To Mr. McLean

Here's to the first time I heard your voice, the first time we said "I love you," the first time I saw your face, the first time you held my hand, the first time you called me your wife. Here's to our first kiss, our first dance, our first home, our first son, our first daughter....Here's to eight years of firsts...may there never be a last.

Happy Anniversary, to my first and only Mr.

Love, Your Mrs.

Exciting Happenings!

First of all, I want to announce that I have been invited to join the awesome ladies over at the Querytracker Blog. My first post will be up next week, so be sure to come check it out!!

Second, the Querytracker Blog will be doing its first agent judged contest. Joanna Stampfel-Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary will be judging one line hooks. The contest will be open for submissions on Monday, April 13 when the blog post formally announcing the contest goes up (9:00 am Eastern time). The submission window will be open for 24 hours and will expire at 9:00 Eastern time, Tuesday, April 14th.

Check out the blog for more details!

And third, one of my original crit buddies, Jeannie Ruesch, had her first book, Something About Her, come out yesterday! It is awesome, people, just awesome. Go and buy a copy!! You can check out her website here.

Have a great Easter everyone!

WIP Thursday

Okay, we are doing a WIP Thursday since I missed it yesterday (and because once again I have no updates for my reading list). Why is that you ask? Because I have been writing up a storm again!!!

Notebook count - half way through #1
Pen Count - 2...that's right! 2 pens, totally drained dry.

I now have 12,000 words on my WIP and I'm still going strong. I cannot tell you how excited I am by this. I generally get about 5,000 words into a new WIP and lose interest or get stuck or let it slip away for some other reason. I have four books with about three chapters to them. So to get this far and still be going....I have high hopes I might actually finish this one :D AND I have outlines for the next two books in the series. Hot dog, life is good!

How To Find an Agent

As with most subjects, there is more than one way to accomplish this. People could (and have) written entire books on how to find an agent...but I'll just give you a couple tips for how I'm going about this daunting task.

Let me just warn you now, if you don't like research...then finding an agent is going to be tedious for you. Because it requires a LOT of research. So! Here we go....

I use four main sources in my agent searches.

1. Querytracker.net

This site not only allows you to search for an agent by genre, but on it you can create a query list and keep track of all your querying activities. I cannot stress how important it is to keep track of the queries you send and the responses you get. When I started I did this by hand or spreadsheet. That can work...but seriously, if you are going to query, set up an account on this site. It takes all the hassle out of it for you. And it's FREE! You can upgrade to the premium membership if you'd like (something I'd highly recommend you doing - it's not expensive at all and is well worth the money).

This site also provides specifics on agent genres, links to other sites the agent is listed on, and, my all time favorite feature of this site, it has data lists of agent response times and allows comments from members so aspiring authors can share their experiences with agents. This site is seriously incredible, an absolute MUST VISIT if you are in the market for an agent.

There is also a QT forum that has the nicest, most helpful bunch of members I have ever come across...and I've been on a LOT of forums. You can get help on crafting your query or synopsis, member reviews of the first few pages of your manuscript, find information on just about everything query related, and just hang out and chat with other writers. I met all of my critique buddies and closest writer friends on this forum. You do not want to miss out on this treasure.

2. Agentquery.com

This is another excellent source for finding agents. You can search by genre and it will pull up hundreds of agents for you. Each profile lists what the agent is interested in seeing and gives specifics on how that agent prefers to be queried. This is definitely a source you want to check out.

3. Preditors and Editors

With so many scam artists out there ready to take advantage of your quest for publication, you need to be careful who you deal with. This site lists agents, editors and publishers and lets you know who is legit, who has made sales, and who you should steer clear from. I know Patrick, the owner of Querytracker.net, is very diligent in making sure only legitimate agents are listed on his site. Any agent you find on his site, you can query without hesitation. I believe Agentquery is the same way. But it never hurts to be too careful, and if you find an agent from another source, I'd highly recommend you check out P&E just to be on the safe side.

4. Publishers Marketplace

This is another great source for finding agents. You can search for specific agents and see whatever sales they have listed (if you have a membership. And keep in mind that not all agents list their sales, so don't discount an agent just because no sales are listed for them).

So, now that you have a few sources to check out, what do you do next? Well, everyone is different, but here is how I go about it.

1. Get on Querytracker and do a genre search
this will pull up a LOT of agents. You can narrow the search by subgenre if you wish

2. Narrow down the list of agents
this will take a lot of time, so be prepared. This is where it can become a bit tedious if you aren't in to the research thing ;-)

To narrow down my list, I go into each agent's profile and check out the specific genres they represent. You want to find the agent that will best fit your book. So, say I have a YA historical romance that I want to query. When I am looking at the genres the agents represent, I will put the agents that are interested in YA, historical fiction, and romantic fiction on the top of my list. Those that rep just YA and either (but not both) historical or romantic fiction go next. And those that rep just YA, but neither of the other genres, go last.

This is just how I do things, but I figure if I have a book with all those elements, I might have a better shot with an agent that is interested in all the elements.

This is where Querytracker.net comes in handy...again. You can add agents to your query list...and you can give them a priority number. So I automatically know, just by opening my query list, which agents I want to query first, second and third, without having to go back into each profile and searching again.

3. Double, triple, and quadruple check information

Once I have my query list, I am ready to query. But BEFORE I send out anything, I check all the information on my agents. Agents have different preferences when it comes to how they want you to query. Some prefer only emails or only snail mails, some just want a query and others want sample pages. And while all the websites on my list update their information frequently, sometimes one will be updated faster than another. It never, ever hurts to double check some information.

So, once my query list is in place, I go to the agents on that list and use the handy links Querytracker.net provides. Most of the time, I check only two other sites. I check Agentquery.com and I always, ALWAYS check the agent's personal website.

