Tuesday, April 27, 2010

And so it begins...

Words: 4
Caffeine: morning cup of boring, lame-o decaf that tastes like toes mixed with stale cigarettes
Evil Calories: chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, cinnamon roll, frosting, frosting, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, bacon

Ladies and gentlemen, members of my devoted fan base (you there, mom?), esteemed sock monkeys on my "I'm too pregnant to fit into anything but my pajama pants" pants...the time has come. Yes. That's right. The book is done. I've gotten fabulous feedback from my beta reader. I've made changes, polished it up and threw some holy water on it. So there really is nothing more to do than query the ever living crap out of it.

I know what you're thinking. "That sounds like fun!" Well, then, there's something wrong with you. Because in order to query, you have to have this pesky little thing called a query letter, which makes most writers want to stick fondue forks in their eyes and cram their heads down the garbage disposal. My main problem with the query letter is that I have two paragraphs to relay a 95K word novel. I'm not an "in a nutshell" kind of girl. I've been writing this blog for almost three years. I have 217 posts. Can you remember one thing I've really said? Cuz I can't!

But, alas, the query is the only way to tap on the door, so I'm left to try and cram all the key points of my novel into those two dreaded paragraphs without sounding like a ferret on crack. And obviously, from my 217 posts about NOTHING, I definitely have a "ferret on crack" tendency. Have I mentioned that I'm currently with child and I cannot drink? I can't even enjoy a simple glass of Merlot to lessen the "ferret on crack" ratio. Luckily being pregnant makes me really tired, so that might help a little. Maybe it'll be more like "ferret after a knife fight with a Yettie". Much better. Yeehaw.

So, wish me luck. Or just send me chocolate. And olives. The green ones stuffed with pimentos. And some cheese puffs. And some fried shrimp. Thanks.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Me, me, me, me!

Words: yep
Caffeine: morning cup (decaf, but it still has a tiny bit of caffeine, right? RIGHT?)
Evil Calories: 4000 jellybeans

I know you've all been sitting around pulling your eyelashes out wondering what's been going on with me. I have neglected my poor little blog terribly, and, in turn, neglected my fan base (which is most likely been whittled down to my mom and that refugee princess in Uzbekistan who keeps emailing me wanting to give me a billion dollars.) But, for what it's worth, here's what's going on with me:

The book is done. Yes, I said done. Done, done and done. I'm actually really happy with how it turned out. I did a lot of rewriting over the last few months, revamped the beginning, cut some darlings from the middle, threw in a few knife fights for good measure, and I can honestly say it very much resembles what has been swimming around my brain for the last two years. Of course, the big struggle was finding some beta readers who would actually read it and get back to me (novel concept, I know), but I am happy to say it is currently out with one trusted source right now (who gave me great feedback and helped me tremendously with some English Professor details), and it will be going out to another trusted source in about a week. My goal is to start querying in mid-May, June at the latest. Call me delusional, but in the slight, slight, slight chance that it may win the attention of an agent, I need to it to happen before the beginning of fall, because come October, I will be out of commission for a wee bit. And by "wee bit", I mean the next 18 years. Give or take a year.

Yep. That's right. We are having yet another "cutest baby ever in the history of time". To go along with our other "cutest baby ever in the history of time". We're so excited. Mostly because we're really odd people with a bit of a "fly by the seat of your pants" approach to parenting, and the fact that the universe has deemed us fit to raise another is a huge compliment. Big ups to you, universe. We promise to teach this one to do The Robot and sing "Back in Black" in the middle of Target just as well as our little Z-man. We'll make you proud, universe. Or embarrass the hell out of you. You know, whichever.

And lastly, we're making a huge change in our household that is giving my creativity a serious high-impact workout. We're becoming Locavores. Have you seen Food, Inc.? Holy shit, is all I can say. You should see it. And then get ready to be afraid of your freezer. I actually purposely did NOT see it when it first came out because I knew this would happen, though I really had to NO idea how impactful the information would be. It was incredibly eye opening. But becoming a Locavore isn't exactly the easiest thing to do. It takes a lot of work (depending on where you live), a lot of research, and, for us, a lot of creative budgeting. So, I'm thinking of refueling my sad, neglected little food blog to track all of our adventures.

Cuz, you know. I'm so good at keeping up blogs. Makes perfect sense, right?