jlpowers's blog

I was checking today how long it's been that I've been working on Sarah's story (on and off, of course)... to discover that I put the first of the submissions to editors and agents in the mail on Sarah's fourth birthday... the exact day.  Weird!  :-) 

I won't go into detail about what a wild ride these last four years have been, or all the lessons I learned while writing Sarah's story, other than saying "wow!" 

Happy belated birthday, Sarah. 

Now if I could only get you to Shut Up! life would be a little simpler... but you're staying true to form, and the next story is likely to be just as wild a ride as the first.  :-)

A couple weeks ago I was talking to myself (something that I regularly do, having only teenage boys in the house) and told myself that it's going on eight years that I've been divorced and it sure would be nice to have somebody in my life.  Myself replies that before I go looking for somebody I need to fix "X", because even if I found somebody today, I wouldn't want them if they are willing to accept "X" as it stands.  I agreed with myself, that I indeed need to fix "X" before I go looking for somebody.  But since I'm not particularly interested in fixing "X", I put the topic aside and think no further on it.

This weekend a character pops up and starts demanding: "write my book, write my book".  I tell the character to shut up, because there are about 10 books in the queue before I can even think about a new book.  Said character quickly acquires a sidekick, and instead of shutting up, they demand even louder: "write our book, write our book". 

Being very unhappy about the added chaos in my head, I grouse about it to a good friend who knows about "X" and who's also a writer.  The friend replies, "you know... writing their book would go a really long ways toward fixing 'X'."

Fudge!  Good, bad or otherwise, writing the book would indeed fix a lot of "X", plus further analysis reveals their book ends up needing to be written before several other books on the list, as events in this book impinge on events in the other books.

Fudge!  **sighing in resignation**

At least the smug little bastards have shut up now that they know I have to write their blasted book.  **grumble, grumble**

Yesterday, I put the snail-mail submission package in the mail... which was an experience given that the clerk at the post office hadn't done an international return coupon in a long while.  At one point they had three gals working on trying to figure out what had to be done for one.  :-)  But it's off.

And today, I sent off two queries.

The hurry-up-and-wait submission process is underway.

But the even bigger news is that yesterday I cleaned off my desk.  :-)  I know it doesn't sound like much, but believe me, it's major.  :-)

Jara's story is still cogitating in the ether, while I try and get caught up with stuff around here.  Now that Sarah is off, Jane is starting to pester me.  Which is good, as hers is the next book that I "should" be writing.  But since I rarely listen to "shoulds", I'll not push her faster than she wants to be pushed.

So, today is work on paying work that I should have been doing yesterday, but I broke the website and need to try and figure out "why" when there aren't any people on it.  Plus a ton of stuff to do around the house.  Never a dull moment.  :-)

Good, bad, or otherwise, the cover letters, blurb and synopsis are declared done, and the first three chapters were given another copy-edit and declared good enough.

And... three submission packages have been emailed, and the final one is printed and in an envelope on my desk.

Sarah is done... for the moment.

Kind of a scary thought.  She's been my constant companion for several years now.  It'll be interesting to see if Jane is as good a friend.

I'm trying to get the submission packages ready, and it's driving me buggy.  And to make it all worse, I clicked on a copy of the manuscript that I submitted a couple years and several versions ago, and suddenly I was full of angst.  OMG, is the old one better?  Did I screw it up by trying to fix it?  Should I go back to this old version, or maybe one of the other versions is better, or some combination?  What should I do?  What should I do?

Well, what I really need to do is take a deep breath and hit the send button.

But not until tomorrow.  I need one gal to take a 2nd look at the synopsis and cover letter.

However, I do promise to not touch the manuscript itself.

The submission process isn't any fun at all.  :-(

This morning, when I had paying things to be doing, I ended up writing down blurbs for two maybe-someday stories based on all the Láadan work I've been doing lately (http://laadanlanguage.org/pages/).  I don't have much new on the Láadan site, but tons of backend stuff is getting done and the topic is on my mind pretty much constantly lately.

*** Book #1 **************
Mackinac Island, with its summertime population of thousands but a wintertime population of barely 500, seemed the perfect contained location for a social engineering experiment to test how language affects a people.

Now, a generation later, rumors abound that behind the gaudy exterior of fudge and tourists, the worst kind of cult has arisen.

Reporter Dan Argosy is determined to discover the truth.  Armed with a false background and hidden cameras, he braves the snow-swept island.