4. Send the query.

Once I have my agent list and all the specifics on how they would like to be queried (mail method and pages they want to see), I am ready to send my query (which has been checked and double checked by my critique partners to make sure it is as polished as I can get it).

I lick that stamp or hit send on my email, and off it goes! I then enter my information on my Querytracker query list and sit and wait for the responses to roll in.

So, while this isn't as hard as one might think, it will take some time, so be prepared to do your homework!

Monday Musings

I have come across hundreds of wonderful quotes, poems, stories, and anecdotes while on searches for other things. I have books and files full of them. So, I thought I might share a few every now and then.

One thing I recently came across was an excerpt from a love letter that Beethoven wrote to a mysterious love (and yes, this is part of the letter that Carrie reads in the Sex and the City movie). He wrote:

Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved…I can live only wholly with you or not at all…No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves…Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.
ever thine
ever mine
ever ours

Do men still write like this anymore? Ahhh, just brought a tear to my eye :) I would love to write like this, create something so beautiful that people are still reading it hundreds of years later. Being written to like this wouldn't be so bad either :)

Blog Chain: Heaven Bless My Critters

This week Mary brings us back to some writing basics. Carolyn shared her experiences before me and Sandra will tackle the question next. Mary would like to know:

Are you in a critique group? If so, at what point do you send chapters to the members of your group? How detailed are the critiques you receive and give? Do all members in you group write the same genre?

I am in a critique group, although I haven’t been very active lately. I didn’t have anything to post for the longest time (major writing slump) and in the meantime, several of the people in my group and I started sending each other stuff privately. So instead of a formal group, I ended up with several incredible critique partners. And seriously, I would be completely lost without them.

I used to post (or send) chapters as I wrote them (after a few rounds of my own proofreading - I only rarely send out first draft stuff and only in small chunks, never for line edits, just for general "do you like where this is going?" type comments. I have found that brainstorming certain scenes and plotlines this way can be really helpful if I'm stuck on a problem. It is fun and amazingly helpful to be able to send a page or two to a crit buddy and see what they think and then to hash out ideas until you get that scene. Brainstorming help is just another perk of having a great group of crit partners).

Wow, that was a long "aside." Anyhow, I figured if I had chapters critiqued as I wrote them, by the time I was done with the book, I’d already have edits waiting and everything would go much quicker. What I discovered though, is that I started revising those chapters as soon as I got critiques…so I wasn’t writing any new chapters. I ended up with three fairly clean chapters (for two different books) and was already so burned out on those books I didn’t want to write any new chapters. So now, I save it up until my book is completely done. Then I usually send a chapter at a time, though I will combine smaller chapters.

And of course, this all goes out the window if I happen to query and get requests before things are totally finalized or if I have done revisions that need looking over. Then I send out the full novel with profuse amounts of bribes, begging, and flattery so my crit mates will take pity and crit my whole novel so I can send it out to the agent. But I try not to do this too often :)

How detailed are my crits? Well, most of the time I don’t think my crits help all that much, but I do try to point out everything that confuses me, makes me stumble, anything at all I think might need work. I nitpick as much as possible and point out every teeny, tiny thing that might need fixin'. I tend to be better with the technical stuff; grammar, punctuation, awkward sentence wording, that kind of thing. Which is why it is a very good idea to have more than one crit mate. Because everyone will catch different things…and the things everyone catches are things you know for sure need work.

As for the crits I receive…I am extremely, ridiculously lucky with the people I send my stuff to. I get really detailed crits – again, usually different stuff from different people. One person might catch all my dumb technical errors, another will give great suggestions for improving plot flow, another will find all those plot holes I thought no one would notice :D I really get excellent crits from my partners.

And no, my crit partners do not all write the same genre. Which makes it really fun to crit. I get to read so many wonderful books. Most of us do use similar elements though. I think we all write with at least some elements of romance, and many of us write YA. But the books are all so diverse, from romantic fantasy, to YA urban fantasy, to middle grade novels, to women's fiction, to straight YA fantasy, to historical romances…so many really incredible books to read. And I have one fabulous friend (the always incredible Carolyn) who also writes non-fiction. I am very much looking forward to reading her book (I've read a little already) and hope she will return the favor should I ever finish my non-fiction :)

The genre thing is tricky. It is a very good idea to have at least one person who is familiar with your genre critting your book…because all genres have little quirks that are unique to that genre and it helps if your partners know what to look for, what needs to be added, and what needs to be left alone.

At the same time, I’ve found it helpful and encouraging to have people who are not familiar with my genre read for me. Because it feels wonderful to have someone say, “I never read historical romances, I usually don’t like them, but I couldn’t put yours down!” If you can keep the interest of someone who doesn’t usually go for what you write, then your chances of keeping the attention of someone who IS interested in that genre are so much greater.

My crit partners have been an absolute Godsend for me…I wouldn’t be where I am without them, and I certainly won’t get where I want to go without their help. I love each and every one of them, love to celebrate their successes with them and comfort them when things don’t go just right…and knowing that they are there for me as well, for all my ups and downs, is a gift I will never be able to thank them enough for.

Work in Progress Wednesday

I had an AWESOME WIP week! I have been writing in my notebook with my beautiful blue gel pen, and I finally, FINALLY got sucked into my story. I LOVE it when that happens. I sat down one day and got out around 5000 words, and have written an additional 3000 or so since then. So my YA urban fantasy is well on it's way and I am very happy with my progress.

Submissions are still pending for my completed novel, and the non-fiction is about to writing stage when I get some stall time from the fiction WIP :)

All in all, a wonderful writing week!!!