I did it with chapter one of Bandit, writing down new words from twilight

Hello everyone, Just came by to tell you the great news. A long time ago, I tried to rewrite my first novel called An Unlikely Reunion. I rewrote it so many times that by the time I finished it, I wanted to lock it in the closet and never take it out again (Yes, there were a few times where I might have been temepted but I still kept my word). As of today, I managed to write the third rewrite of the bandit, read it, correct any mistakes I made from the third rewrite into the fourth rewrite and no complaints!!! I even managed to let go of the fourth rewrite and go back to doing the third rewrite of chapter two!!!! YIPEEEEE! This means that I'm capable of writing and rewriting my work as I go! This means that I could have a faster first and second draft with every manuscript I do. I hope that this never ends!

Okay, enough of that.

I know there are people out there who's sick and tired of me talking about twilight but I've decided to add some words that I've learned from the first book to enchance my story in the bandit. I'm probably only going to do a few words until my next blog entry. Hope you enjoy!

First ten words from chapters 1-3 of twilight:

Omnipresent - The quality of being everywhere present at the same time: ubiquity.

Verbose - Using or containing a wearisome and unnecessary number of words; wordy.

Scarcity - Scantiness, insufficiency; lack of necessities; dearth.

Permeable - To spread or diffuse through, to pass through the pore’s or interstices of, to penetrate something.

Scanty - Limited in extent; Small, close; cramped. Restricted in quantity or number; scarely sufficient. Sparing.

Pallid - Of a pale or wan appearance; feeble in color.

Nostalgically - Severe or poignant homesickness. Any longing for something far away or long ago.

Idling - Not occupied; doing nothing. Averse to labor; lazy. Affording leisure. Without effect; useless; unavailing; Mech. To Operate without transmitting power, usually, at reduced speed; said of motors and machines.

Gangly - Awkwardly tall and loosely built.

Prattled - To talk foolishly or like a child; prate. To utter in a foolish and a childish way; to prattle secrets. Childish speech; babble. Idle or foolish talk.


P.S. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Title: YIPEEEE! Finished my first chapter of Bandit, Finished reading Tangerine

Hi all, Sorry I’ve been M.I.A. for the last couple of days. I just got finished reading this excellent book called Tangerine by Edward Bloor. It’s about a boy name Eric Fisher who moves to Tangerine Florida with his parents in order to start a brand new life in another town. But as soon as they get settled in, mysterious things starts to happen in Tangerine that Paul can’t figure out, including an incident that involves his older brother Erik and those mysterious glasses that he wears all the time in order to help him see…

I’m just going to leave it at that. It’s a really good book. I’ve decided not to give anything else away in case you want to read the book.

In other news, I’m very excited about what’s going on in my life right now. After trying to rewrite The Electric eel Bandit (and failing because of the story’s premise about underwater creatures and the whole human/shape shifter scenario) and months of being stuck on what to do next, I finally managed to write the first chapter (and third rewrite) of The Electric eel Bandit (A.K.A Bandit) and I LOVE it!!!!! It’s totally better than the first and second drafts and I’m constantly writing down all the stuff I need to work on after I finished the third draft.

In case you’re confused, here’s what I plan to do.

After I write the third draft of chapter one, I plan on going back to chapter one and rewriting it again (which would make a fourth draft for the story) but I’m only going to do this ONCE. If I rewrite the fourth draft and realize they’re something missing that I should have put in sooner, I’ll make a note of it and move on to chapter two. I plan on doing the same thing with chapter two, chapter three, four etc…until I reached chapter fifteen.

Third rewrite of Chapter One + rewrite = Fourth draft of Chapter One
Third rewrite of Chapter Two + rewrite = Fourth draft of Chapter Two

You see where I’m going with this?

