Still At It

It’s been a while since my last post in March for Vivian Kirkfield’s #50PreciousWords contest. I ended up getting an honorable mention! That’s the second year in a row I’ve gotten on honorable mention. Maybe next year will be the year!

Since March, I stopped working on the adult fantasy. I ended up cutting out the last 20,000 + words, and have written a few hundred more here and there. I wrote, and have since worked on, a flash fiction piece that I’ve submitted to a few places, all ending in rejection, though one was a positive rejection. I’ve also been rejected on a few different picture book manuscripts.

But, that comes with the territory. I’ve only gotten rejections, but that’s bound to change, and can only change if I keep working, and keep submitting.

I restarted The Right to Write by Julia Cameron, got to about a third of the way through, but am taking a pause. Sometimes her writing bothers me- she comes across as full of herself, and I can only take it in small doses. I do like her prompts, though. I do recommend reading the book and doing ALL the prompts as you go!

I’ve been listening to the Book Smitten podcast as they read Writing Picture Books by Ann Whitford Paul, discuss the chapters here and there, and follow each assignment as the podcasters write a picture book manuscript. I’ve been doing the same, working on a new manuscript, but have fallen a few episodes behind. It’s amazing how much getting back to teaching can throw my routine into a loop.

I’m still reading A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders with a reading group. The discussions we have each month are extremely valuable! The book focuses on Russian Authors, and a select few short stories by them, but we also work towards translating this to picture books.

I’ve been reading The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker as well, examining her poetic style, and slowly making the attempt to move my poetry into a more formal style- well, any style really. I have yet to examine her short stories as my reading group has been doing with A Swim by our dear friend George (not really, but it’s how we feel!).

What have you been up to lately? Let me know in the comments!

Moving On

There’s one particular manuscript that I’ve been working on regularly for a couple years. Before that, I would work on it once in a while in a rotation of several picture book and scripts I’ve worked on.

I love it.

It’s probably my best manuscript.

I’ve gotten a rewrite and resubmit, it’s made it to the acquisitions table of a small publishing company- though, ultimately, rejected- and it’s gotten a couple positive and personalized rejections.

I just got an incredible, in depth critique that I won from an agent. It was filled with some excellent, in depth advice, and reasons why she rejected it. I did like that in the couple e-mails she sent she called me by the main character’s name, which sounds and looks nothing like my own. I took that as a slight positive (hey, I can cling to little things if I want!).

But, I was overwhelmed by everything in it. I’ve made plans for what to do, how to tackle it, but I keep putting it off.

Finally, earlier today, I decided it was time to shelve the MS and work on other things. It felt like it was holding me back from working on other manuscripts.

It’s definitely NOT gone for ever, just a couple months. Then, I’ll tackle it.

Ow! My eyes!

Did you ever stare at something so long it hurt your eyes? Or stare at the eclipse :) ?

That’s how I felt after looking at just one picture book manuscript after over an hour.

It may not sound like much, but there were four colors of Sharpie markings all over it based on three critique partners feedback, and my own edits. So, yeah, OW MY EYES HURT!

I made changes onto Scrivener on my iPad, and began looking through that. But, the damage was done.

They didn’t literally hurt, it was more focus. I just couldn’t do it anymore.

I tried to go to some poetry.

But, no.

I tried another manuscript.

Nope.

Maybe next time I’ll set a timer if I know I want to look at just one 450 word manuscript. Take a break after twenty minutes, do something else, then get back to it. Of course, I’d have to set a timer for my reward time.

I do have an app called ‘Be Focused’ which I LOVE, but haven’t used in quite a while. I have it set for twenty minute work periods, with five minutes of reward rest, then it resets itself. I’ve used it successfully in the past, I just need to get to it again.

Would it have helped the other night?

Who knows. But it wouldn’t have hurt.

Movin’ And Groovin’

This is how I’m feeling right now. A manuscript has moved to territory I’ve never experienced before and I’m excited. But it’s more than that…

My critique group? I love it already! I’ve gotten some great feedback and I cannot wait to delve into that manuscript some more. I went through the checklist for critiquing I set up for myself and it seemed to work. It takes a bit longer than I hoped, but I felt like I was able to offer a deeper critique than I may have in the past. I did get them their feedbacks within our ten day timeline :)

What else…Oh! I FINALLY typed up a handwritten manuscript for a fantasy novel I started in the 1990’s! It’s pretty bad as it’s one of the first things I’d ever written/ started that was not a poem. I have quite the detailed notes for the main character and other characters as well. There’s also a character list with brief description and a map. It was 30+ pages handwritten on a yellow tablet (the old fashioned kind). I think it ended up being about 6,000 words or so. The main reason I did it was to hopefully find some things I could use in other stories, or maybe, someday, turn it into something. But, either way, step one is done!

And then there’s the poetry. I’ve been editing several poems I’ve written for adults. I’ve got around eighty or so of them in various states of disrepair. Poetry was my first writing love, and I still enter the occasional contest. Having a chapbook one day would be a dream! For me, poetry is an excellent form of therapy.

Oh! A chapter book! I exchanged critiques on the Eastern PA SCBWI Facebook site and got some great feedback. I’ve gone through the manuscript a couple times since then, but really need to hammer it down and give it a major revision. Overall, I’m very pleased with the direction of this MS, and loved the feedback I got.

Being back in the classroom and the beginning of the year things to do are subsiding a bit, and I’m getting back into a normal routine. Routine is good.

How’re things going for you? Let us know!

Trunkers

Those manuscripts that are so bad you want to destroy them.  I have several, some of which I want to work on again, but know they are so bad, they’ll take more time than I really want to give them at this point. Both are hanging out of the trunk, begging for help, begging for lap time on my iPad to break out of the smelly ole steamer trunk in the basement (yup, we own one- I refurbished that $25 trunk about 18 years ago). 

What’s wrong with them? Well, they suck. No plot, no story development, no character development.  Basically, they’re just a string of words thrown together that don’t do anything except take up space in the trunk. Below the pillows and blankets.  

Eventually they’ll make their way out.  But not yet. Not quite. They keep poking away at my brain, like Ralph’s finger. 

Do you have stories like that? They suck so much they make you doubt you have any intelligence whatsoever, but they keep poking away at your conscience?