![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
The actual article includes pictures of me and the other author who is featured.
Edited to add:
If that link doesn't work, try this:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/contraco
- Mood:
mellow
From the Official Rules for ABNA:
9. FINALIST NOTIFICATION/REQUIREMENTS. Sponsors will notify the potential Finalists by phone or e-mail starting on or about May 6, 2009...
So.
I suspect that May 8th is far enough past May 6 to consider "on or about..." to be over and done. I can get on with my life.
It was a great ride while it lasted. And you haven't heard the last of The Time Travel Journals.
I'm working today, so off I go. Jobs have been very few lately; this one will cover a couple of small business expenses. Better than having to take money out of my personal account (or worse - Rick's personal account).
The Hawaiian kids have arrived for a month-long visit before they take up their new posts in Kansas. Two twenty-somethings, one three-year-old, and two dogs add a lot of life to this house!
- Mood:
pensive
I write a little in Verdandi and stew even more. While stewing, I've been working on a synopsis for Moon Over Donamorgh. THAT is hard work, let me tell you. But a lot of my first-choice agents want a synop, so one Must Be Written. There's no getting out of it. My most top choice agent still has my partial, with No Word Yet. And queries must go out to all the others.
Also: yes, you knew I'd get around to it - ABNA! There is just over a week left before they announce the three finalists. Worse - the rules state that Amazon/Penguin will start notifying "potential" finalists that they are in the running. They will start doing that TOMORROW.
Do you think I will sleep tonight?
There is no hint in the rules on what constitutes a "potential" finalist. Is it all 100 semifinalists?
I doubt it. So what is it? The top 20? Top 10? What are they using as criteria at this point, ten full days before the deadline? I realize they aren't waiting until midnight on May 14 to decide who the finalist are. But people will still be downloading and reviewing the excerpts until then.
Perhaps the Penguin experts who are reviewing the manuscripts have finished their reviews and the potentials are chosen based on those reviews.
No matter. It's out of my hands, although I'm still encouraging people to go! review! my excerpt. I've been pestering people, yes. But I suspect I didn't stress the deadlines well enough. There are many, many folks who never left a review.
Oh, I am so nervous. But it will all be over soon, one way or 'ta other.
I wants to be a finalist, precious. I really do.
- Mood: excited
How 'bout that? I'm a "bestselling" author! 'Course it's just an excerpt, and it's free, but still...
- Mood: pleased
No longer Seattle. No longer May 22nd.
Now it's May 27 in New York City. The finalists have the option of staying on for BEA, which starts the 28. This gives them the chance to meet LOTS of industry professionals.
What a great opportunity. But I wouldn't be able to take complete advantage of it. It plays havoc with my schedule. I can be flexible, if they decide I get to be a finalist, but this won't be easy.
There's no way I'd be able to stay for all of BEA. It goes through the 31st, and my daughter's wedding is the 30th. My son and his family are supposed to stay with us - they arrive on the 28th. My step-son and HIS family are with us the entire month of May, along with their two dogs. And the current plan is for them to drive down to San Diego on May 27 to visit relatives, leaving the dogs for Rick and I to take care of.
I have no idea how all this will be solved, but I still want to be a finalist. Life can be messy, no?
- Mood:
anxious
From Publishers Weekly:
This well-executed, ambitious time-travel yarn is also an engaging alternate history of the Titanic disaster. Dr. Samuel Altair, a 60-year-old research physicist based in Belfast, Ireland, builds a time machine and transports himself from 2006 to 1906. Unfortunately, Casey Wilson, a 20-year-old horticulture major from Berkeley, happens by just as Dr. Altair fires up his “highly dangerous, unauthorized experiment.” This unlikely duo end up stuck in 1906 Ireland, lacking the scientific wherewithal to return to 2006. Dr. Altair believes they’re trapped in “a new and different timeline” and commences documenting their experiences in “time travel journals.” Casey finds work with the “quite handsome” Tom Andrews at Harland & Wolff, the future shipbuilder of the infamous Titanic; they, predictably and at much length, fall in love. Meanwhile, Dr. Altair corresponds with Albert Einstein. As 1912 approaches, Casey, Dr. Altair, and Tom conspire to design and construct a safer Titanic. In a leisurely paced story, the spirited Casey easily steals the show as the Titanic tension mounts.
