Tag: agents

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Best Rejection Ever, and Grab Bag Extravaganza II

Hello friends and compatriots!

No news yet.  Still waiting on the Agent Train for my stop.

Although, I did receive what is to date, the best rejection letter of my life.

An agent I was really into requested my full manuscript.  That in it of itself warrants a !!!!  But the next email I received from them went something like this:

I cannot represent you.  Because I cannot finish reading your manuscript.  …Because it is giving me nightmares.

!!!!!!!! Holy smokes man.  I could not have asked for a better endorsement.  People who have problems sleeping are going to have a hard time reading about the near extinction of the human race due to mass insomnia… So I guess that goes for agents as well!

I’m going to look at horror agents now, because this manuscript is far more horrifying that I originally gave it credit for.  >:)

I’m also working on a new project which I will soon be able to share with you.  It will be presented in audio format, and has been great fun to work on so far.

Also, I added a link my in “Craft” links- this one to a blurb I wrote on reddit, about my planning process!  It has tons of links to various entries in this blog to elaborate.

SO meanwhile, because I really like that you stopped by, you beautiful resilient caribou, you astonishing display of peacock feathers, you stack of waffles, you, dear reader, I will add some fluff here.  Because I like sharing.  And laughing.

Want to get lost in Youtube watching cake-spinning videos with me?  Because they are *singsong voice* amazing!

My fav:

When I wrote this draft I was mega hungry, so a lot of this first bit is food related.  NOW though, I am stuffed FULL of waffles and have a Magnificent Sandwich (band name called it patent pending HG Bleackley 2014) waiting for me for lunch.  Chicken.  Brie.  Pear.  Hoooo man I am going to have to wait a while on that though… waffles are my world right now.

How about some pictures instead?

Nooooooooo

Something else!  Not cake!  Not food!

Wait for it…

.

.

.

WHOMMP

NOOOOOOOO ok how about- this is how dogs drink!

Ah yes, the rare 9-legged Plover.

And then sometimes, you’re like, no freakin’ way.

Banana!

That’s all for now folks!

Back to agent hunting.  And when I have this audio-project ready, you’ll be the first to know.

Cheers.

Heidi out.

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Revisions, and Lemon

Well hello there dear readers!

I’ve been waiting to hear back from several agents who have the full manuscript.  That’s right folks, multiple full requests!  From brilliant agents!  I am over the moon.

An agent I would really love to work with got back to me saying that they like the project (with praise about my premise and prose!), but that the intensity of the narrative didn’t match the intensity of the premise.

Well!  You know what?  They are right.  Shoot.

I spent yesterday thinking about how to go about fixing that, and wrote 3,400 words on how to do so.  Not 3,400 words of writing; a 3,400 word plan.  I went through each chapter and broke down what I thought was missing, and what could be added to kick it up a notch.

The major element I was missing :JEOPARDY (anticipated pain or loss).  My main issue was that my characters were not aware of the jeopardy they were in, so they could not anticipate the pain or loss.  Can’t have that.

I have a good game plan.  Hopefully, with hard work, I can have a revised draft back to that agent in two weeks.  (It’s a lot to do- we’ll see if I can get it done in such a short time.)

In non-writing mnews, I got a kitten!

You know my cat Echo, right?

Well, we wanted to get a friend for her (grumpy as she is). We took a lot of time to do the proper introductions, over several days. After nearly two weeks, the kitties are cohabiting the apartment together pretty peaceably!

Everyone, meet Lemon.

She’s pretty sweet. TONS of kitten energy which we have to harness via playtime or she will get super frustrated. She’s going to be medium-haired, with a LONG haired tail! She’s a real sweetie with a tough streak.

So that’s what’s been going on with me!

I’ll make a writerly update about revising a manuscript once I’ve gone through the process.  Fun fun fun!

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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Titles Are Hard

You have to pick a title.  You can’t start querying without a title.

Did you get your friends to suggest some to you?

Wait wait, you started querying before you had a good title?

I feel like an idjit.

But now I have a better title.  I even wrote it in the book.  Why didn’t I see it.  Man. Outside perspective- it’s almost like it’s super important or something.

I am one of the four, for sure, like, totally.

In other news, I love my friends.

Sleep Over.  

 

Forest, trees.  Trees, forest.  There.  We’re all comfortable around each other?  Great.  Now let’s keep querying, but this time, you know, better.

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Short Story Writing Month, and here I am working on one of my novels.

Well, this is silly.

Last year, Short Story Writing Month gave me a kick in the pants to start writing short stories.  It was a welcomed change from writing novels.  It put some distance between me and them, and, quite fortunately, garnered me a couple of credits for my CV.

And now that’s SSWM is here again, I feel somewhat silly that, suddenly, I’ve stopped writing short stories to tinker with my novels again.

Now that I’ve got a couple of things in print, I feel I have a better position when approaching an agent to represent the Spell Carrier series.  I hope this is the case; I’d love to see these books get picked up.

I reread the first book last month, and was delighted/excited/relieved to discover that I really, really enjoyed it.  It’s been a few years for that one, and, having distanced myself from ‘the work’, it actually held up to my critical eye.

…Except the opening few pages, which I was never happy with.  So I rewrote them from scratch, and now I have my best foot forward.  I know where the story gets its hooks into *me*, I hope it snags my other readers the same way.  I know if they give it a shot, they’ll be hooked.  I know I was.

And that, my friends, is just about the best feeling I’ve ever had as a writer.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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Writing and Selling Your Writing: Having your cake, and eating it but then it goes down the wrong tube and you cough and choke and embarrass yourself horribly.

That awkward moment when you realize you really, really need to get your writing career off the ground, before some other career takes over your life so you can make money and live.  (BC Film Set Orientation certification completed over the weekend.)

 

That equally awkward moment when you realize the novel you’ve been trying to get agents interested in all these years is **young adult** fiction.  Holy living figs, why is it so hard for me to sell my writing?  I feel like a babbling idiot when trying to describe it enough to get an agent to want to actually read the whole thing.

 

But then, that amazing moment, when, before bed, you pick up your first book, flip to the last few chapters, and can’t put it down until you’ve finished.  I did a good job.  Even after these years, it still holds up.  That was pretty sweet.  So I flipped to the middle and kept reading.

I’m going to flip back, earlier and earlier, until I find out why my beginning is ass.

The first few pages need work, I’ve always known that.  If I could just get them together, enough so that it draws people in, then they’ll be hooked.

Back to reading.  I’m extremely happy to say that I’m enjoying it.