Will he find the horror he excepts, or an unexpected love?

*** Book #2 **************
Five years ago Connie Argosy's son, Dan, left to investigate the rumored cult that lay hidden behind Mackinac Island's cheery exterior of fudge and tourists, and never returned.  He claimed he found love and happiness, but Connie knows better.

Now, Dan is dead, the result of a supposed boating accident, and Connie is determined to rescue her grandchildren.

Carrying papers demanding custody of the children, and with expensive lawyers only a call away, Connie braves the cold winds of the Mackinaw Straits.

Will she find the depravity she expects, or a place of comfort unlike any she has ever known?
************************* Read more

Last night, instead of doing paying work, I updated the synopsis for the done book so I can start sending it out to other agents, since the one agent I sent it to never got back to me.

And, yes, I know not to send it out to only one agent and then wait, but life's been a little busy for the past several months, so I was content to leave it sit there for a while.  So, now it's time to move on and submit to more places, but I had to re-do the synopsis first. 

I actually did most of the synopsis work back in early December and sent it to a couple people to review, but then life got busy again.  It also didn't help that the beginning was really dry... which is not how I want to start a synopsis.  Then on the trip back from the funeral in Kansas, one of the many tangents I went off onto, while driving alone for 10+ hours, was the a new first paragraph.

So I fixed the beginning and polished the rest of the synopsis. 

Then I sent it off to the first agent (after asking her if she wanted a copy), and maybe I'll guilt her into actually giving me an answer on the manuscript.  :-)

Now I just need to polish the 1st few chapters of the manuscript again, now that I've learned more copyediting-stuff, then I'll send the whole package off to other places.

Toward the end of last week, my uncle died.  I wasn't ever close to him, because they never lived close to us and I really wasn't going to go, but my father asked if I'd bring his other sister down to the funeral.

Well, as sometimes happens, the universe intervened and by the end of a constant couple days of changing plans, it turned out the weather was too bad for my aunt to come.  Which left me with a decision to go on my own, or not.  I pondered it Monday evening and Tuesday morning, then decided that since I had everything I arranged, I might as well go.

The 9+ hour drive was uneventful.  I got sucked into a couple antique stores on the way down and only spent $12, which I think is a record.  :-)  But I did get a huge kick out of the dining room set with a listed price of $145,000.00.  And, no, I didn't misplace a decimal point... the dining room set (buffet, china cabinet, silver chest, table, 10 chairs) costs more than my house is worth.  :-)  I'll post pictures if I can figure out how to get the pictures off my phone.

I had a good time with my family.  It was very nice to see my parents, brothers and cousins.

And this morning a left for home... and got as far as Newton, IA before I called it quits.  I'm an experienced winter driver... enough to know when it's just damn stupid to be on the road.  So I'm now holed up in a hotel and Iowa is pulling plows off the roads.  I'm not counting on getting out of here before noon tomorrow, if then.

But I've got TV, internet, fast food within walking distance, and a book to read, so I'm set.

This morning I worked through the details of how the hero saved the day and the consequences thereof.  Which left me with all the tons of stuff that needs to be foreshadowed, which is what I've been waiting for.  Because how can I know what scenes I need to write before I know what scenes need to be foreshadowed.  So, tons of work, but now I have a direction.

Good news/bad news, this also led me to yet another book, as one of the side characters suddenly became much more interesting.  *sigh*  Just what I need.

Also good news/bad news, in the last week I've gotten direction on several other major projects... my "I hate computers" project has finally turned itself around, plus several others.  Which in a way is good, as I like having specific things to do and goals to work towards... except that I didn't need them to all come to fruition in the same week!!

On top of that, my father called yesterday and asked a huge favor, which he rarely does. So, since he's a great father, plus the fact that he's been my sole financial support for the last six months... I wasn't about to turn him down.  But it means that I'm gone from Tuesday of this week through Saturday.  So all my plans to get to work on all these projects this week, which I had free before my contract job starts back up, just got all shot to hell.

Oh well, if nothing else, life remains interesting.  And now I'm off to take #1-son back to school for his last semester of college before he graduates... scary thought.

This morning, while I was lazing around reading instead of doing all the stuff I should be doing, I finally figured out how Jara's hero saves the day... of course at great cost to himself, and by extension at great cost to Jara.  But he heroically saves the day, which was the piece I needed before I could go on with the story.

Which is good news, but of course now the problem is finding the time to implement it.  Always a challenge.