In case you’re wondering where the third rewrite came from, I had already completed and rewrote this novel one (There was the first draft and then I rewrote it which left the second draft for the novel) and now I’m in my third rewrite of the novel but by the time I’m finished, I will have the third and fourth rewrite of the novel DONE. Isn’t that amazing??? Although I’m excited about writing and rewriting my novel, I would strongly not recommend this to people who have not completed a manuscript. If you can handle writing and rewriting the first and second draft of your manuscript, then so be it. But if you write (and rewrite) the first and second drafts of chapter one to the point where you want to scream you might want to take a long-winded vacation…

I’m just saying…

Moving on, here is my system on how I plan to write my novel according to the page count:

Chapter One = twenty pages
Chapter Two = twenty pages
Chapter Three = twenty pages
Chapter Four = twenty pages
Chapter Five = twenty pages
Chapter six = twenty pages
Chapter Seven = twenty pages
Chapter Eight = twenty pages
Chapter nine = twenty pages
Chapter ten = twenty pages

The total of Chapter one through ten: two-hundred pages or 50,000 words when you divide it by 250 words per page.

This is one option for me if I want to make my novel shorter. Depending on the plot and characters of the novel, I could possibly go with this option. However, I think that what I’m writing about is much bigger than ten chapters could possibly hold. In that case, I’ll continue on with my list.

Chapter eleven = twenty pages
Chapter twelve = twenty pages
Chapter thirteen = twenty pages
Chapter fourteen = twenty pages
Chapter Fifteen = twenty pages

The total of Chapter one through fifteen: three-hundred pages or 75,000 words.

I’m stopping between two-hundred and three-hundred pages when it comes to this book more or less. No matter what the page count is between the numbers above, I know one rule I have decided not to follow until I’m well established in the publishing industry to pull it off: I WILL NOT write any YA novel that’s over four-hundred pages (Also known as over 100,000 words if you’re paying attention to word count). That’s what I did with my second draft and it ended up being a total mess. I can’t even look at it anymore. What was I thinking? In the end, I’d rather be safe then sorry. I stick to the word count like the literary agencies and publishers want so they’ll be able to read my fourth draft without having a question mark in their head on whether they should represent me or not.

Dominique

P.S. I finished my journal entry on chapters ten through twelve in my notebook Moved on to chapter thirteen. Don’t know when I’m going to be able to post them online but all I can say is that it’ll be soon…

The Thing about contests, need to do a journal entry on Twilight

Well, I entered into the knight agency contest today. I had hopes that I would be able to be in the contest but the first 129 comments came in two mintues after seven 'o' clock so I ended up being screwed. I thought I had hope when Deirdre Knight said that they would randomly draw eight people who signed into the comment section between seven and seven-thirty (In eastern time, it's between eight and eight-thirty since New York is an hour ahead of where I live) but I just looked on their website and found out I was not one of the eight people selected for the contest.

Bummer.

Even though I'm sad that I wasn't chosen for this contest, this has taught me a very valuable leasson when it comes to publishing contests: If you really want to be considered for literary representation or for a publisher to read your work, do things the old fashioned way. Send in a query letter, wait about a month or two for a response (or more depending on the agency or publisher) and if it's not the results that you want, keep trying. So far, I've entered three contests that I somehow knew I was going to win. Those contests were:

YA novel Discovery Contest
Medical Fastrack contest (A contest sponsored by Harlequin medical romance team for first novels)
The knight Agency: Speed Dating with Deidre Knight

So far, I've lost in all three contests and don't plan on entering in any more contests...EVER. Like I said before, I'm going to do things the old fashioned way. At least I know I'll get some sort of response from that person at that time (Good or bad). Oh well, back to square one again. Despite what happened today, I'm still not giving up on my writing dreams.

Dominique

Taking my time researching Twilight, Entering into a contest at the Knight Agency

Hi, you guys. I know it's been awhile since I've written a real blog. I've just been so busy and my head has been filled with so many ideas that I haven't had time to write much of anything. Anyways, I've been taking notes and reaserching Twilight lately and even though it's taking a little longer than expected (I'm halfway done with it, it's just that the book is sooooo long!) I'm still writing journal entries on what I've noticed every time I read three chapters at a time (I would read three chapters then take notes on what I noticed). But I have to admit that my research of what Stephanie Meyers is doing in the middle portion of Twilight is kind of boring.

