Usually a blog post in the middle of the day indicates that I am slacking big time, but not today! I'm sitting in Starbucks (as I do every Friday), having just finished the read thru of the novel I've been prepping for submission over the last two weeks. Final size, you ask? 101k words. That's down from a shade under 128k. Yeah, talk about cutting through some bullshit. I'm very pleased with how sharp the story seems without so much unnecessary description bogging it down. I'm also (shockingly) pleased with the shape of my query letter and synopsis. I wrote them one right after the other, mostly just to get it over with. Cannot emphasize enough how much I hate the query letter and its annoying big bro, the synopsis. The submission process itself is a bit of a bummer (mass rejection, anyone? Bueller?), but a necessary bummer. So, I've thickened my skin and am ready to go...again. I submit to tons of agents at a time (apparently this is a no-no, but whatev), so the process is actually pretty time consuming. It's shaping up to be a fun weekend (that was sarcasm, Sheldon).
In NaNoWriMo related news, I totally had an idea brewing (kickass I'm sure), which I neglected to write down, so now it's lost. Curses. I'm usually better about writing stuff like that down. Unless I can't (i.e. whilst running or dog walking; a surprising number of ideas/sentences occur to me when I am furthest from home and the soothing comfort of a notebook). Well, perhaps it will come back. I do have a backup idea, so we'll see. I think I'll spend October hovering between the novel in progress, and a group of short stories I outlined and started a few weeks ago. I used to write short stories all the time, so I'd like to get back to that and try selling some. The group I've outlined are creating some pretty interesting shapes in my head. Time will tell if I can get those shapes onto the page without messing them up too much.
Just fyi, my spacebar sucks. I had to take the ole laptop to the shop this week because the spacebar got sticky and would just add extra spaces whenever the hell it wanted, which was pretty much every time. I write several hours a day, so can't afford to let go of the computer for an entire day or, worse, days. But I had to have this fixed before NaNoWriMo. The local computer guy we use was extremely helpful and fixed it for five bucks. Well, now it's too stiff, so I have to press hard to get it to work. I usually type about 90 wpm (at 90 percent accuracy too; fear me!), now it feels like I'm typing in slow motion. Ho hum. These first world problems are a real buzz kill, huh? Urgh. Okay, enough bitching.
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