Wednesday, November 24, 2010

I Am Thankful For... (Writer's Edition)


1.  My family
2.  My friends
3.  The fact that my mind remains 
intact even while my body is being insane
4.  Good books
5.  The ability to read them
6.  The fact that my high school 
required me to learn touch-typing
7.  My laptop
8.  The wonderful people I have met 
through blogging and Twitter
9.  My crit group, The Inkslingers
10.  My amazing, incomparable beta readers

What are you thankful for?

- Liz

Monday, November 15, 2010

Interview and Contest Announcement

My very good friend, amazing critique partner, and soon-to-be bigshot published author J.A. Souders did an interview with one of her favorite authors, Rachel Vincent at The Oasis for YA blog.  Go, read a great interview, leave a secret in the comments and get a chance to win the first book in Rachel's Soul Screamers series.  What could be easier?

Click here:  Interview with Rachel Vincent

Happy Monday!

- Liz

Monday, November 8, 2010

What I Did On My Blogger Vacation

I've been gone from here. A lot. As usual, no small part of it has to do with me being an infrequent blogger. But for once, I have a decent reason, too.

In October, I accidentally did my own personal NaNoWriMo.

See, I was plodding along through a decent project that I like, and I'm still fond of, but it just wasn't coming easily. Meanwhile, I was struck with inspiration in one of those bolt-from-the-blue moments.

I have an older project that has made the querying rounds with lots of requests, lots of positive feedback, but no offers. A lot of "great writing, not enough of a hook," "love your characters, love your dialogue, but this plot isn't original enough to be a debut." Which was really hard at the time, because I love those characters, too, and I felt like they weren't getting a fair shake (from their story, not from the agents).

Now, over a year later, I finally had my Aha! moment: I was telling the story from the wrong character's perspective. The idea stayed with me, and all but stalled progress on my other work-in-progress.

"I'll just write a few pages to get the basic premise down," I thought. "Get that first scene out of my head so I can concentrate on the other one."

Twenty-two days and 74,000 words later, it was done.

And it feels right. My wonderful crit partners have already given me the thumbs up and the first 50 pages have been through the ringer in my crit group. If I had a Magic 8 Ball, it would be reading 'All Signs Point to Yes.'

It doesn't feel like a first draft, or even a second, third or fourth. It feels like the final edits on the story I told a long time ago. I guess it just took a year, a leave of absence from work, and that final spark to give me the chance to absorb all the input I got on the query trail last time.

So, I'm not doing NaNo this year. I need a break! My wonderful friend Ryan made me my very own certificate though, for doing my personal NaNo a month early. It's at the top of this post. Pretty awesome right?

Fingers crossed, people! And for those of you doing NaNo--It can be done. Trust me!

- Liz