The Swamps of Revision

I have climbed the Mountains of Adversity, wandered the Desert of Rejection, and hacked my way through the Jungle of Self-Doubt. I finally had to stop at the 7-Eleven of Dashed Hopes and get myself a Slurpee (the Slurpee of Everlasting Optimism!) because all this wandering around is exhausting.

So, where am I? I'm currently in the Swamps of Revision. I haven't run into any Rodents of Unusual Size yet but if I see one, I'll let you know. In a later post I'll talk about how those revisions are going, but I really came here to mention that I'll be attending the Breathless Reads book signing in Raleigh tomorrow.

I didn't think I'd be able to make it, but thanks to my best bud Aine and my boss, who's very big on me having a life and getting time off, I'll be there!

For those who don't know about the Breathless Reads tour, there'll be five YA authors at the signing:

-Kirsten Miller - The Eternal Ones
-Brenna Yovanoff - The Replacement
-Andrea Cremer - Nightshade
-Ally Condie - Matched
-Beth Revis - Across the Universe

What an amazing lineup! Kinda wish you were going, don't you? Or if nothing else, maybe you wish someone would get you a book signed? Maybe some nice YA writer who has a beagle and blogs on occasion?...

First person to respond to this post gets their pick. Tell me which book you want and who you want it made out to. And if you respond too late, no worries, there'll be more contests.

Update: Congrats, Harmony! I'll be putting your signed copy of Across the Universe in the mail in the next few days.

Never fear, I also got a copy of Andrea Cremer's Nightshade for a future giveaway!

Sisters Red Giveaway: Winner Announced!

I had this grand plan for Lucy the Beagle to help me pick the contest winner. Fanciful ideas of how we'd do it flitted through my head. Perhaps I'd use a bunch of books as dominoes, get Lucy to somehow knock them over, and set off a chain reaction that would reveal the name of the winner. Maybe I'd write down everybody's name on pieces of paper, wrap them around dog treats, and see which one Lucy picked. But in the end, there was one glaring flaw in my otherwise brilliant plan:

Lucy was napping, and she didn't feel like getting up.



I called out to her, "Lucy! Lucy! Come here, girl! I'll give you a treat, you want a treat, don't you?" She must've known I was up to something, because she cracked open one eye, stared at me like I was ridiculous, and returned to her snore-filled slumber.

I tried again, a little more desperate. "Luuuucy! Lucy! Come here! Come! Now!" But the beagle took no pity on me. So I threw everybody's name into a hat and picked a winner. And the winner is....

Pam Vickers!

Congratulations! You win the signed copy of Sisters Red, a $20 gift card to either Borders or Barnes & Noble (your choice), and this because it's cute and wolf-like:



Just don't go after it with an axe, please! It's not a Fenris.

Sisters Red Giveaway

I promised a Sisters Red giveaway, many eons ago, to mark the end of NaNoWriMo. Let's ignore the fact that it's almost January and get this contest started.

The Prize: A hardback copy of Sisters Red, signed by the very funny and very gracious Jackson Pearce. In addition, because I was late with this contest, I will throw in a mystery prize to sweeten the pot. I promise the 'mystery prize' will not be my dog Hope (aka Li'l Sofaeater).

Book Summary:

Scarlett March lives to hunt the Fenris—the werewolves that took her eye when she was defending her sister Rosie from a brutal attack. Armed with a razor-sharp hatchet and blood-red cloak, Scarlett is an expert at luring and slaying the wolves. She’s determined to protect other young girls from a grisly death, and her raging heart will not rest until every single wolf is dead.

Rosie March once felt her bond with her sister was unbreakable. Owing Scarlett her life, Rosie hunts fiercely alongside her. Now Rosie dreams of a life beyond the wolves and finds herself drawn to Silas, a young woodsman who is deadly with an ax—but loving him means betraying her sister and has the potential to destroy all they’ve worked for.

How to Enter:

1. I'm going to change it up and do a random drawing this time. All you need to do is respond to this post and you'll automatically be entered into the contest. The winner will be chosen by my beagle, Lucy. How, I'm not quite sure, but I'm already working on some sort of Rube Goldberg type contraption.

2. For extra credit (and one extra contest entry), please answer the following question: You are skipping towards Grandma's house, carrying a basket full of gifts and supplies. Out of nowhere, you are attacked by a Big Bad Wolf. Using just your cloak and/or the items in your basket, how do you fight back?

3. If you're my little brother, you can't enter.

4. You must follow my blog. You could also follow me on Twitter (@LiteraryMouse), but you don't have to if you don't want to.

5. The deadline is Monday, January 10, at 9pm EST.

If you have any questions about contest rules, please leave them in the comments!

Update: The contest is closed! I'll announce the winner either tomorrow or Friday. Thanks to everyone who entered.

NaNoWriSlow: The Aftermath

November has passed. The increasingly sad-looking pumpkin that was sitting on my porch has been put out of its misery, the temperature's dropped about 20 degrees and suddenly, everybody's talking about this jolly fat guy in a red suit who'll be making a visit on the 25th.

How'd my NaNoWriSlow experiment go? Well, it went slowly, as you might have guessed. I got a grand total of... 18 pages done! Nowhere near my goal, but the words I did get in were polished and prettified and I managed to work out a major plot issue, so I'm pretty happy with the results.

I promised a giveaway. Having rooted around my prize lair, I've decided to give away a signed copy of Jackson Pearce's Sisters Red. Stay tuned for contest rules and regs!

