Pulling out the fine grit sandpaper

Formatting stuff in Word is dull, dull, dull. For some reason (an excess of $? wishful thinking? temporary insanity?), I have paid my $50 to enter Chivalrous (with a slightly spiffed-up title) in the RWA Golden Heart. That maked a grand total of TWO contests that it will be in. Probably the final grand total--I must save some $ to start all over again with Accomplice, once its finished :)

In any case, I must submit the first 50ish pages of my manuscript, plus a single copy of the full. I can either print the whole thing out, or mail a CD. CD sounds cheaper (and nicer to the trees), except that they want the MS in a single file. Mine was in one file per chapter. And none of them had any formatting whatsoever (preferring to keep the data raw, you know...).

So I spent over an hour last night creating one giant file, and then adding doublespacing (removing extra spaces between paragraphs). Yuck. I didn't do any other editing--just formatting. And I couldn't find a way to make Word remove my extra lines without removing too many extra lines, so it was 300 pages of delete-scroll-scroll-delete-scroll-delete. It felt distressingly like work. Makes me think that keeping the data in XML and then creating a XSL to format it would be much faster and easier--except that HTML wasn't one of the preferred submission formats. Yes, I'm a geek.

I also copied my synospsis out of my Yahoo mail, and found it to be nearly 5 pages (double-spaced). Perfect. I'm now a little closer to a trip to Kinkos and the post office. Though I think I have another editing/polishing pass to make through the MS first, to round off a few rough edges.

I won a writing contest! Well, sort of....

This is my week for silly blog contests I guess :)

I have won the dubious honor of having written the "Best Worst Last Line" for a make believe mystery novel. The contest was held at Redlines and Deadlines, the contest post (with entries in the comments) is here, with the winners announced here.

I entered a romance and a mystery option. I was in a silly mood that day, and decided to swap genres for inspiration--so my mystery ending has a sort of romance-genre twist, and my romance had a bad-mystery-novel ending line. Here is a repost of my winning mystery entry:

Gertrude dabbed her eyes with a frilly handkerchief as the radiant bride sailed down the aisle toward her groom.

"It is fortuitious that the authorities have apprehended that monster. Imagine beginning one's sixth marriage with the spectre of a husband-killing psycopath on the loose," whispered Fanny.

"Oh, indeed. Imagine the horror of having your own lingerie used to strangle each of your dearest loves in the honeymoon suite. The poor darling must be so relieved." Gertrude hid a delicate sniffle with her hanky.

"And this husband is so much wealthier than any of her others. I do so love happy endings!"

And here is my romance option, which was easily beaten by some more amusing options:

"But, what about us?" he sputtered.

Scarlett turned and arched one eyebrow. His aristocratic face was etched with pain.

"Us? There is nothing left for us. You must see that."

"But my lands, my title, my money...my baby!"

"I never wanted any of those things. And as for this," she patted her swelling belly, "The butler did it."

A writing contest, of sorts

Apparently I can't resist a writing challenge. Today's snippet brought to you by Editorial Ass, whose list of endangered words could not help but spark a bit of sci fi/fantasy from me...

The challenge was to use a list of archaeic words in a short story of 250 words or less. Enjoy, and feel free to refer to the original post if (when) you need a dictionary.

***

"Niddering old fool," muttered Milicent, reaching calloused hands into the olid calignosity of the ancient cupboard. The fubsy scholar, in his caducity, had trusted in the mansuetudinous muliebrity of what he thought was an agrestic farmwife to help repair his facilities. Millicent grinned in the darkness. His oppugnant ignorance was easy to vilipend.

She had passed a fortnight in the recrement of his laboratory, filled with sediment from the recent deluge. While beggars, dressed in looted silks and brocades, vaticinated the end of the world, she had shrugged off their extremist fatidical ramblings. Milicent would forge destiny, not be swayed by it.

Her fingers brushed against cold metal. She hefted the small chest from the muck. Using her apron as an abstergent, she cleansed the griseous sewage from the lid. Deftly, she found the mechanism to open it, just as the scrolls had described. With a skirr, the lid flew open, revealing a nitid jewel amongst folds of luxurious black velvet. The Periapt of Isingier was hers.

