I'm back America.
My Christmas was pretty good. The only probelm in that department is the food will still have in the fridge after all of it is over. Anyways, I've decided that my blog entry is going to be a little bit different today so instead of talking about how my story is progressing, I want to talk about something else that has been on my mind this holiday season that kind of makes me happy and sad at the same time.
Electronic books or 'e-books' are they are called nowadays.
Why is this making me happy and sad at the same time? Well, I'll tell you.
The good news about e-books: You can download as close to a thousand books or more on one little electronic gadget without turning pages or scrambling to put the book cover back on whenever you're trying to read it. Also, a person can't physically carry a thousand books everywhere they go (If they do, good luck with the back pain you're gonna need it). Not only can it download books, it can download newspaers as well. Overall, a great buy for someone who's sick and tired of carrying books everywhere they go right?
The bad news about e-books: If it keeps evovling, bookstores will keep disappearing which means that thousands of people will be without jobs. Whenever you like a book on your e-reader and want to have it as a keepsake for your own collection, you won't be able to get it in a paperback or hardcopy edition. All you can do is save it on a fileon your e-reader.
How reliable is that huh?
For the people that think I'm blowing this way out of portportion, I would like you to consider the technology that's going on right now. Look at how e-mail and online shopping has changed the revolution at how people shop and communicate. The post office is now in trouble because of the drama surrounding the internet. Everyone can pay their bills online. People are buying gifts from Amazon instead of physically shopping in stores and buying them. Even communicating to the outside world has been replaced by people joining facebook and myspace.
Overall, things are changing. The world that was once filled with analog TVs, Nintendo, and going out to meet people has been replaced by the digital converter box, Nitendo Wii, and Twitter and in some ways, it just makes me sad. Five or ten years from now, I wouldn't be surprised if everything went digital and the good old days I have known since I was little girl fades out into the background...
Until that day comes, I will cherish these days of having paperback and hardcover books as long as possible...
See ya next time.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Happy Holidays to you...
Hello, everyone.
My blog is going to be really short today because it's the holidays and I really don't have very much to say right now. Yesterday, I was checking out the blogs of two literary agents who I have paid close attention to this past year: Nathan Bransford and Kirstin Nelson. On both of their blogs, I found out a lot if useful information on how they go about their daily lives when it comes to them offering representation. I also found posts about how each writer goes through their writing process when they are finished with thier first draft (Nathan's) or what the new agnets are expecting once that manuscript sparkles and shines like nobody's business.
You can find them both here and here
Happy Holidays!
My blog is going to be really short today because it's the holidays and I really don't have very much to say right now. Yesterday, I was checking out the blogs of two literary agents who I have paid close attention to this past year: Nathan Bransford and Kirstin Nelson. On both of their blogs, I found out a lot if useful information on how they go about their daily lives when it comes to them offering representation. I also found posts about how each writer goes through their writing process when they are finished with thier first draft (Nathan's) or what the new agnets are expecting once that manuscript sparkles and shines like nobody's business.
You can find them both here and here
Happy Holidays!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
All about YA, A failed attempt at writing a short story and depression...again!
This weekend was not a very good weeked for me (I know, I know...How many times are you going to say this? Why can't you think of anything new? Go out a get a life for christ sakes!
But you have to understand why I'm complaining like this.
I recently read something that caught my attention stating that in order to promote your writing, you have to at least post some sort of short stories so the readers can read your work and if they like it, they will go out and buy your book whenever you can find a literary agent and a publisher who loves your book so much that it deserves reconigiton (with a few revisions of course).
Well, this weekend I tried to write a short story that was based on a very popular theme: Christmas. The short story was going to be called The Voodoo Elves and it was supposed to be about the main characters in The Electric eel Bandit going back to the U.S. to stop a bunch of elves from killing children and taking all of their christmas presents for themselves. Pretty Cool idea right?
I thought so too...but then I wrote the first page and tore it up into pieces.
