Brenda Drake's Can You Hook A Teen Contest

Hey guys! I'm entering Brenda Drake's contest!

Here's the rules:

On September 21st and 22nd post the first 250 words of your young adult or middle grade manuscript on your blog (you may skip this part, if you wish), and then hop around to each others' blogs and give critiques.

The winner gets a $50 editing gift certificate (and two runner's up get $25 each) for Teen Eyes Editorial Services.


Wolfy Love Story. :-)

I drove a little bit faster, though normally I wasn’t one to speed. The thought of getting a ticket just to get somewhere a few minutes sooner was pointless. However, I made an exception this time; first because I finally knew where I was going after getting lost twice, and second it was getting dark and then I’d be sure to miss the house. I eyed the retreating sun with more than a little uncertainty.

It won’t be that bad… I told myself.

I tried to relax, but I was anxious and unreasonably irritated. If this was supposed to be a fun getaway after all the chaos of high school why did it feel like a prison sentence?

I noticed my white knuckled hold on the steering wheel and loosened my fingers. They ached as blood rushed back into them. I could feel my pulse in my palms.

I was being ridiculous. It’s not like I was driving to my own execution; although imagining Rachel in the role of executioner wasn’t difficult whenever Dylan was around.

Dylan. My anxiety rose a few notches and I let my foot off the gas a little.

If unrequited love wasn’t enough to put a damper on the summer I didn’t know what was.

I frowned at the rural highway. I lost my mind. I had to have; otherwise nothing would have convinced me to accept a vacation invitation from Rachel of all people. Two months, I’d be stuck in her beach house.

Two months.

There you go. I wish it was the first 500 words because the first taste of creepy comes up right after this, but oh well!

I really hope the rest of you join up too, I'd really like to see all of your 250 words out in the bloggersphere. :-)


:-)

Kick Ass Titles?

I have no idea why, but for me, coming up with an awesome title is the hardest part of what I do. (Hence the name Wolfy Love Story.)

I've recently been spending a lot of time on other people's blogs, just sort of poking around and seeing what's going on. And on those blogs, more often than not, I see a little meter like mine off to the side with their word count and a very very cool title to match. I just don't understand it! I don't have the ability to think of really cool titles. It's just not in me.

Part of me thinks that it's not such a big deal, considering the title is most likely going to be changed by either an agent or an editor before it hits the shelves anyway. But then I hear all this talk about agents who loved the title enough to read the sample pages even though the query fell flat, or how a good title can be the difference between "I'd like to see the rest of your novel" and "Sorry, no dice."

On the other hand, I'm really good at coming up with unique character names, or names of places. I can come up with something really cool in just a minute or two, and a title can take me weeks, and at the end of the day I'm still not happy with it.


How do you come up with your titles? What sparks that great idea?? How important do you feel the title is at the end of the day?

Any Wolves of Mercy Falls Fans?

I first read Shiver right after it came out. I was completely wrapped up in that world for about a day and a half before I closed the back cover and sort of sighed. I couldn't wait for the next one to come out, and again for the final book in the series.

It just goes to show you how a familiar story can easily be extraordinary with just your own little spin on things. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, Shiver is the beautiful brain child of Maggie Stiefvater. It's the story of Grace and Sam. Grace is a girl obsessed with the wolves around her Mercy Falls home, and Sam is a musician who is forced to change into a wolf every winter. The cold drives his change, and he only has so many summers of being human before he changes into a wolf and never comes back.

The first book is Shiver, the second is Linger, and the third is Forever.

I have Forever sitting in my desk right now...


See?

...but I won't let myself read it until I've finished the first draft of Wolfy Love Story. Call it a prize for not procrastinating... oh who am I kidding, call it a prize for not procrastinating AS MUCH.

What about you? Are you a Wolves of Mercy Falls fan? And if werewolves aren't your thing (I can try to understand) what series has captured your attention lately?

Toodles!

The Master Procrastinator

I don't know about you, but when I'm faced with writing a difficult scene, or that scene between two more exciting scenes that makes your brain curl up in frustration, I am a master at doing anything but that scene.

I sit down at my computer, I pull up my Word document, I watch that tiny little line blink at me... and suddenly realize I haven't checked my email yet (a major failing because, of course, there's always something important in there... not.)

What follows is about four hours of doing ANYTHING but writing. And I mean anything.

Last night, was one such night. Which got me to thinking, what if someone else wasn't so talented in ramdomness? God forbid they have to actually sit down and write!