"Mrs. Mundial? I thought I heard a commotion…"

Uttering a malision, Milicent whirled to face her doddering employer.

"The artifact is mine now," she snarled dangling the jeweled necklace in front of her.

"Apodeictic, my dear." The man seemed taller than before. Had he taken a reborant?

Instantly, she exuviated her disguise, revealing her true, beautiful, self.

"Millie, I had not thought to embrangle you in this quagmire. You are even more beautiful than your mother."

"Father? Impossible…"

"Not impossible. Compossible."

I do...something...

I have yet to really dislike writing. Maybe because no one has forced me to do line edits yet :) But still, I don't need a lot of encouragement to keep pursuing this...I'm still in the honeymoon phase. Or maybe the shopping-for-rings stage. Of course, I'm still shopping solo--it will probably take a few hints (i.e. query letters, maybe another MS or two or more, lots of time, etc) before anyone pops the publishing question. Hmmm..I hated wedding planning. And there was an interesting transition period after the wedding...maybe I should drop the whole metaphor right there.

Moving right along, if any of my fellow writers needs a nice pick-me-up, go check out Lynn Viehl's post about 25 Reasons to Keep Writing.

And now, back to my regular (non-writing) job (with a time clock, unnatural light, dress code, lack of palatable coffee, and way too many non-hero-ish men lurking about....)

Meetings and musings

Saturday I attended my second MORWA meeting, and am now a member. I'd been planning to join for a while. My national RWA membership got a little hairy for a while--somewhere between my application and their data entry person, my email address got typoed. And so I failed to receive any of the "welcome" messages and it took nearly 1.5 months for the snail mail welcome package to arrive (and an exchange of emails to get my address corrected for access to the website). I sent in my dues, btw, about a week before the national convention, so I had expected that things would get delayed. Somewhat. In the mean time, the local chapter didn't have a meeting in July, and the August meeting was the same day as a work picnic that I was planning, so it took a while for me to get back.

Saturday was nice. I went, again, with my friend Amanda from The Berry Patch. We arrived at the Barnes & Noble early, laptops in tow, for a little writing time. Quite productive writing time for me--close to 1000 words or so. The meeting was good. We went out to lunch afterwards. I think that was the longest single stretch of pleasant all-female interaction I've had in, well, probably years. Maybe since the last LLL meeting I went to (when my now-4yo was still breastfeeding)? In the field of software engineering, women are rare. And when getting together with friends, I frequently end up in the technical conversations (with the guys, who in our circle seem to be all engineers).

At the meeting, there was a speaker talking about editing. By editing, she really meant grammar. I found the talk to be only mildly interesting. I'm not a nitpicky kind of person who enjoys pondering the nuances of the semicolon versus the period. And I think I have a pretty good handle on proper grammar. Not that I'm immune to mistakes, but that 95% of the time my mistakes are made by fat fingers (and a brain that's thinking 3 directions at once) and not a lack of awareness of the rules. And, of course, I could care less whether "1950s" is preferable over "1950's" but it's "50's" over "50s"...I am betting that if my writing is ever rejected soley on nitpicky grammar rules, then I am better off finding a different home for it.

I have the same difficulty at work--peer reviews (the software equivalent of a critique) in our group tend to contain many notations about how we're using "+" and "&" interchangably, and how there is supposed to be one space after the apostrophe before a comment, or a '* to designate a specific kind of comment. Nitpicky. And the kind of detail that my brain reads right over, understanding the meaning, and missing the distinction between having a single space or not.

I think it's related to my foreign language skills. If I got caught up on the exact meaning and translation of every single word, I would barely make it through a sentence without giving up. Instead, it will take me about half a page to realize that I'm reading--and mostly understanding--Portugese (and that its not Spanish, the language that I actually know). Yes, that has happened to me (and I was exceedingly confused as to why the airplane magazine had printed the same article twice in a row...until some word looked funny).

