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).