- Mood: pleased
I'm not entirely sure what happens next. I think the public can continue to read and review the excerpts, while Penguin looks over the manuscripts. I think Publisher's Weekly has done a review, so I guess that at some point, I'll be able to see that. But thank you to all who left a review!
I'll check in once in a while, but today I have a client who will be more concerned that her appetizers are ready on time, than about my book making the top 100. And tomorrow, my husband has surgery. Then my daughter arrives, then the shower... well, you know. I'll be up for air on Sunday.
But this is so cool! And congrats to fellow OWW-er Jarucia Jaycox Nirula, whose fantasy Varuna Kannon and the Caluminar's Cave
(http://www.amazon.
The link for Shipbuilder is http://www.amazon.
- Mood: ecstatic
It has penetrated my addled brain that tomorrow is the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.
You might understand why that means something to me.
But... I sure hope this isn't an omen or anything. I mean, the anniversary of the sinking being on the same day Amazon declares those novels that go on to the semifinals...
My novel is about the Titanic, after all.
Well, I shall just hope for the Best, as I have always been doing.
Yeah, it's tax day, too. Got those mailed out yesterday. There will even be enough money in the business checking account to cover the LLC tax, provided I make it to the bank tomorrow.
In the meantime, I'm hoping to avoid icebergs...
- Mood:
rushed
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Okay, I'm all right now.
If you haven't already seen the announcement, The Time Travel Journals: Shipbuilder made the top 500 in Amazons novel contest.
Even my butterflies are doing somersaults.
Go, please. Go read my excerpt. Leave a review. This is partly a popularity contest, after all. The more, the better.
The link to my excerpt is:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UG3CKS
Two other OWW novels made it in, too:
The Garden at the Roof of the World by Walter Williams
Varuna Kannon and the Caluminar's Cave by Jarucia Jaycox Nirula
There may be more; these were all in Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Woo!
- Mood: jubilant
I took a walking break yesterday and bought new shoes. Huge improvement. I walked four miles today, with no pain. The blisters are healing.
By the way, I haven't lost a single pound. No, I haven't been eating more. Go ahead - tell me it's all gone to muscle.
By the way, it's time I posted a link in case any of y'all see your way clear to making a donation to the breast cancer fund, thereby insuring that I actually go on that 39-mile walk. The walk is in July, and I have to raise $1800. The link is here, and I greatly appreciate any bits you can spare.
I'm struggling through the ending of Moon Over Donamorgh. Yes, it was finished. But "finished" generally means "it's done, but I'm sure it can be better and that's why I have critters." In this case, we want a little more conflict before letting the heroes ride off into the sunset. And I have the most brilliant idea for conflict. It's getting there that's going slow.
I know, sort of, what needs to happen, but writing it is like pulling the words out of quicksand. I'm vacillating between two possible routes to the end. Both have their own set of complications that make me sit there and say, "huh."
I guess the winner will be the route that gets finished first.
In ABNA news - there will be no news until March 16, when they annouce the first-round winners. These will be the lucky people who managed to write a winning pitch, and actually get to enter their novel in the contest. Well, an excerpt of the novel. If the judges like the excerpt (first 5000 words), THEN somebody will actually look at the whole novel.
In the meantime, I'm going to continue queries to agents. Life Does Go On.
- Mood: mellow
Dare I say it? Dare I hope it?
I think I'm ready for ABNA.
The entry requirements are *ahem*, ready to go. The pitch, the bio, the excerpt, the manuscript. Check, check, check, check.
Submissions start on Feb. 2nd. So I'm ready early. Although, truth be told, I do need to read over the whole MS again. It takes a while to read that many words. At this point, I'm looking to make sure the recent changes don't screw it up - that's major. I may find the odd typo or two, but goodness knows, I've found and corrected enough to have gotten them all. I've looked over the spacing and the line breaks and the page breaks. If I use a pronoun, it's obvious to whom it's referring. "It's" means "it is," in all cases where it appears. Ditto for "you're" meaning "you are."
And ya know - it's supposed to be this perfect every time it goes out to an agent. Honestly, I wonder about the people who plan on entering the contest and they're still writing the novel. How the heck to they plan on having it ready?