I kept talking about the scenery and dialogue for the last two (or three) journal entries since I've read it until I can't talk about it anymore so I'm deciding to change it up by talking about her techiniques she used in the chapters into writing excercises I could do in order to improve my writing of The Electric eel Bandit (Which I'm thinking about changing it to 'Bandit' since the first title seem to scare some literary agents away). I'm also thinking about posting some of my journal entries on my blog so that people can get a better idea of what I'm talking about when it comes to what I observed in twilight and share it with everyone else too.

In other news, I've been reading some newsletters from my inbox and there was one newsletter that caught my attention this week from the knight agency (You can find it on their website here under the newsletter section of the website). It was an article from Lucienne Driver titled 'beginnings' and offered great advice on how to start your novel in a way to make your readers go 'hmmmm'(I especially like the part about using dialogue to get your readers attention). This article gave me several ideas on how to rewrite the beginning of the 'bandit'. I liked this article so much that I decided to print it out and keep it into my writer profile to use in the future. (Although I have to admit that I need to put all of my writing articles in order but I'll talk about that later). In addition to that, I also read a good article on what they are thankful for this holiday season as well as what they want to see when looking at manuscripts. You should really check it out.

Finally, There is a contest on their blog on submitting a manuscript for consideration here by none other than Deidre Knight. I think it's a good idea for anyone who might be interested. I'm thinking about sending one in myself ('Addicted') just to see where it takes me. I should get started on it right now since I'll probably be exhausted by the time I'm finished with it.

Until we meet again

Dominique

Letting my writing lead to whereever it takes me, still doing twilight

Hello, long time no writing. I have to get better at this. I'm still trying to figure out ways to make my blog sound less boring so I can search for some people to read my blog. I'm not being too serious on a project right now because my head is filled with crazy ideas in many different genres so I'm going to let my ideas take me to wherever it wants to go. I'm going to try and get better at this but again, no guarantees.

Dominique

Made up my mind (again), Changing it back to YA and going into screenplays

Hi, everyone. I’m so happy to be back. I have to admit that I was sick for awhile but now, I’ve come back and I’m hoping that I could come up with some new ideas about how to get people to read my blog. One of my ideas that I read from a website is to read and review books and that’s what I’m going to start doing. I’m already reviewing TWILIGHT but like I said before, I don’t want to use some of the quotes in her book if it’s in violation of her book rights. So far, I have journal entries (Two) that deals with what she’s doing in terms of pacing, plotting, dialogue, POV etc. and I think it would make a good journal entry but again, I don’t want to violate her rights. Anyways, I’m still reading and researching TWILIGHT and I’m about to reread another book called GOT FANGS by Katie Maxwell that I bought a long time ago so I could take notes on it.

In other news, I’m sticking to my original plan (after much thought and consideration and my latest rejection letter in the romance department) to finish up my manuscript of THE ELECTRIC EEL BANDIT. I have to admit that it’s going really well and I’m starting to like this version better than my second draft. There will be a few changes with it however and one of them being that the manuscript will be strictly between two-hundred and three-hundred pages PERIOD. No if, and or buts about it. After this rewrite, if the agents still doesn’t show any interest in my work, I might have to send it to some small presses (Milkweed editions, Flux etc…) and see if they like my work more than the agents do. Oh well, I can’t be here for too long. I have to get back to work.

Dominique

P.S. I have also decided that an addition to being a YA/Children’s author, I’m thinking about writing a few screenplays as well and becoming a screenwriter. I have wanted to do this for awhile but tried to ignore what I’ve been feeling in my heart all along. Now, the only thing I have to do is act on it. I’ll have more about this later on down the line. For now, I have to get back to writing.

Changing my YA into category romance... Sent off submission to contest

Hi everybody

I'm not going to be long, I have work to do. I recently sent off a partial to a contest that mills and boon sponsored back in July for Medical submissions and I went for it. They received my submission and said they were going to give me a response by the end of August. I'm also thinking about rewriting my YA novel (again) into a paranormal romance for Harlequin Nocturne. I think it may have a better fit for them since the literary agents keep rejecting my idea. More information soon!

