Thanksgiving

This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving. Yes, it's a whole month and a half before the American one. This just means that we get Christmas decorations in the stores a lot sooner.

So, today I'll be eating turkey and will be around tomorrow to visit blogs. In the meantime here is a small list of what I'm grateful for:

Family
Yes, I know it's a cliche, but really it should be everyone's number one thing they're grateful for. I'm especially grateful for my son who has left the nest this year to find his wings. Thankfully he lands at home once in a while.

Soccer
It might not be my number two, but it's right up there. I didn't play all summer (knee injury), and I missed it tremendously. Not just the game, but the ladies I play with. I'm glad to be back.

Audible Books
This September I started working 4 days a week and audible books are the only thing that seem to cure my, at times, road rageness.

Critique People
I'm grateful for anyone who is willing to read my words and give me feedback. And I'm also grateful for those willing for me to read their words so I can learn more.

Speaking of people who have helped my writing. Angela Ackerman has been a big help to me over the past couple of years and this month, along with her writing partner Becca Puglisi, are launching two new Thesaurus books. I love my Emotion Thesaurus and use it all the time.

So go visit their new website

to learn more about how they are helping writers.

The One Thing I Wish Agents Would Do

Okay there are probably many things that I don't know about since I don't have an agent, but there is one thing I wish agents would do during the query process.

Ready. . .

When you send a query by email, I wish they would send an automatic email back saying they received the query.

Not so hard.

There's actually a few that already do. But for those who don't this would save a lot of wondering. Lots of times you read on an agent's website. "If you don't hear from us within three months, you can safely assume we are not interested in your project."

If they sent an email back, this thought would never cross my mind. I haven't heard back yet, how do I know if the agent even got the email or if they just weren't interested.

Note: Some agents do say if you don't hear from us, then resend, but see insecure writer feeling above.

But wouldn't all of these problems be solved with an automatic reply that says: "Thank you for your interested in PN Literary, we take every query seriously and will get back to you as soon as we can."

Maybe I'm just being crazy and there's a reason most agents don't do this. If you know, please share.

How about you? Is there any one thing you wish agents would do?

Letting it Soak

I am the queen of letting pots, pans, and sticky bowls soak. I get most of the dishes done, but then I reach the dirtiest pot I decide it will be easier to clean later. Lots of times it is, the hot water pulls the caked on grease off the sides, but sometimes it would have been easy just to wipe it clean right away and more often than not letting it soak makes it harder, especially if you don't cover all of it in hot water.

I feel this way with writing sometimes. I reach a hard part and instead of just writing it, I leave it soak thinking it will be easier when I go back to it. Sometimes it is, but lots of times I've lost momentum and it's a lot harder to get it back.

Tonight I washed all of the dishes, even the caked on pots and it was nice to have a clean kitchen when I went to bed. I think I need to apply this to my writing. Just keep going and don't put it off until tomorrow.

How about you? Do you leave your writing to soak?

The Age of the PVR

First of all I have to admit I'm not a huge football fan but last November my family went over to my a friend's house to watch the Canadian version of the Super Bowl. It's called the Grey Cup. Don't laugh, we did have Justin Beiber and Carly Rae Jepsen perform the half time show.

Anyway we got there expecting the game to be on, but instead our friend was PVRing it, so we could fast forward through the commercials. We don't have great commercials for the Grey Cup, so I thought okay, that's not a bad idea, but then we started watching the game. He'd fast forward the commercials, all the commentary, then eventually everything except the actually plays. So if you think about it, we watched the game in about twenty minutes. We went home and decided we didn't really like watching the game that way.

I don't like the commercials, but I like the commentary, I like the set up, the anticipation of the play. That's part of the game.

I have to admit I have skimmed a few books in my day. It's usually badly written books where I'm in a hurry to reach the end. But I've also skimmed popular books, because I'm so anxious to get to the end. I did this with the last Harry Potter book. Big mistake. I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have.  I've learned my lesson. If the book is good, I read every word, enjoy the build up, the anticipation. I've stopped reading my books, like I'm watching a show I've PVR'd.

How about you? Are you guilty of being a skimmer? Did you ever regret it?

Gone Gone Gone - I've been gone so long

Love that Chilliwack song. Although if you're not Canadian you might not know what I'm talking about.

Hey there fellow bloggers, it's been a long time. I've been away living in a Tiebetan hut with no access to the internet for four months.

I've learned a lot in that time. The locals here are crazy friendly.  Their momos are to die for and although tasty, the yak is a bit dry.

Actually, I've had no such adventure and have been sitting at home cooking, cleaning, working, dealing with kids, but that's not the reason I stopped blogging.

I wasn't writing. I wasn't reading. My whole literary life had stalled. I felt like I had nothing to say. So I took the break and decided to find my authentic self. (More on that in a different post.) It's an ongoing process, but I do feel like I made some progress.

First, I hate high heels. I've tried to like them, but they hurt my ankles every time I put them on. I can deal once in a while with a kitten heel or a wedge, but I will never be the girl who wears the three inch heels with the leopard print. I'm a flats girl and I've accepted that. (There are a few other things I've accepted but more on that later.)

Also I took the last four months and edited my first book one more time after reading a great editing book. (I'll save that for another post as well - can't give away everything at once). I am also close to putting the finishing touches on my second book and have been reading a great book to help me prepare for my third.

Starting this month I'm going to be working my actual paying job four days a week, so I'm only going to blog once a week - Mondays, because I'm also trying to learn that I can only do what I can do.

So that's part of what I did this summer, I'm sure I'll share more later. What did you do this summer.

Another POV

I was a boy crazy fiend as a teenager and I have many journals to prove it. I won’t embarrass myself by revealing any of the content here, although I shudder just thinking about what a total psycho I was when it came to boys. I constantly tried to figure out what they were thinking. Does he like me or not? I over analyzed the way a boy looked at me or his tone of voice when he said hi. As I look back at my relationships over my teenage and young adult years, clearly, I did not have a handle on how boys think. 

Now that my son is fifteen it’s been quite interesting to watch the other side of the gender. Last week he caught a girl writing his name in hearts. He told me it totally creeped him out. All I could think of was, I wrote guys names in hearts, did I creep guys out?

After reading through my journals, I probably did.

Most YA books are told from the girl’s perspective. What I wonder is do I have an accurate account of how the guy would act in a relationship. I just read through my journal when I started dating my husband and there were many ups and downs. The whole time I kept wondering what he was thinking. Sometimes I still wonder that. I’m hoping that by having a son whose entering those teenage years, I can get a glimpse that will give me a heads up on my male characters, which will come in handy as my next book is told from a male’s POV.

Is your MC male or female and if male what are you doing to make sure you create an accurate depiction of the male psyche? 

Dieting

Hey there, remember me.

I know it's been a while, but I've been doing kind of an experiment. I've been on a diet of sorts. A diet from social media. I haven't done any blogs or very many facebook updates to see if I can be a more productive person.

And the results of my experiment. Utter failure.

I may not have blogged or facebooked, but I found other things to occupy my time. TV shows, sports, entertainment websites, netflix. It seems to me that I did everything and anything except social media and write.

So I've come to the conclusion that my problem is not social media like I had originally thought, but procrastination. That dastardly foe. The thorn in my side. My complete undoing.

I know it's procrastination, because as soon as I had a deadline, I finished editing my chapter.

So, I'm back to posting twice a week.

How about you? Do you suffer from procrastination and how do you defeat it?

PS
While I was gone a few exciting things happened:
Kasie West's book came out.
Christina Lee got a book deal.
Jessie Humphries got a book deal.
Melissa Hurst got an agent

Any other news I missed??