Wishes and Big Ol’ Fishes June 26, 2011

*Disclaimer: The tale I am about to recount is in no way meant to suggest Janet Reid possesses even the tiniest ounce of “nice,” “kind,” or even “soft-hearted” cartilage in her sharkly form. None whatsoever. NONE, you hear me?*

BEWARE THE SHARKLY ONE!

Okay, then. With that out of the way, let me begin.

You may recall I blogged yesterday about how I’d fared in one of literary agent, Janet Reid’s famous (infamous?) writing contests. If not, you really ought to go back and read that post before going any further here. What? You WANT to know the ending before reading the whole thing? You’re not one of those people who like spoilers, are you? (Because if you are, I so totally am too…)

Sorry, I digressed.

Anyway, tucked away at the bottom of my post was a little comment – well, more like a wish – where I projected my little writer-self into the future and hoped a day would come where the Shark would read one of my books and be so impressed she’d run a contest using words from text I’d written.

I have big hopes for Nikko. Brianne does too. My cheerleader’s arms are going to fall off with all her pom-pom waving. With all this support, I can’t help but believe Nikko is something special.

I was projecting into the future, imagining Ms. Reid reading and loving Nikko – a nice little stroll into fantasyland for me. Until…

Until…

Until I popped by wordpress to check my blog stats. I stared at the spike (not too huge, but noticeable) and said, “Hmm, I wonder what that’s all about?” I scrolled down to look over the search terms people had used to find me (I’m still not sure why anyone Googling debt consolidation, air conditioning, or parole violations would click on my blog, but that’s for another post).

The combination of search terms were all related, and, frankly, made almost as little sense as debt consolidation. And it’s not like these were one-offs… No, more than one person Googled the exact same terms!

“cheryl angst janet reid”

“janet reid & cheryl angst”

Really? Um, Google, why are people looking for Ms. Reid in connection with me?

Several people tried to see if Ms. Reid was the agent who sold The Firestorm Conspiracy (sorry folks, I did that one all on my lonesome long before I wrote the novel that caught my agent’s eye). (My agent is Brianne Mulligan at Movable Type Literary, btw.) (And she’s awesome.)

Sorry, another digression.

Anyway, I was perplexed by the sudden (and significant) number of people checking Ms. Reid and I out, so I wandered back to her blog to see if maybe she’d mentioned my earlier blog post, or accidentally re-posted her reaction to my vlog entry (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TB8ButGTaI) from a contest organized by literary agent, Kathleen Ortiz.

Nope.

She’d posted a new writing contest.

My jaw hit my keyboard. I think I may have snorted some flavoured water. I nearly toppled off my seat.

This is the contest Janet Reid posted: http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2011/06/that-was-so-much-fun-lets-do-it-again.html

Yes, those words are from my book. She ran a contest about one of my books.

*Please refer back to the disclaimer at the top of this post before you get any ideas about the true nature of the Shark.*

Seriously, go re-read the disclaimer.

Finished?

Good. Now that we’re all in agreement that Janet Reid is to be feared AT ALL TIMES, I can wrap up this post:

Janet Reid, you are a rockstar. If I’m ever in New York (you know, to celebrate Nikko or some other, equally awesome book), I’d love to buy you a scotch. Heck, I’ll buy the whole bottle.

C.

The Firestorm Conspiracy IN PRINT! June 9, 2011

Yes, you read that correctly.

The Firestorm Conspiracyis now available in trade paperback from Amazon. It’s officially labelled Book One of the Firestorm Saga because I fully intend on repairing the sequel and launching it in some form or another. I’m using Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat book on screenwriting to wrestle the plot into submission.

Actually, I use the term ‘plot’ loosely. I know NaNoWriMo is all about quantity, not quality, but I have learned my lesson: One should not write 55,000 words of romance without paying any attention to the rest of the story. It is not a simple thing to ‘simply add a plot’ into the mix. My poor sequel is poised to go under the knife (no, that’s too gentle – it’s going under the chainsaw).

As we gear up for summer vacation, my plate is beginning to fill up. The textbook people have been in contact with me again, and I have some more work to do for them. The Firestorm Betrayal is getting a deep makeover and I have another YA novel (about mental health–suicide–with a sci-fi twist) I’d like to draft. Plus, Nikko is going out on submission soon and there’s always the possibility that whichever publisher picks him up will want a sequel or companion book too!

I am thrilled with the writing piling up – I love it. I live for it. Bring on summer vacation!

C.