Ok, climbing down from that soapbox. The point of my little monologue wasn't that a talk on editing is useless. Not at all. It's just my reflection on my own attitudes towards it. There are definitely grammar-related things that I should work on. And there are some things that I will probably never care about. Funny, I had much the same conversation about "code standards" at work earlier, too....

Work I forgot I did

I was checking through my list of notes in Yahoo (I frequently write stuff in my yahoo mail when I'm away from my laptop...I don't lose it that way). Lo and behold, I have a synopsis of Chivalrous. Nearly complete, and it reads pretty well. The part that was missing was the ending to the book. So far, I've written 3 endings--each plotted completely differently. I think I wrote up the synopsis before I plotted out that last ending.

That's been on my list of things to do, in case I need it for a query letter, or if I decide to enter the Golden Heart. It's like finding a $20 in the pocket of an old purse.

I have started a spreadsheet with a list of agents (looked up via what authors they represent), including what I could find of their submission requirements. I have probably said all this before. Oh well, so I repeat myself. I entered one contest, and think I get results back about a month from now. That's probably when I would start sending out a round of letters. Unless the contest results say "this sucks quit writing and never come back" :)

Hmm...I have a tiny bit of progress to report on Accomplice, but I'm not on my laptop just now, so I don't know how much. I tried bringing my laptop to my daughter's dance class and writing in the lobby on Monday. That might have worked better if there was a power outlet. I get about 20 minutes on my battery before I have to shut down. That's one of those things I just haven't bothered to fix...99% of the time I can plug in (even in the car...i bought one of those cigarette lighter power inverter thingies...$10 much cheaper than a $100+ laptop battery....).

Maybe I should start checking my old purses...If my luck holds I might be able to afford that new battery after all....

You're just teasing me now

I'm having a bad day. And writing. My hero, Noah, is, coincidentally, also having a bad day. He did what I don't intend to do: he just quit. Not his whole career, just an assignment that he disagreed with. Vehemently. And he's about to get himself shot.

Shh...he doesn't know that yet, though. But that's ok. By the time he comes around, still groggy from the pain meds, he will have more problems to worry about. And a slightly new perspective on things--traumatic injuries and drugs will do that to you. Heck, even the not-so-intense meds that I was given after both of my c-sections made me fuzzybrained. And I remember some rather disturbing dreams after getting my wisdom teeth out, too.

That ought to make his search for Jessica fun to coordinate.But enough about that. If I keep talking like this, soon Noah's boss will be on to him (and her), and will spill the beans to someone else (someone not yet to be named, but who has a stake in the outcome) who might just do something drastic. Like try to have her killed. Him too. Unless that someone already did try to have him killed. He was just shot, you know.

Fun, fun.

A call to action

I am tired of hearing romance writers, and women's fiction writers, complain about how we are not taken seriously. Apparently, we're not reviewed by whichever Literary Gods do the Reviewing, and are looked down upon, sneered at, and generally despised. At the same time, I read statistic after statistic about how romance sells more books than any other genre, and how women buy (and read) more novels than men.

So, we're complaining that a few (male! or non-romance-loving women) reviewers ignore our work, and instead focus on "literary" fiction. And because other, "literary-minded" readers follow those reviewer's advice and buy non-romance novels. So, what?

Somehow I don't think that the so-called literary experts are exactly our target audience. And as an avid (very, very avid) reader of romance & women's lit myself, I can honestly say that I've never had one of those reviews sway my book purchases. I glance, from time to time, at the NYT book reviews, and the items reviewed by my own local paper. And I get about two sentences in and just keep glancing on to the next section. The reviews do not appeal to me, the reviewers don't seem to share my interests, and I would not trust their advice when making book selections. (And, more importantly to the printers, the sponsors aren't getting their money's worth out of me.)

So, why on earth should we waste so much emotional energy complaining that people outside our target audience don't get us? We don't get them either. And there are more of us. Lots more.

Listen up, gals. Ignore them. Lets do our own reviewing. Spread the word ourselves. And if someone turns their nose up at us, we can laugh. Because we're so much bigger than they are, that we will be able to see right down into that turned up nose. And we don't call them "snotty" for nothing...