Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Day 5: Bad Grades, Manuscript Request

One of the misfortunes of not being forty is an inability to recognize when I've got too much on my plate. My grades came back yesterday, and I did wonderful in both English and Biology, but abysmally in Economics, my own major. As of now, I've resorted to begging my professor to reconsider the grade he gave me. It's with regrets that I now have to shut down my art commissions business. No income for a while, until I get my grades up again.

On another note, two more queries sent last night, and one came back requesting a full manuscript. No rejections yet, but the one I sent last week is awfully quiet. Strange ...

Status
Queries sent: 4
Responses: 2
Partials sent: 1
Whole Manuscript Requests: 1
Partial rejections: 1

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Day 4: Lots of Updates

Two weeks of no writing; I'm embarrassed, but at least Finals are over. Now I'm on Spring Break. In the past two weeks:

- Partial came back. No go. The plot was "Too casual", so I'm putting more content. I'm not really disappointed, since the manuscript was shallow, and I'm thankful for the suggestion. There are plenty of hormonal girls out there already; I don't need to add another. I'm afraid my book is about to turn literary... Hopefully not. Commercial fiction is my forte.

- Read a wonderful play, which is helping me with speech pattern and getting rid of excessive words. "Trite", "Sin" and "Carnal embrace". Wonderful.

- Finals happened. I will say this about it: my fear of getting bad grades is greater than my fear of query rejection. Maybe this is a good thing. I wonder if all student authors feel that way.

Status
Queries sent: 2
Responses: 1
Partials sent: 1
Partial rejections: 1
Whole Manuscript Requests: 0

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Day 3: Small Updates

Nothing exciting so far... sent out the manuscript on Monday, but haven't heard back yet. Websites say that it usually takes agents a month to get back to writers, which I suppose is good news. I have to study for finals.

In the meantime, my manuscript has shrunk a bit. I found some chapters clunky after another read, so another 3000 words hit the recycling bin between chapters 4 and 5. Now I'm down to 84,000. My roommate points out that Chapter 6, 17, and 20 need to slow down even more... maybe that's where I'll make up for the extra words.

An amazing new idea hit me yesterday. I was looking through my stack of feedback when I realized that my Spirit World ended up being "just funny". This is suppose to be a mystery...
After I worked in my new idea, I gave the revised story to some of the guys in the study lounge, and they agreed that it was much better. (My book is chick-lit, but I hope it won't turn into Twilight-chick-lit. Most of my friends are guys, and I don't want them throwing it at me later if it ever gets published.)

It's amazing how, no matter how many times I read it through, I can always find something to improve upon. I believe Tony Morrison said something about revision being a never ending process, but I wish she mentioned when it'd be a good time to send in the manuscript. Here's to hoping I didn't send it in too early...

I don't think I'm suppose to send out more queries until I get my partial back. I heard that partials are suppose to be exclusive...

Status
Queries sent: 1
Responses: 1
Partials sent: 1
Whole Manuscript Requests: 0