Rejections and Rock Climbing

Hey, guys!

NB wasn't in love with the partial. *sigh* Ah, well. He's got nice rejection letters. They don't make you feel like decaying excrement.

*continues to shoot off queries to unsuspecting agents*

In other news, I went rock climbing this morning. My atrophied muscles are not used to such activities. They are now going into shock. Seriously, I can barely type. =P My forearm muscles are Dead. With a capital and everything.

And, um, yes. That was pretty much it. This is a short blog post. =D

ETA: Also! The Bee Killing Spray is giving me a headache, which I suspect is a bad sign. *waves goodbye to brain cells*

Round and Round the Query-Go-Round

Look at me, blogging almost every day this week! I'm quite proud of myself. ^_^

I sent out 2 more queries today. I want to send a couple more, but it's not working out so well.

One agent wants to know when/if a query is a multiple submission. This is fine. I threw in a line telling her it was. However, she also says she would like to be informed of other agents' interest. NB's got a partial (*seat bouncing*) but she can't want to know that...can she? My sensible side says no. My egotistical side says maybe/if I mentioned that she might get a touch more interested.

Another is to an agency who only lets you submit ONE query to ONE agent. No shooting a second query off to another agent at the agency if the first one rejects you. So I'm biting my nails and wondering if I should elaborate on the flattery or if one of the other agents would be a better fit.

And then ANOTHER agent is one I pulled off the list of Most Queried Agents, but she doesn't respond to non-personalized letters. I'd love to personalize it. Really, I would. But I don't know what to say. She gives very little information about herself and her preferences and I don't really want to say, "I'm querying you 'cause you were on the list of Most Queried Agents..."

And then yet two MORE agents want synopses included, and since I've been silly and haven't written one yet, I can't query them until I come up with a halfway decent synopsis.

So, yes, it's slow going.

In other news, the bees around here are going nutty. I went to McDonald's with my cousin and the kid she's babysitting this morning and they were dive-bombing us the whole way back. It was scary! Running with a two-year-old is also a touch exhausting, so I'm totally being a couch potato for the rest of the day. :)

Query Letter Hell

I just have to get this out of my system really quick.

I HATE YOU, STEVE JOBS!!!!!!

I just sent my first query (to NB, so I'm just waiting for the form rejection to pop up) and this miserable piece of technology known as a Mac (which is obviously in cahoots with the evil Hotmail goons) decided to put HUGE spaces between everything.

It looked like this while I was typing it out:

Dear Mr. Bransford:

Standardized tests say that Abby is a mathematical genius...

THEN, after it sent and I went and checked it out in the Sent folder (afraid I had done something stupid like forgot the sample pages, or something) I realized it looked like THIS:

Dear Mr. Bransford:

Standardized tests say that Abby is a mathematical genius...

And it did that ALL through the query and the sample pages.

I can't even send another email really quick saying GARRR, sorrysorrysorry!! because I'm not 100% if it will show up that way to him, and I don't know how to send him a fixed copy. Seriously, I don't know what I did. I just put one space between the paragraphs. Probably had something to do with copying and pasting from Mac Word (another stunning display of craptastic-ness)...

Anyway, excuse me while I go beat my head against the wall...

ETA: Oh, yes, I should add this. I GOT A PARTIAL REQUEST!!! SQUEEE!!! All those head dents in the wall were unnecessary!!

Teaser Tuesday

Yay for the first ever Teaser Tuesday!

And an even bigger yay: I have a title for my finished book! (The one I'm going to start querying as soon as I finish fiddling with the first 10 pages.)

It is, THE BOY WHO STOLE MY HEART CAR. It comes courtesy of a friend of mine. She's brilliant. ^_^

The following is a snippet from aforementioned book - or a potential snippet, anyway. I'm thinking of adding it (or something like it) since it seems to address the previously unaddressed issue of why my MC didn't phone the police. (I needed a better reason than her phone being coincidentally dead.)

And so, without further ado:

“What did the police say?”

“The police?”

“When you told them someone tried to steal your car.”

“I didn’t tell them.”

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Well, he didn’t actually steal it,” I said quickly, “So I assumed they couldn’t really do anything. And even if they could, I’m sure they wouldn’t have found him. And if they had, he would have known it was me who ratted him out, and he knows where I work, so that would have been dangerous. And he had very nice manners.”

Rachel blinked at me. “Nice manners?”

“Yes. Aside from the attempted car theft, I mean.”

No Sleep

Okay, so yesterday's post didn't grow, but I'm posting again today, and two post two days in a row is odd for me, so it's pretty much like I expanded on yesterday's post.

You'll have to excuse my badly worded sentences, though. I haven't slept in over 24 hours, which means I'm very fuzzy-headed.

I call it research. I've been making my characters pull a lot of sleepless nights lately. Now I know first-hand what the symptoms of No Sleep are. Brain fuzz, clumsy fingers, giddiness, slowed reaction time, general stupidity...Fun times, fun times.

This lack of sleep is due to a retirement party I was hosting last night. It was nearly a disaster. It was supposed to be a surprise and the guest of honour wound up at the wrong place because the person who was supposed to be luring him to the party didn't get the message the location had changed. It was all very exciting.

