Random Friday

My mind is a little scattered as I write this. The week has been busy with working, soccer games, basketball practices, football games, dentist appointments and a sick husband.

So this post will probably be a little random.

Update: I'm going through my book one more time to tighten it up before I start querying. I hoping for second week in November.

Funny moment of the week: 14 year old son says: "Apparently the girl who we thought liked my friend likes me and now our friendship is going to turn into an awkward sitcom series."

This is the ultimate in trying to protect the environment. A guy at work told me that in Brazil this summer the government launched a campaign to encourage people to pee in the shower, so they would save water. Apparently they shower 3 times a day, because it's so humid.

Bought the book Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld, but my son stole it from my bookshelf before I could crack it open. Also bought the Uglies series by the same author, because my sister-in-law said they were awesome. Hoping to read more at the end of November.

Finally good luck to all of those who are participating in NaNoWriMe in November. I wish I could do it, but I need to get this book done. Maybe I'll have a week in December where I'll write non stop. Anybody else want to join me?

Results

Well I tried to keep my pessimistic side at bay and hoped for the best at my soccer game last night, but we lost 4-0. We commiserated afterwards with cake and pizza, and tried to figure out what went wrong. After a few hours, more than was actually spent playing the game, we decided we needed more game play practice, among other things.

Now after having four hours of sleep last night, I've put the game behind me and have moved on to focusing on next weeks challenge.

I guess this is what we have to do when we receive a rejection. Take a moment to be sad, angry, and disappointed, or just have a good cry in the bathroom, but then move on. Put that letter behind us and keep trying.

Maye it's not about being pessimistic or optimistic, but being resilient. Having the perseverance to keep going and not give up.

Hopefully I can maintain that attitude as I begin quering and try to make it through this incredibly hard soccer season.

Expect the worst or Hope for the Best

My soccer team pretty much rocks. In fact we are so awesome we have been promoted to the highest division in over 35 women's soccer. Now as good as that sounds it does come with a few minor issues.

1) Most of the ladies who play in this division have been playing since they were kids and a few even played university level soccer.
2) Most of the ladies on my team started playing 8-10 years ago.
3) We will be playing against a national winning team.
4) We will be playing against another team from our small town. (That's right our soccer program is so awesome we have two over 35 women's team in the top division)
5) We are probably going to get our butt's kicked.

I say probably because I don't know for sure. We might be okay, we might even win a few games. We just don't know. So do you go into the games expecting nothing (to lose) or hope for the best.

I'm hoping to start querying agents within the next two weeks. Now as most of you know querying is stressful, difficult, and did I say stressful. You have to get your query letter just right for each agent you query. You need to research which agents represent what you write and decide whether or not you think you could work with them.

So here's the question of the day. Do you think when you query you should expect nothing that way you won't be disappointed, or should you hope for the best.

By the way I play my first soccer game tomorrow against the other team from my town.

Another Contest & Award

This time its a query letter contest over at Kid Lit, Mary Kole, associate agent at Andrea Brown Literary Agency!

In other news I want to thank Melane for the Kreativ Blogger Award.

7 things about me, you might not know

1. I hate wearing socks and would live in sandals all year long if I could.
2. I hate folding socks, it's the household chore I hate the most.
3. I have a drawer in my room strictly for socks that I can't find the mate to.
4. I don't like hot drinks, they make me sick to my stomach.
5. People sniffing is my of my biggest pet peeves.
6. My favorite show of all time is probably Firefly, too bad it got canceled.
7. I absolutely love the show Glee and would love to be able to sing, but can't. In fact my husband cringes when I try.

That's a little more about me. Have a good weekend.

How to Choose?

Now that I'm getting close to actually pushing that send button I've been contemplating my plan of attack, so to speak.

A few years ago when I researched querying I read a lot of advice about only querying a few agents at once, some even suggested one at a time. Back then I thought that was ridiculous why wouldn't I want to query as many as possible at once. As with everything, time and experience has made me wiser. Now I see the wisdom in those words.

If you send out 20 queries and they are all rejected you don't have a chance to revise your query or revisit your submission before trying another agent. And although you can submit again you probably shouldn't unless you're completely changing your manuscript, so I'm starting to feel a little stressed about who to send it to, because once it's sent there's no redo.

So here's my question, there are so many great agents out there. How do you decide who to query first? What has been your criteria for choosing? Do you start with the bigger profile agents, the ones who have blogs with tons of followers or do you look beyond that and research what they represent and how well they've done with selling the authors they represent.

If you have an agent how why did you pick them to query, if you don't do you know how you'll choose?

Over use

She turned around and looked down the path she had just walked.

I've been going through each chapter and highlighting words I over use. Four of the worst offenders are in the sentence above.

Any guesses?

It's been an interesting exercise in trying to figure out different ways to say the same thing. I'm always amazed at how I can miss using the same word within one paragraph. Anyone else feel that way?

Long Lost Book

Years ago I fell in love a series called "The Keeping Days" by Norma Johnston. It's about a young girl at the turn of the 1900th century trying to deal with family crisis, a test of faith, and new love.

There was six books in the series, but I only ever read and was able to find the first three and the last two. I've searched for the book called "A Mustard Seed of Magic" for years and years. I even wrote the publisher asking for the book. My local library never carried it, so I went for a lot of years without the one book to complete the series. (I was going to put a number, but it made me feel too old).

A month ago our local library joined this system where they can get books from other libraries, I can't remember what it's called. So one day I went on line and guess what, they had the book. I have never been more excited.

I finished reading A Mustard Seed of Magic this weekend and it was wonderful. In it the main character wants to be a writer, this is probably why I was inspired by this series. There was so much great advice that I actually took notes.

This quote from the main character hit me and I think it's how a lot of us feel.

"A writer wasn't a real writer until his work was read, not just by himself and his near and dear, but by the world to whom he had things that he must say."

For many years the main character wrote only for herself, but it had to come to a point where she wanted others to read her work. I'm at that point now. I'm no longer hiding it in a shelf, I'm ready to try and share with the world. At least in two weeks I am, that's how much editing time I have left.

It's amazing to me how this main character's story can still motivate me even after 20 plus years. Now I have the pain of giving the book that I've tried so hard to find back to the library. Part of me just wants to tell them I lost it and pay for the book, but that wouldn't be honest even though it's extremely tempting.