W8-BEN Form for Authors May 31, 2011

Now that I have the coveted ITIN (even though I am still waiting for my passport to be returned), I need to provide my publisher with a W8-BEN form. Given the pickiness involved in filling out the W7 to get the ITIN, to say I was paranoid about filling in the W8 would be an understatement.

That is, until I found this amazing blog post. Canadian authors, this is for you!

http://angelasstone.livejournal.com/15902.html

In other news, I got my line edits from my agent last night and she says the manuscript is ready to go out on submission! *happy dance*

C.

April Update April 22, 2011

I realised I haven’t been very forthcoming with my writing progress over the past several months. I’d love to say it was because I was working on some top secret project that I could only now reveal. Alas, it was simply because I was so focused on the writing I never considered telling you about it.

That, my dear readers, is about to change. Brace yourselves for a no-holds-barred update on where my writing career is at.

At the end of March the textbook people told me to hold off writing the teacher’s guide until they could get me the revisions for the student workbook. I was a little frustrated by this (I’d wondered about the wisdom of writing the teacher’s guide before the student book was set, but the contact only gave me two weeks between the two deadlines and I didn’t want to miss it). I’d hoped this contract would be fulfilled by late March so I could go back to writing fiction.

Given my forced waiting with the math stuff, I decided to finish my NaNoWriMo novel. I promised my cheerleader a sequel to The Firestorm Conspiracy, and I got 55,000 words into it during November, but December led to agents requesting Nikko and eventually the excitement around signing with Brianne Mulligan at Movable Type, so I never finished it.

Oooh, I also had to do several edits and proofs for Firestorm in order to get it ready for publication, and those took a tonne of time. Thankfully, I wasn’t also textbooking.

Life is funny sometimes. I was all excited about my ‘free’ time – I was going to finish my sequel and make my cheerleader ecstatic (or insane, depending on her reaction to the grand finale planned for the book), and then my agent sent me an email. She wanted to let me know she felt the sooner we got Nikko out the better – before all the publishers filled their YA dystopian quotas for the year.

I broke the news to my long-suffering cheerleader and set to work on revising Nikko with my eleven pages of editorial notes as a guideline. My goal was to increase the book’s length by about 20,000 words and change the ending, leaving the story more open to a romantic sequel (I’d left it open for further book[s], but I hadn’t planned on carrying a love triangle through, so that had to change).

I’ve been working steadily on Nikko for three weeks now, and I’ve added close to 13,000 words and four entirely new chapters. I’ve fleshed out one minor character into something of an antagonist, and I’ve gone far deeper into both my main characters’ pasts as well as the world building.

I’ll be honest, it’s hard. My brain does mental gymnastics every time I sit down and tackle a new element. I’m always saying, “Let’s see, how can I…” and then I’m gone – lost in a universe of my own creating. I love it. I love, love, love it. I wanted to get the revisions done by the end of the month, but as I’m only half way through the original version I think I’ll need more than the week remaining.

During a moment of procrastination I decided to submit a short story to a couple of magazines. I’m not expecting a reply for at least four more weeks, but I will let you know as soon as I hear anything.

I am expecting the revision request from the textbook people to arrive sometime next week. As this is something I am under contract for (and they’ve paid me a third of the agreed upon amount), I will have to set Nikko aside to work on them. Hopefully they won’t be too time-consuming and I’ll be able to get back to Nikko shortly thereafter.

On top of all this, I am also planning a launch party for The Firestorm Conspiracy. I can’t believe it will be available to the general public in just over three weeks. My first novel. Published. People other than my husband and mother buying something I made.

*SQUEE*

Phew, I told you this would be quite the update. You may relax now, it’s pretty much over. At the risk of becoming boring or tedious, I will endeavour to update you more often.

C.

Hello, Blog February 27, 2011

Hmm…

*wipes dust off blog*

*coughs*

Ah, there you are.

Let’s see, what’s happened in the eternity since I last posted?

Well, I had an awesome conversation with two amazing agents (Brianne Mulligan and Jason Ashlock) about building a strong foundation for my career, I finished the final round of line edits on The Firestorm Conspiracy, I got a book cover, I received the final draft of my manuscript, I witnessed an ebook from an epublisher make the NYT Best Sellers list (followed this week by a self-published ebook), I made plans for a book launch party, I learned how to turn my tweets into a newspaper, and I helped my children make bird feeders out of empty paper towel rolls, peanut butter, and bird seed.

So really, not much happened and you can see why I’ve been so silent.