I'm pretty sure that I'm going to make a second attempt at this but I don't think that I'm going to do the story based on a theme, especially one that involves 'the christmas spirit' since Christmas is just around the corner. I think that it's too much pressure for me to handle at this point.
Anyways, I came up with two new short story ideas (That could possibly turn into books if people are interested) that both fall in the YA category. Since I've shared way too much information with my failed idea of writing a short story, I'm going to keep those two to myself.
In other news, please don't be afraid of what I put up in the title of my entry today. I'm not thinking about harming myself in any way, shape or form. The reason why I'm going into a state of SLIGHT depression is because I'm confused about what to expect from all of the agents blogs I've been reading lately. There are so many things to be expected from an author. I just don't know what to do with myself.
Until next time.
But you have to understand why I'm complaining like this.
I recently read something that caught my attention stating that in order to promote your writing, you have to at least post some sort of short stories so the readers can read your work and if they like it, they will go out and buy your book whenever you can find a literary agent and a publisher who loves your book so much that it deserves reconigiton (with a few revisions of course).
Well, this weekend I tried to write a short story that was based on a very popular theme: Christmas. The short story was going to be called The Voodoo Elves and it was supposed to be about the main characters in The Electric eel Bandit going back to the U.S. to stop a bunch of elves from killing children and taking all of their christmas presents for themselves. Pretty Cool idea right?
I thought so too...but then I wrote the first page and tore it up into pieces.
I'm pretty sure that I'm going to make a second attempt at this but I don't think that I'm going to do the story based on a theme, especially one that involves 'the christmas spirit' since Christmas is just around the corner. I think that it's too much pressure for me to handle at this point.
Anyways, I came up with two new short story ideas (That could possibly turn into books if people are interested) that both fall in the YA category. Since I've shared way too much information with my failed idea of writing a short story, I'm going to keep those two to myself.
In other news, please don't be afraid of what I put up in the title of my entry today. I'm not thinking about harming myself in any way, shape or form. The reason why I'm going into a state of SLIGHT depression is because I'm confused about what to expect from all of the agents blogs I've been reading lately. There are so many things to be expected from an author. I just don't know what to do with myself.
Until next time.
Monday, December 7, 2009
A new way to rewriting my manuscript, More on Ideas and word count
Today, is not a great day for me. Why? Because I have not finished the latest version of my draft yet and I already thinking about how to rewrite it...again.
Lord, help me.
The only good thing that came out of the idea of rewriting my manuscript is trying to rewrite the story in a different way. No, not in the regular maunscript form that I have always been doing but something that is a totally different medium altogehter.
My brain has decided that since I have already done the rewriting process chapter by chapter, I should try write it scene by scene like a screenplay.
Yup, you heard me. I should write a screenplay.
I'm not totally crazy right? Who knows, maybe the best thing for me to do is write it out in screenplay form so I can get a sense of where I want the story to go. I could also write it out in a screenplay format to check out what's missing from the story that I might have missed in my manuscript. But I have to admit that this is just an idea that I haven't totally considered yet and told myself that I'm not going to make any sudden moves until I finish rewriting the latest draft of my novel.
Why? Because when you start something, you should always finish it.
In other news, my head is buzzing with all sorts of ideas not only for the Truson S.E.T. book series itself but for other books as well. One of them just so happens to be a erotic sci-fi romance about a heroine who lives on the moon and is surrounded with nothing but other women that came from Earth (Which is extinct). She gets sick of being around them and expresses her desire to have sex with men. Eventually, they end up bringing a new kind of species to the moon that ends up turning the heroine's world upside down...aliens. I don't know where the idea goes from there but it's something I'm thinking about doing considering I want to write in the two fields I love to read the most: YA and Romance.
Finally, I'm still thinking about that article I found the other day about YA word count. I might have another idea for another YA that is probably going to be shorter than the book I have now. Again, I'm going to focus on my first YA novel now and write down whatever ideas come to me.
Until next time writng world!
Dominique
Lord, help me.