Sincerely,
Dominique Gibson

An observation on query letters

Hi, I know it’s been awhile since I’ve written. I’ve been busy with a lot of things lately, the latest being that I’ve been sending query letters out to literary agents with no such luck. At first, I was upset about this but after reading my query over again, I’m starting to see why they have rejected me (It’s been six times so far but I’m still not giving up). Here’s a sample of my query letter that I sent to one of my agents.

Dear Agent:

I don’t know about you but I think that the vampire/werewolf genre is a little overdone in the publishing world. When people say the word ‘Shapeshifter’, They automatically think about the one animal that’s been grazing the publishing world for years: Werewolves. Today, I’m hoping to put a brand new spin on it with my 115,000-word YA paranormal titled The Electric eel Bandit.

Bradford Mayfield is a shape shifter on a mission: To find out who killed his parents five years ago. When Bradford goes to a homeless shelter to search for the truth, he runs into all sorts of problems along the way including meeting another shape shifter who’s only intent is to kill everyone she gets her hands on, fighting bad guys across the globe without anyone getting suspicious about who he really is and falling in love with a girl who could cause him to die all over again.

This story has all the action, romance, and suspense that a YA paranormal should have, not to mention that there aren’t any werewolves or vampires coming along to save the day. Brief bio: This is my first novel. I have a B.A. in Fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago.The manuscript is ready to submit at your request. Thank you for your time and consideration on reading my query and sample chapters of my novel. I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,
Dominique

What I did wrong:

First of all, I didn’t give them a hook or something that could connect me to that agent on why I’m contacting them in the first paragraph (i.e. why did I contact him? What made him think he was the best person to represent me?). I gave out this huge speech about how my manuscript is different from every other book that’s out there in the universe! Yikes! Back to the drawing board again.

Secondly, The manuscript is too long. I managed to look up the word count on my calculator by 250 words per page for courier (I still don’t know how to add the word count in Times New Roman, sorry guys) and I found out that it was 116,000 words (464 pages to be exact) which is WAY TOO LONG for a YA novel!!! Luckily, I have cut it down since then and it’s now 107,000 words (428 pages) and I’m still trying to find ways to cut it down to at least 90,000 (360 pages) if I can.

The Second paragraph is where things tend to get a little tricky. I think it could have been better if I had summed up the entire story in three sentences. I should have given this agent more information on why he’s searching to find the person he suspects killed him and his parents (His stepfather Vernon Stevenson). I think I should have summed it up the second part about the obstacles that he faces along the way in one sentence and then tell them about the ending (As much as I would love to give you an example of this, my mind has to require total concentration for this to occur. Who knows? I may post it later).
The third paragraph is the worst. I should have made the fourth paragraph my third paragraph and be done with it altogether. Why did I have to be such a show off about everything? Why couldn’t I have researched query letters before I wrote one? Sigh. You live and you learn.

Luckily, I’m researching query letters as I speak and starting all over again. This time, I’m going to study it and incorporate what I see into my own writing. I better get started on it now. See ya soon.

Dominique

Forget doing a blog every week, still reading and writing

Hi,

In the future, I have decided to do my blog every month until further notice. I just have way too much stuff to do at this time in order to keep up with it. I'm still doing 'Addicted', I'm starting on the third rewrite of 'The electric eel bandit', and I'm reading two books: All the pretty gilrs by J.T. Ellison and Eclipse By Stephanie Meyer. I know, I know I'm doing too many things at once but I can't stop myself. After I'm finished with both of these novels, I'm taking a break.

Dominique

Sent Off Query letters to agents...

Hi,

I know, it's almost the end of May and I should be a lot better at this whole blog thing but to tell you the truth, I've been busy. Not only am I still working on my novel, I just sent out some query letters and sample pages to three literary agents for review. I'm hoping that one of them will like my work enough to at least consider representation. Nothing else to brag here except I still have to type up the notes from Twilight and post it on here on this blog for next week. In the meantime, I have a lot of catching up to do...

See ya.

One busy girl...

