NaNoWriMo

I just signed up for NaNoWriMo (nanowrimo.org), which stands for National Novel Writing Month. The website's goal is to have authors complete a 50,000-word rough draft during the month of November. Challenging, right? Definitely. This event comes at the perfect time for me because I'm not quite ready to start on another Kody Burkoff mystery. (By the way, in case you're curious, the next Kody book will most likely include her ex-Las Vegas showgirl friend, Nancy, as the main character.) During November, I plan to try something a little different. It's been in my thoughts since last spring when I taught a creative writing class to a small group of middle schoolers. This new book will be about an eleven-year-old boy and the game of baseball. My target audience is boys between the ages of 8 and 11. With two boys of my own and a baseball fanatic for a husband, I feel I am quite qualified for this topic. Not to leave my daughter out, the boy will have a sister who loathes the game.

I jotted down some notes yesterday about the plot and feel pretty good about it. What I'm having a dilemma over now is whether to write the story in first or third person. I feel more comfortable writing in first, but it would give me an extra challenge to write it in third. I'll have to let you know what I decide.

Book #3: First query submitted

After much thought and having scoured every word of my 276-word query letter, I made my first submission yesterday. I spent about a week and a half perfecting it, with the help of my mom, so it feels pretty good to (hopefully) have someone else read it. I'll get busy sending it out to more agents. Word is that I should send out 10 queries a week. So far, I have a list of about 30 agents, which means I'll need to keep researching. I can't imagine my luck turning around in just three weeks. But, hey, you never know!

I never really discussed my plan for book #3 on this blog. Oh, and by the way, I'm using the working title, Crossing Carol. It may not be perfect, but at least it's something. All the other names I came up with were so overdone. Anyway, Crossing Carol is complete at just over 80,000 words (Yay, me!) and I plan to make agent submissions until someone accepts me. Usually at this time, I would get the book ready for self-publishing, but I want to try traditional publishing. The perk being that someone else can help with marketing (Yay, someone else!).

Final edit compete, at least for now

Just past the deadline, I finished editing my manuscript. I'm happy, yet not ecstatic, probably because I know that if I was to start the editing process all over again, I'd make just as many changes. But...I must move on. The next step in the process is to write the dreaded query letter, luring a prospective agent to read a few pages and snag them with my excellence. I'm hoping for better luck this time. My past attempts have been futile and short-lived. I have vowed to put in more of an effort this time. I will query until I can query no more!

The synopsis is also on my to-do list. That's another daunting task. I spent almost a year writing an 80,000-word novel and am now supposed to write a three-page summary of it, double-spaced. Who came up with that idea? I bet it wasn't a writer.