So here's a list of things you could do INSTEAD of writing.

I may or may not have done all these things at one time or another...

* Alphabetize your spice rack

* Antibacterial-ize every surface in your house

* Catch a duck


* See how many Oreos you can fit in your mouth

* Find anything with a cord and untangle it

* Set the duck free


* Put your flip flops in order according to color.

* Stare at your Facebook home screen until someone posts something interesting, then comment.

* Fold your collection of tissue paper

* Clean the sink

* Polish the silver

* Look for Hunger Games updates on IMDB

* Make all the pictures on your computer black and white

* Make a birthday wishlist on Amazon

* Take an online typing test to see your words per minute, then do it again to see if you can do it any faster

* See how many english muffins you can stack up before they fall down

* Make chocolate chip cookies



* Watch a candle flicker and imagine a ghost trying to blow it out from the other side (This is a Halloween themed procrastination)

* Spell your name in peanut M&M's

* Imagine what you'll say in your Ellen interview (because of course you're going to be a bestselling author someday right?)

* Try and sit cross legged on an exercise ball without killing yourself.

* Read about books coming out next fall knowing full well you're just going to get irritated at having to wait so long to read them.

* Try to disprove the "can't touch your elbow with your tongue" myth

* Paint your toenails orange

* Take a virtual tour of your dream home on Century 21

* Get lost in the Apple App Store

* Plant a Zombumpkin in Zombie Farm

* Watch your favorite movie with French subtitles and call it learning a 2nd language

* Research how much it would cost to buy your own private island



Yeah, this'll do...

* Create a dream cast for your book, complete with secondary characters.

* Order business cards

* Trim your fingernails

* Read your critique partners stuff instead of writing your own (Guilty.)

* Take a bath... a long one

* Pull weeds

* Go through every penny you can find and see which one is the oldest (1959)


There, that should get you started.

Is it sad that those just came off the top of my head? Possibly. Do I care? No.

Toodles!

Where do you write?

I've always had this vision in my head of this awesome place for me to churn out novels. My "awesome place" has floor to ceiling book shelves, a whiteboard that takes up an entire wall, an awesome sound system, clouds painted on the ceiling, and the mother of all iMac's sitting on a massive, super cool desk.

There may or may not be a water feature in the corner. (I haven't decided if the sound of trickling water would calm me, or just send me to the bathroom every five minutes.)

In reality, I spend most of my writing time tapping away at my laptop on the couch while my son watches Toy Story 2 for the sixth time since he woke up.

So where do you write? Where would you like to?

:-)

Progress Report

After a very long hiatus from writing, I've finally gotten back on track. Thanks to a very wonderful critique partner, Celeste, I've felt for the first time in a long time that what I'm doing, and what I'm writing matters.

Two claps for Celeste.

My new novel, lets call it... Wolfy Love Story (and no, that's not the actual title) is the first topic of the newly designed blog. You like?

I'm nearly up to 35,000 words, and after the last six months, that seems like a tiny miracle. A few months ago I was happy with a thousand words in a whole month, just to put this funk into perspective for you.

I think it's healthy to get into a funk now and then. It keeps you on your toes, and makes sure you don't get overconfident. The ability to story tell is a great one, and shouldn't be taken for granted. See? I learned my lesson.

So in the meantime, while writing Wolfy Love Story, I'll be catching up on my reading, seeing as how a search of my bookshelf has turned up eight novels I have yet to read, and Amazon has informed me via e-mail that I have three more on the way.

Toodles for now!

The One Month Novel

I'm not sure how these things work, or why, but it seems like this rushed NaNoWriMo pace is churning out the best pages I've ever written in my life. I'm writing a lot in a short period of time and I'm almost constantly writing, so plot twists I've forgotten about in other books don't get forgotten here. The characters are so fresh in my head all day that I don't forget what they look like, even the less important ones. When I stop halfway through a scene I don't forget what I was trying to accomplish there because I'm back working on it in an hour rather than a few days later.

Don't get me wrong, even now I can see things I'll be changing or moving when I edit it, but so far the basic structure of the story is so solid its amazing. The action scenes are clear, the emotions are strong, and that's something I have yet to accomplish before NaNo.

So a big thank you to The Office of Letters and Light.

I think I've found my niche. Write as much as I can as fast as I can... and maybe sleep somewhere in there too. Nah, sleep is for December, ;-)

Toodles

(56,000 words, 15 days.)