Now I can't decide whether or not to go to sleep. I'm afraid if I do, I'll wake up feeling like sludge. *ponders*

Okay, so this was a rather useless post. I promise, next time I'll talk about something literary! (OH! Like how one of the old members of my drama troupe somehow got a SF publishing contract with Random House - lucky little duck.)

Shortest Blog Post Yet! (It's temporary. Promise.)

Ahem.

TWFT is giving away a copy of Hannah Moskowitz's book, BREAK. Go check it out!!

(I swear I'll add more to this post later. Promise, promise, promise!)

Must. Blog. (About Queries and Trailers and Movies-based-on-books, oh my!)

Bad blogger. Bad.

Blogging once a week is not good.

What can I blog about today?

Uhm, I've compiled a list of agents to query. Yes, let's talk about that! QueryTracker only lists 4 Canadian agents. Only two of those agents accept email queries. *headdesk* And the government complains about a lack of Canadian art/media.

Before I actually send these queries, I have to think of a title. Since I've been saying this for the past 3 months, I have a feeling I'm not going to come up with anything brilliant without some help. *goes to pester betas*

Oh! Here's something semi-literary. They're making Lovely Bones into a movie. It's got an awesome trailer. '

*loves Peter Jackson*

He directed Lord of the Rings.

*is secretly a massive LOTR fangirl*

I had the first two movies memorized, once upon a time. And my goal in life was to become fluent in Elvish.

Yah. I was one of THOSE fans.

People always say the movies aren't as good as the books. (In general - I'm not specifically referring to LOTR.) Sometimes, I'd say it's quite obviously true. Other times, I would have to say you're comparing apples and oranges.

LOTR, for example. I think the movies are phenomenal. On some days I would say they were better than the books. These are the days when I'm feeling ADD and couldn't possibly read 12 pages of description about a forest. But on other days I'll say nothing can compare to Tolkein's writing. (Speaking of which, if that man tried to publish LOTR now, I think the agents he submitted to would have simultaneous heart attacks at the sight of his word count -- Oh, wait. Someone did a post on this already! Almost, anyway.)

Most of the times, however, I stick with saying movies and books are two completely different art forms and should not be compared as they frequently are.

That being said, when movies are based on books, there is a certain onus on the production crew to stay true to the author's vision.

So! I ask you, which movies-from-books were amazing? Which would you say just cannot be compared? And which would you say butchered the story so horrendously that you can no longer look at the book without cringing?

Wow. That was a really all-over-the-place-post. This is what happens when I stay up until the wee hours of the morning writing... ^_^

Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry shortcake, huckleberry pie, who's gonna be my lucky guy...

Anyone remember that jumprope game? And then you'd go through the alphabet and when the rope got caught on your feet you had to pick a boy whose name started with the letter you were at and he'd be your future husband, or whatever?

It was like, the most awesome-est game ever when I was 7. But unfortunately the guy I had a crush on was named Adam, which meant I had to purposely trip right at the beginning so I would be able to say his name. That or make it all the way through the alphabet once and then trip when we restarted at A. Things improved when I met Sean.

Anyway, the real reason I was talking about strawberry shortcake was because I made some yesterday. It's the first thing I've ever baked unsupervised and I didn't burn the house down! It even turned out to be edible. *dances around*

On a more literary note, the library sent me an angry letter about my $33 fine. I'm supposed to pay is "as promptly as possible". Heh. Heh. Heh.

I miss being able to go to the library.

Writing-wise, I'm still slogging away on my WIP and trying to come up with a title for the book I'm about to start querying. I'm also trying to learn how to use Dreamweaver so I can make myself a pretty website and look all marketable and such. Which reminds me - I have to buy a domain before someone else nicks my name.

Anywhooo, enough babbling for one day. I have Calculus, and Physics, and Computer Programming assignments to do. *grumbles*

What Was Supposed to be a Post About YA Word Counts, But Turned Into a Post About the Book I'm Querying

I should start blogging more consistently. Should, but probably won't, despite my best efforts.

I went and handed in a resume at the local Staples yesterday. Apparently they're hiring like mad this week, so hopefully I'll get an interview.

Ugh, I've just spent the last 20 minutes writing a brilliant post about the length of YA books today, and then I realized it would probably be put to better use posted on the TWFT blog, which means I can't post it here, now.

So instead! I shall post the synopsis for the book I'm hoping to start querying with, as soon as I can write NB a query without sounding like a squealing fangirl.

Standardized tests say that Abby is a mathematical genius. In her world, things are black and white. One plus one always equals two. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and car thieves are bad people who wear balaclavas and haven’t shaved or showered in several days. Or so she thinks, until she leaves work one day and stumbles across Jay.

Jay is a car thief. In fact, he’s in the midst of stealing her car – with the coffee she just served him perched on the roof. But Jay doesn’t wear a balaclava, he smells quite nice, and claims he doesn’t want to be stealing cars.

Black and white bleeds into grey when Jay is sent on a potentially fatal car thieving expedition and Abby realizes she does not want him skipping town. This leaves her with only one option. She has to help him. Somehow.

This book reeeeally needs a title. And possibly a different last paragraph in the synopsis. Hmmm. What do you think?