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