Hello,

Sorry for the two week delay. Promise I’ll get better next time. The next blog entry I’m going to submit will probably be the notes that I took from the paperback edition of Twilight by Stephanie Meyer and how I can incorporate what she’s doing in her book that I should be doing in mine’s. For now, I’m still reading the first three chapters of Twilight, Still trying to catch up on J.T. Ellison’s All the Pretty Girls, still working on ‘Addicted’ and trying to work on my first book ‘The electric eel Bandit’. Well, considering the way the economy is going, at least I’m keeping myself busy…

Sincerely,
Dominique

Addicted, All the pretty girls, and Columbia college

Hello,

I have a lot on my mind today. I’ve been preoccupied with my new book and today, I took a leap of faith and decided to print out the first two chapters (with notes attached) of the second draft to the first book of the Truson S.E.T. series The electric eel bandit. This should have been done weeks ago but since I was so busy with trying to find a job and writing everyday with my new project, I got a little distracted. There is a lot more I need to do in order to keep my writing afloat including reading!!! I should devote more time to reading as well as writing but sometimes it’s really hard to do that when your writing everyday and getting caught up within the story but I’m going to try and do better.

As a matter of fact, I’m reading a book right now called ‘All the pretty girls’ by J.T. Ellison. It’s about a cop name Taylor Jackson who is in search of a serial killer known as the southern strangler. So far, this guy is a sick dude because after he kills his victims, he cuts off their hands and keeps them as souvenirs (The victims are all college co-eds who seems to be doing something with their lives until they were killed). I think I’m on chapter eleven and I really like it. Who knows? Maybe it’s time for me to take a break from writing for a week, start reading books and taking notes like I used to do in my Critical Reading and Writing Classes at Columbia College.

At Columbia, we always read a couple of pages a week and then write about what elements the author was using to make the story come alive when it comes to pace, setting, theme, tone, dialogue etc. Maybe that’s what I need to start doing in order to get a better grip on my story. Maybe that’s what I need to start blogging about for awhile instead of bragging about me working on my new book all the time (it is pretty boring). I think I might do that for awhile (but I’m probably not going to do it everyday considering I need time to write.

Anyways, enough bragging. I have to get back to work if I want to get this writing thing done. See ya.

Still working on my book, nothing exciting

I wish I could give you better news then I'm still working on my book 'Addicted' but I can't. The truth is I haven't been working on this blog because I have been working so hard on my book. On top of everything else, I'm thinking about sending a query letter, synopsis, and the first five to ten pages (Depending on the agency)of the electric eel bandit to literary agents across the U.S. Lately, I have been procasinating about sending it outfor fear of what they might say about it but I know that if the rejection comes my way, I'll be able to handle it. Bust day ahead. Gotta go!

Sincerely,
Dominique Gibson

Back on Track with my goals on what I want to do

Hello,

I'm officially back on track with my manuscript 'Addicted' after a temporary setback. I have so many ideas on what I want to do with my writing that I'm going in many different directions. But I'm sticking to the story I have now and there's no turning back. I'm up to the part where my characters are in the junior part of high school and how everything's about to change because of it (including the relationship with Barnard and Yvonne - two of the main characters in the novel). Anyways, gotta go. Don't know when I'll be back writing this blog again because I need to focus more on my writing and less on blogging. See Ya.

Dominique

Still writing 'Addicted', didn't win YA discovery contest

Sorry about the delay. I've been busy lately. I went to a party for my aunt. Got distracted by other things that goes on in my everyday life. I'm still writing 'Addicted' even though I was supposed to be finished with it back in Februrary. Maybe March will be better. Oh, didn't win the YA discovery contest. I Wasn't even in the top twenty but that's okay. It's for the best. I think that my new YA novel is better than The electric eel Bandit. After I'm halfway finished with Addicted, I'm going to rewrite The eletric eel bandit again. Sorry I'm not so happy and gullible today, I guess I'm a little tired.

See ya next week.

Miserable about snow...wouldn't it be great if...?

