'm going to give some away as contest prizes. Or just give away if I get lazy. Now to work on my list of who gets an early peek at my third novel. Also, I've started to read editor/agent blogs and found this nugget on agent Kristine Nelson's PubRants blog: "In terms of upmarket commercial women’s fiction, it’s all about the writing. Really, editors are looking for literary writers who can tackle the more commercial themes in a way that’s fresh and well constructed." This is what I've always thought and said (even when it made me unpopular on some Yahoo! group loops) when it came to women's commercial fiction. Just because we're writing entertaining books, it doesn't mean we can get away with relaxed standards when it comes to story and craft. It's nice to hear that editors are looking to put some muscle behind the genre which will only make it stronger. Of course, this means I have to write better and expect more from myself so I can deliver manuscripts I can be proud of and will contribute to the genre.

February 15, 2008: Almost Real

FedEx, or was it UPS?, just dropped a bundle of More Than This (Touchstone, August 2008) advance reader copies off at my front door. Now come the processing of figuring out who to send them to in hopes they, like, actually read them and, hopefully, like, like it.

February 14, 2008: On the Side

The news that the WGA writer's strike is good not only because I would like my favorite shows back on the air, at least for a few more episodes, before summer hiatus. It also means my agent can approach film agents and producers with advance reader copies of More Than This (Touchstone, August 2008) without the worry of stepping on any union toes. If anything, film agents are even harder to woo than a literary agent which is why I don't envy my agent's task.

February 10, 2008: Scaling Back

After taking a look at the calendar I've decided to tweak my first draft goal, keeping the done by date  of March 14th) but trimming my word count goal, considerably, to 30,000 from an insane 70k. If I clock in 1,200 words a day for the next 25 days (not including weekends), I'll be right on target to be done and then it would be on to draft two where I would double my count to 60k by the end of April, take a break from it and then resume with the third draft (and polish) with my final word count (before my editor edits it) of somewhere between 85-90k by mid-August. See? Fun and easy.

February 08, 2008: Weekend Reprieve

I'm not usually so flakey but last night made the decision to hold on to the page proofs of More Than This and go through them one more time. I figure I already have plenty of Post-its on pages that need edits or tweaks, I may find one or 20 more pages that are currently blue pencil free in need of a tweak or two. Monday, I'll send it off and it'll see be early.

February 06, 2008: Hump Day Hiatus

I need a short break to pretend I exist outside my office. So I'm setting aside the writing and page proof reading for the day and heading outside. Tomorrow I'll be back at it, going over More Than This (Touchstone, August 2008) one last time and will be mailing off to the fine people at Simon & Schuster on Friday. With that done, it's back to Yet To Be Titled Novel Slated For Summer 2009 Release (YTBTNSFS2009R) which I still plan to have done, at the least the first draft of, by early March.

February 05, 2008: Part and Parcel

I'm done with my first pass of the More Than This (Touchstone, August 2008) page proofs. Lots of yellow Post-It notes and blue pencil and eraser marks. But it had to be done and I can only hope that turning it in early and with a Starbucks card will endear me to the person who has to put in all my tweaks. In all, I feel really good about this book.

February 01, 2008: Blue Pencil and Pink Erasers

Slowly and carefully working my way through the page proofs for More Than This (Touchstone, August 2008) and enjoying what I'm reading, even though more pages than not are marked up with edits. Weird. It's almost as if I wasn't the person responsible for the whole thing. That's the gift of having some time and distance away from a manuscript.