The only good thing that came out of the idea of rewriting my manuscript is trying to rewrite the story in a different way. No, not in the regular maunscript form that I have always been doing but something that is a totally different medium altogehter.
My brain has decided that since I have already done the rewriting process chapter by chapter, I should try write it scene by scene like a screenplay.
Yup, you heard me. I should write a screenplay.
I'm not totally crazy right? Who knows, maybe the best thing for me to do is write it out in screenplay form so I can get a sense of where I want the story to go. I could also write it out in a screenplay format to check out what's missing from the story that I might have missed in my manuscript. But I have to admit that this is just an idea that I haven't totally considered yet and told myself that I'm not going to make any sudden moves until I finish rewriting the latest draft of my novel.
Why? Because when you start something, you should always finish it.
In other news, my head is buzzing with all sorts of ideas not only for the Truson S.E.T. book series itself but for other books as well. One of them just so happens to be a erotic sci-fi romance about a heroine who lives on the moon and is surrounded with nothing but other women that came from Earth (Which is extinct). She gets sick of being around them and expresses her desire to have sex with men. Eventually, they end up bringing a new kind of species to the moon that ends up turning the heroine's world upside down...aliens. I don't know where the idea goes from there but it's something I'm thinking about doing considering I want to write in the two fields I love to read the most: YA and Romance.
Finally, I'm still thinking about that article I found the other day about YA word count. I might have another idea for another YA that is probably going to be shorter than the book I have now. Again, I'm going to focus on my first YA novel now and write down whatever ideas come to me.
Until next time writng world!
Dominique
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Word count and Ancient Egypt
Hey everybody, I'm back. I know I was supposed to put a blog entry up on Saturady but by the time I was able to get to it, The weekend had already passed. There's plenty of things that I want to talk about today (Even though I'm supposed to be sitting down reading twilight and working on chapter nineteen of my lastest draft of my novel).
Time to move on.
I was recently browsing the internet for something that was related to the young adult category and came across a website that had an article about word count when it came to YA novels. The article was so interesting that I decided to print it out and read what some of the literary agents, authors, and librarians said about what YA represents and how many pages a YA novel should have.
According to MiG's article on thier website MG vs. YA fiction what's the difference?
Here what one qoute said:
"The word round the agency blogosphere is that these books tend to trend longer, saying that you can top in the 80K. However, when it gets into the 70's you may be all right - but you have to have a reason for going that high. Again, higher word counts usually mean that the writer does not know how to edit themselves. A good reason to have a longer YA novel that tops out at the high end of the scale is if it's science fiction or fanstasy. Once again, these categories are expected to be a little longer because of the world-building."
"Concerning the low end, below 55k could be all right but I wouldn't drop much below 47k."
Interesting.
Well, I just recently checked the number of pages on my manuscript and come to find out, it's between 450 and 500 pages.
I'm in trouble.
The truth? I had forgotten all about the word count when it came to YA. I just got lost within the story, not knowing that there was a word limit to how much I could write without going overboard. I have to admit that when I read this article, I ended up being in a state of panic. Then, panic turned into depression...
For those who are thinking about writing a novel, ANY kind of novel...let me tell you: If you think that writing the first draft of your novel is the easiest thing in the world, you're right.
But rewriting the novel over and over again...That's the hardest part in the entire galaxy.
Once I finally got over my little episode of feeling sorry for myself, I got back up on my feet and ended up creating a chart (Well, it's supposed to be a chart but right now it's just a bunch of huge sentences all smashed together on a sheet of paper) about the history of Truson, The animan three-hundred (A blue chemical used throughout the story to create the shapeshifters in the first place) and eventually I'll end up creating a character worksheeet (I know I know, I should have done that in the first place what was I thinking? ) for all ten characters that will appear in the upcoming series of manuscripts that I intend on doing starting in 2010.
Who knows? Maybe I won't make any of the mistakes in the second manuscript of the series like I did in the first one. Hint of Advice: ALWAYS LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES.
Meanwhile, I'm also doing the first outline of the second novel in the series but I promised myself that I wasn't going to start on the novel until I finished the latest draft of my novel first.