To tell you the truth, I have nothing to talk about today that's important. All I can talk about is how miserable I am because of the weather outside. Wouldn't it be great if Mother Nature was a real person so that we could knock the living daylights out of her and tell her to take hike? No, maybe say something like if you don't change the weather, we'll crush you like a bug until you won't be able to breathe.

That seems fair right?

Anyways, the worst part about the snow is that I have to be the one that shovels it. I hate shoveling. Hey, maybe when I get published I'll be able to pay someone to shovel the snow off the sidewalk. That would be great.

Anyways, I just finished the last twenty pages of my new novel Addicted.I'm hoping I'll be finished with it by March so I could start rewriting my first YA novel 'The Electric eel Bandit.'

Until Next time...

Still focusing on Addicted...Mig Writers website

I'm supposed to write every week but my writing has gotten my full attention (Which is a good thing). But I'm still searching on the internet trying to find sommething that satisfies my interest. Today, I went on a website that I haven't paid attention to in awhile. It's called the MIG writers critque group which specializes in middle grade/YA fiction. They had a blog entry a few days back on Influential moments. Andrea writes on her website that she had a breakthrough moment where she wanted to write for herself after being an educational book writer and has been writing all day, every day ever since.

At the end of the article, she asks what has been my breakthrough moment when it came to my writing?

I would have to say that my breakthrough moment is now. It's been two weeks since I've wrote 'Addicted' and I'm already done with the first two chapters. I have to say that it's way more concrete and polished on the first go round than the first novel of the Truson S.E.T. Series 'The electrci eel bandit'. I wouldn't be surprised if I made 'The Electric eel Bandit' the second book I send out to my future literary agent.

Okay, I think I answered my question for the day. If you want to see the atricle that Andrea has written, you can see it here.

A new draft is finished...An opportunity to try something new

Hello everyone

I'm sorry I haven't been writing on my blog last week. I got so caught up with this new story I'm writing called 'Addicted' that I haven't thought about checking up on my blog. I have decided to give the Truson S.E.T. series a break for at least two weeks so I can focus on something else entirely. I have to admit that it's been great so far. I'm almost finished with the second chapter of the novel so far (And I started on Feburary 1st!). I'm hoping to finish it up within a month so I when I do go back to 'the electric eel bandit', I'll be more than ready to make some changes to it so I would be able to send it out to literary agents.

So far, I'm really loving this new story and I'm probably going to spend more time working on this story then doing anything else. But, I promise I'll try to keep updating my blogs no matter what.

See ya later.

What writing means to me...

What does writing mean to me?

Writing means getting up at six in the morning and heading straight to my room to write a HUGE outline for a novel.

Writing means typing up that outline on the computer until my fingers bleed (Or they grow tired, whichever comes first).

Writing means being able to take that outline and rewrite two or three times so I try not to make the same mistakes as I did in my other manuscripts.

Writing means getting started and finishing that first draft no matter how crappy it is.

Writing means sitting down at the computer desk and typing that crappy first draft on the computer and printing it out to do the most dreaded part of all.

Writing means taking a cold hard look at your manuscript and saying "This is not good enough. You can do better."

Well, that's it (For now) I'm sure I'll come up with some more sometime next week. See ya.

All about the Query Letters

Hello

Today I would like to take a moment out of my day to tell you about the one topic that seems to be hitting the agent world nowadays: Query Letters. The reason why I'm talking about this is because I'm writing query letter and the synopsis when it comes to my novels.

Or Praticing I should say.

Even though I'm still in the process of rewriting my own novel, I also praticed how to rewrite a synopsis and a query letter as well and I thought that today would be a good day on sharing some of my samples of query letters I have written over the years with you and my opinion on what I think is wrong with them.

Sample Query Letter:

TO: dg60621@yahoo.com

I recently read your short interview in the August 2009 edition of your newsletter called School Days and you mentioned how much you wanted a story that could blow you away in voice, concept and pacing. You also stated that it’s more about the overall story than a particular theme or genre that stands out to you and I’m hoping that my 100,000 word novel ‘The electric eel bandit’ will be the story you’ve been waiting for.