NaNoWriSlow: Update

I can't believe November is almost over. What happened? I vaguely remember taking down Halloween decorations, getting ready for Faeriecon, then...BAM! All the sudden it's the day before Thanksgiving. What's up with that, space-time continuum? I think I lost an entire week somewhere in there.

How is everybody's NaNo projects coming along? Feel free to give updates in the comments. I'd love to hear how you all are doing. As for me... I've gotten 13 pages done! That's actually not bad, because as you might've guessed by the title of this post, and the turtle pic below, I write slow. But I don't go back to work until Tuesday, so I have an extra long weekend to get more writing done.

As I've mentioned, I'm working on a sequel to my Knights of Avalon mss, about the Knights of the Round Table reincarnated as New Jersey teens. Here's a description of Knights of Avalon from my query:

Sixteen-year-old Justine Kwiatkowski doesn’t believe in magic, she doesn’t believe in reincarnation, and she never planned on having to fill King Arthur’s shoes. All she knows is that last night, the best friend she’s ever had, Gwen Martinez, went missing outside the town of Avalon and she’ll do whatever it takes to get her back.

But if she wants to rescue Gwen, she’ll have to believe in a world she thought only existed in legend, because her best friend happens to be the reincarnation of Guinevere, and fifteen hundred years after the fall of Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table have returned, reborn as New Jersey teens.

Problem is, Mordred and Morgan le Fay are back too, having kidnapped Gwen, and unlike most of the knights, they remember who they once were.

With Mordred murdering the knights before they can regain their memories, Justine has to figure out how to track down the few remaining survivors – a star football player, a brilliant artist teetering on the brink of madness, a high school dropout working odd jobs to support his family - and convince them to bury centuries-old grudges and work together. If she can do that, she just might save her friend, and maybe, the world.

In Knights of Avalon, my MC Justine is up against Mordred, even though she has no idea who Mordred is until the end of the book. Or to use a visual metaphor, it's like this:



Two opponents, equally matched, trying to outmaneuver the other. Awww, aren't they adorable? Thinking they're so tough and bad-ass.

In my sequel, it's Justine vs. Morgan le Fay, which goes down something like this:



Morgan le Fay is the orange cat, if you couldn't guess. The idea is that Justine is way out of her league on this one, and has to do everything in her power just to stay alive. We'll see how it works out.

NaNoWriSlow

Hi, my name's Melissa and I write slow. And that's OK!

Also, I never focus on word count, because I've learned from experience that just doesn't work for me. It's all right if you're different!



So, NaNoWriMo? More like NaNoChanceInHell. But I do want to participate, and I love setting unrealistic and unattainable goals for myself (it's like a hobby), so I'm going to give it a go, playing by my own set of rules.

My goal: Finish the rough draft of the sequel to Knights of Avalon by 11:59pm on November 30.

I'm already about 35% done and I have a definite idea of where the story's going, so it should be less daunting than writing a novel from the ground up.

The Rules

1. It's OK if I don't finish. Even in trying this, I'll have made more progress than I otherwise would have.

2. I won't sacrifice quality for quantity. Channel the spirit of the turtle, slow and steady is the way to go.

3. I don't have to write every night. With my job and other responsibilities, it's just not possible.

4. Most importantly, I will have fun!

The Prizes

Because everything's better with prizes. Here's the deal: I'll post updates throughout the month on how I'm doing. I doubt it'll happen, but if by some miracle I meet my goal, I'll have a huge book giveaway. Even if I don't finish, I'll still do a contest, with me giving away more stuff the further along I get in the story.

I guess I better get started, because I've got a lot of writing ahead of me. Onwards! (Slowly)

Query Update: Neurotic Writer Is Neurotic

I'm not particularly thrilled with the name, but my blog is called 'Surviving Writing a Book' for a reason. There are days, many days, when I feel I haven't so much embarked on a quest to get published as I've embarked on a slow descent into madness.

Just so you know where I stand with things: I have a YA Urban Fantasy called Knights of Avalon, about the Knights of the Round Table being reincarnated as New Jersey teens. I love my story. Yeah, yeah, I know all writers love their stories, but I fully, 100%, believe in this story, in a way that I didn't know was possible until I wrote it.

Problem is, I've been querying for over a year now and have piled up enough rejections to create a very pleasant bonfire with which to roast marshmallows over. I know my query isn't the problem. I've gotten too many partial and full requests for that to be the issue. No, it's something with the manuscript itself.

Some of the agents who have rejected me, very kind and awesome agents, have told me that they just didn't fall in love with the manuscript. I get that a lot and really, that's not a bad response to get, but at some point, when you hear that over and over, you wish there was a more fixable problem. Something like, "There's a giant plot hole...right over there." Yeah, I could fix that. But how do I make someone love something? Maybe have an agent read the manuscript over a candlelight dinner? With a violin concerto softly playing in the background?



I have my suspicions...maybe my main character is too unsympathetic, maybe my words somehow lack emotional impact, maybe I just don't write well enough... but I'll keep working at it, always trying to make my story better, because while I believe 100% in Knights of Avalon, I also believe 100% that there's still room for improvement.

I'm kind of running out of agents to pester though, and at this point, I have the feeling I'm not going to find one. Not right now, at least. It's frustrating, and I would prefer to have one, because my beagle can negotiate a contract better than I can. But I'll go it alone if I have to, and I think I'm going to start querying publishers (reputable ones) who accept unagented submissions. And you better believe I saw Sourcebooks' call for YA manuscripts and sent mine in weeks ago. Wish me luck, because so far my luck's been pretty lousy, and I'll let you all know how it goes!