Moving on...
While I was filling out the history of the Animan three-hundred, I actually did some reasearch on ancient Egypt and found out how much I really liked it. Did you know that ancient egyptians used a plant called a papryus to scribble their writings and roll them up so that they could take it with them everywhere they went? Did you know that the people who went to learn how to read and write mostly came from wealthy families while the peasants stayed at home and helped their mom out with the chores?
If you already know this stuff then good for you. If not, well consider it to be a lesson for the day.
I have to admit, I like doing this so-called chart because it's taking me back to where ancient civilization began...Egypt.
Okay, gotta go. I think I said WAY MORE then I was supposed to. See ya.
*Note: I'm having some probelms with my facebook page so please don't contact me there. If you want to say something about my blog, please post your comments below. Also, You can check out all of their posts here. Look up their previous post on thier website and I'm sure you'll be able to find it.
Time to move on.
I was recently browsing the internet for something that was related to the young adult category and came across a website that had an article about word count when it came to YA novels. The article was so interesting that I decided to print it out and read what some of the literary agents, authors, and librarians said about what YA represents and how many pages a YA novel should have.
According to MiG's article on thier website MG vs. YA fiction what's the difference?
Here what one qoute said:
"The word round the agency blogosphere is that these books tend to trend longer, saying that you can top in the 80K. However, when it gets into the 70's you may be all right - but you have to have a reason for going that high. Again, higher word counts usually mean that the writer does not know how to edit themselves. A good reason to have a longer YA novel that tops out at the high end of the scale is if it's science fiction or fanstasy. Once again, these categories are expected to be a little longer because of the world-building."
"Concerning the low end, below 55k could be all right but I wouldn't drop much below 47k."
Interesting.
Well, I just recently checked the number of pages on my manuscript and come to find out, it's between 450 and 500 pages.
I'm in trouble.
The truth? I had forgotten all about the word count when it came to YA. I just got lost within the story, not knowing that there was a word limit to how much I could write without going overboard. I have to admit that when I read this article, I ended up being in a state of panic. Then, panic turned into depression...
For those who are thinking about writing a novel, ANY kind of novel...let me tell you: If you think that writing the first draft of your novel is the easiest thing in the world, you're right.
But rewriting the novel over and over again...That's the hardest part in the entire galaxy.
Once I finally got over my little episode of feeling sorry for myself, I got back up on my feet and ended up creating a chart (Well, it's supposed to be a chart but right now it's just a bunch of huge sentences all smashed together on a sheet of paper) about the history of Truson, The animan three-hundred (A blue chemical used throughout the story to create the shapeshifters in the first place) and eventually I'll end up creating a character worksheeet (I know I know, I should have done that in the first place what was I thinking? ) for all ten characters that will appear in the upcoming series of manuscripts that I intend on doing starting in 2010.
Who knows? Maybe I won't make any of the mistakes in the second manuscript of the series like I did in the first one. Hint of Advice: ALWAYS LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES.
Meanwhile, I'm also doing the first outline of the second novel in the series but I promised myself that I wasn't going to start on the novel until I finished the latest draft of my novel first.
Moving on...
While I was filling out the history of the Animan three-hundred, I actually did some reasearch on ancient Egypt and found out how much I really liked it. Did you know that ancient egyptians used a plant called a papryus to scribble their writings and roll them up so that they could take it with them everywhere they went? Did you know that the people who went to learn how to read and write mostly came from wealthy families while the peasants stayed at home and helped their mom out with the chores?
If you already know this stuff then good for you. If not, well consider it to be a lesson for the day.
I have to admit, I like doing this so-called chart because it's taking me back to where ancient civilization began...Egypt.
Okay, gotta go. I think I said WAY MORE then I was supposed to. See ya.
*Note: I'm having some probelms with my facebook page so please don't contact me there. If you want to say something about my blog, please post your comments below. Also, You can check out all of their posts here. Look up their previous post on thier website and I'm sure you'll be able to find it.
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