Ever since Bradford became a teenager, He knew that his new mother Dr. Courtney Madison was keeping secrets about his past that only he can figure out. As Bradford decides to leave in search of what really happened to him and his parents, He realizes that searching for answers is not as easy as he suspects and ends up running into a bunch of problems along the way including having a crush on a girl who’s not from his world!

This book is supposed to be the first book in a series called ‘The Truson Super Elite Team but can also work as a stand alone novel. I have a B.A. in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago and have been fascinated with animals ever since I could remember. The partial is ready to submit at your request. Thank you for your time and consideration and hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,
Dominique Gibson

The reason I wouldn't send this query letter out to Literary Agents:

Lack of Details: I agree that you should keep your query letter as short as possible and even though it creates a lot of mystery within the letter for someone to keep reading, I think that if I stated some (not all) of the probelms that Bradford is going through, The agent or editor make have some sort of idea on what's going on in the book.

The information is outdated: Like I said before, I have been writing query letters over the years and this one happens to be from last year. More than likely things have changed since last year which means that I would have to find the most updated information on the agency itself and use it in my query letter to replace the paragraph I have now (In case you're wondering, this was an actual query letter I wrote to an agent, I just concealed the name for educational purposes).

Last but certainly not least is:

The Word Count: My manuscript states that it's a 100,000-word YA paranormal romance. Since then, I've recently checked the guidelines on the word count of Young Adult novels and the recommended cut off point is 90,000 words. Since my novel is a light science fiction book, it seems to make sense that going over a 100,000 words for a YA novel is not very smart which means more rewrites.

Overall, this query letter wasn't as bad as my previous ones. I would love to show you some of the bad ones I have written over the years (If I can find them) and tell you why they're so bad (Like I did with this one). Next week, I'll talk about another process that requires your agent and editor's attention to request a partial: The Dreaded Synopsis.

Literary Agents, promotion, and staying with my novel

Hi, Everyone.

I would love to tell you guys that after reading a ton of advice from both established writers as well as unknown wirters that I'm going to stick with my current project (But I have so many ideas) no matter how much frustrated I am with this project (But I have one idea you really going to love...), I'm going to stick to it and work my way through it until the very end (Okay, see this first idea I have..).

Excuse me you guys, There's something I have to do.

SHUT UP YOU STUPID EDITOR!

There. That's better. In other news, I was reading Nathan Brasford latest entry on his blog today (Which you can always find here )which talked about the different methods of marketing your book. There's blogging....e-mails...facebook....tweet....

Personally, If my book ever sees the light of day in a bookstore I would love to get out and meet people and sign books in person rather than blog and sit behind a computer all day. I would want to get to know the fans who spend their time reading my books. I would love for them to ask me all sorts of questions about the characters, the plot, what's going to be my next book...

You get the picture right?

And in return, I would love to ask them questions about their favorite characters and what they loved the most about the story etc...

In the end, that's my answer for what I have to say on that. I'm hoping that I could talk more about another subject that peeks my interest but until then...

See ya next time.

New Year, New Changes, and the economy

Yippee! It's a new year which means new changes for me right? Let's see, I'm still working on my first novel but I think I might be able to be finished by the summer if I just keep at it and become successful at completing it. I only have a little way to go but I have to keep going or else I'm going to go nuts and feel guility about leaving it behind.

In other news, I have this really strong urge to start on a new project while I'm still rewriting The Electric eel Bandit. I think it could be a way to focus my mind on something else besides rewriting this one project. Don't get me wrong, I plan on finishing this project even if it kills me...even if it takes my last dying breath on a hospital bed...Even if I have to climb the Empire State Building in orde to gain some type of sanity...

Okay, enough of that.

The truth? I've already started research on it and will continue to do research on it until I'm ready to let go of the research and start writing again. In the meantime, I'll keep looking for a job to stay on my feet.

Oh and by the way, THE ECONOMY SUCKS.

I've tried to find around six or seven jobs and no such luck. Maybe I'll have better luck sometime next week.

See Ya next week. (I'll probably share my research with you next week on my new project).