I wish them luck, but really - they aren't serious competition.
I plan on being serious competition.
- Mood:
accomplished
I've been going over "The Time Travel Journals" with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. I am officially cross-eyed, but I've found and changed lots of little things like changing 'a' to 'an', or adding 'he' to a sentence that was missing it. I've done some bigger changes, too - rewriting a few scenes, noticing places where I did too much "telling" (thanks Josh!), and even deleting a few scenes. The word count is now in the 145K range. That's down from the 153K it was at, but still up considerably from the 120K it was before an interested agent pointed out the sub-plots were lacking.
I know it's hard to get a large novel published, especially for first-time authors, but this agent was right. So why isn't he my agent? The book just wasn't going in the direction he wanted and we agreed I should look elsewhere. Mind you, I would have loved to write what he wanted, but I just couldnt figure it out. I couldnt' see the book the way he wanted it.
If it just doesn't get picked up, I may do as he predicted, and go back to page 1 and start over. It's a good story, and timely, too. But for now, I'll enter it in Amazon's contest and see what happens. I'm hopeful that if I can get past the pitch requirement, and the novel gets to actually enter the contest, that it will get at least as far as the quarterfinals. That's into the top 500, and the full manuscript gets a professional review.
That would be cool.
Cooler if it gets to the semi-finals, though. I haven't given up on other agents, either. Once it's polished for this contest (which has forced me to really look at the thing for the first time in nearly a year), I'll send it out again.
Never give up.
- Mood:
determined
Oy.
I have been writing the pitch for Amazon's novel contest, and I'm nearly cross-eyed. Delete a word here. Change a phrase there. Move this sentence up. Move that one down. No, just get rid of it. Count the words again.
It's incredible how hard it is. And with all of that, I'm still not sure if I'm giving everything they want. For instance, one criterian is to "show your writing style." How do I DO that, while telling them what the book is about (an exciting hook), who the market is and how well I know that market, the novel's strengths in regards to the judging criteria (WHAT does that mean?), other books it's similar to, why I wrote it, and what my credentials are.
Where do I put writing style in? In 300 words? What, exactly, does it mean to 'show' my writing style?
So I'm frustrated, especially since entry into the contest hinges solely on the pitch. Like an agent, they'll be looking at it wanting only to see why they can reject it. Just 1/5 of the submissions will make it into the contest.
That's actually a slightly better percentage than sending a query to an agent, isn't it?
I still have to finish my read-through of the MS, to make sure it all still makes sense. And I'm thinking of cutting a couple of scenes, but I need to make sure some of the information in them gets included somewhere else.
- Mood: anxious
So if you've posted a crit for me recently (and several of you have), and I haven't responded - it's Windows' fault. But I'm ever-grateful, anyway.
I've decided to enter The Time Travel Journals in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest. This means that when I do get on the computer, my attention is on writing my pitch, and/or reading through the novel itself. TTJ has been completed for some time, but I've been rethinking the opening and making some changes. I may post the first chapter on OWW to get some feedback. That's where the biggest changes are.
It's discouraging, but after several editing passes and crits, I STILL find errors when I read the manuscript. Things like, 'as' that should be 'has', or goddess help me, those infernal 'it's' that should be 'its.' I always do a search for both of those words, and for 'your' and 'you're'. I have a trigger-happy apostrophe finger. But even after that, I still find errors.
Not many, thank goodness. But is a manuscript EVER perfect?
About that pitch: it turns out that the ABNA contest has a major filter on entries this year. Every entry must be include a 300-word pitch that covers a huge list of topics, most of which center on how well the author knows Marketing 101. Yes, they want to know what the book is about, but that's a tiny part of what they are asking for. And with only 300 words to work with, the story pitch must be extremely short.
But your novel doesn't even get to first base (entry into the contest proper), unless the expert panel has fallen in love with your pitch. They don't even look at the novel until the second step. This completely derails Amazon's "reader-based" selection process.
I can understand: they must received thousands of entries and readers are notoriously incapable of actually reading through entries and posting a comprehensible review, and THEN voting on a favorite. So it falls to experts, who do what they always do: read the queries and eliminate as many as possible.
Is anyone else entering something?
- Mood: anxious