Oh! My entry in the Bad Austen contest is still in the top five and there’s only one day left! That’s exciting. I could have been blogging about that…

Did I mention that I posted the first 250 words of a novel I’m toying around with over on Miss Snark’s First Victim’s page? I got some great feedback and encouragement – if you’ve never entered any of her crit sessions, you really should reconsider as it’s an incredbily supportive environment in which to get honest, constructive reactions to your writing.

I’m still plugging away on the math textbook. I finished the student portion a little over a week ago, and now I’m working through the teachers’ guide. Apparently a few of the publisher’s deadlines have slipped in other areas, so I have more time to finish the guide if I need it – which is a relief as I also have thirty NaNoWriMo YWP novels to grade and edit as well as thirty report cards to write.

I am looking forward to finishing up on the math project so I can return my focus to fiction. My agent said she’d send me her notes on Nikko at the end of the month (and in case you hadn’t noticed, the end of the month is almost here!), and I am itching to dive back into the manuscript. I’ve been working on a synopsis for a potential sequel too…

How about you? What have you been up to during my radio silence?

C.

Update Time January 24, 2011

I’ve been silent for a week and I didn’t want you to think I’d run off to Mexico with the pool boy or died or something.

Honestly? I’ve been swamped with the math textbook. I’m still glad I accepted the contract, but the amount of focused thought required to get through as few as 200 words is frequently mind-boggling. It isn’t unusual for it to take me more than two hours to write out the fully worked solution to one of the student questions.

There are times where the pace of my progress is painfully slow (see above), and others where I feel like I’ve accomplished something – and by something, I don’t mean 1000+ words, more like 350+. I’m roughly halfway through the student portion of the contract and hope to send the pages off by the end of the first week of February.

My deadline isn’t until the 28th of February, but I want to get some feedback on the workbook pages before I create the corresponding teacher guide pages. If I’ve messed up with one, I don’t want to have to re-write both.

While it seems like I’m giving myself quite a bit of wiggle room with regards to the deadline, it’s not as much of a buffer as it may first appear – I also have report cards to write at the end of February/beginning of March. And, at some point soon, my agent will be sending me her notes on my ms and I REALLY want to be able to work on those.

So, it may seem like I’m ignoring you with my extended periods between posts, but I’m not.

Okay, let’s be honest, I am, but it’s for a good cause.

*wanders off to explore another mathematical concept*

C.

News and Chicken! January 7, 2011

I made the most amazing chicken dish in my slow cooker last night. ZOMG, the meat was so tender and flavourful. It fell apart when you touched it with a fork and the sauce at the bottom of the pan was to die for. Absolutely amazing!

(Can you tell I was thrilled to get a slow cooker for Christmas?)

In other, more writing-related, news, I received a lovely reply to one of my full submissions. It was a revise and resubmit – with specific and detailed feedback. In an industry where feedback from people you aren’t contractually linked to is more scarce than a duck’s fangs, this email was huge. I feel all warm and fuzzy knowing my writing impressed this person (who is not my mother) and that, with some tinkering, they’d be more than happy to read the novel again.

(I may have some other news but I can’t talk about it yet…)

The textbook is coming along slowly. I hope to have the initial draft of the student workbook done by the end of January, which would leave me all of February to work on the teacher’s guide. To say it’s proving to be a bit of a challenge would be an understatement, but at the same time, it is one I am enjoying pushing myself to achieve.

How goes your new year so far?

C.

A Little Squee December 22, 2010

I received a lovely email from an agent today. Relax, it wasn’t THE CALL, but it still held some squee.

One of the agents with my full manuscript emailed to let me know he/she was reading Nikko’s Bond right now and that it was “really great.” My heart did little flip-flops when I read those words. The agent didn’t say, “Sorry, it’s not for me.” The agent said my novel was really great and asked for more time to finish reading it.

Maybe this agent is different, but most agents don’t read the entire manuscript if there’s no thought in their mind about possibly making an offer of representation. SQUEE!

I know I could be reading too much into the email, but let’s face it. Compared to a zillion rejections, this short missive is worth over-analysing. And even if it comes to nothing, it made me feel good for a few hours, and that’s what really matters.

C.

Interesting Idea December 16, 2010

You know how I mentioned I was in a short story mood? Well, now I’ve had an idea and I wonder if it would work.

I’ve been thinking about my characters, and I’ve been thinking about little scenes and vignettes. Then I started thinking about my characters in these little scenes and vignettes.

Here’s what I’m wondering… would it possibly help (or hinder) my brand or platform as a writer if I posted short stories involving my own characters on my blog? Is that weird? Egotistical? Way too geeky? Lame?

I’m wondering this partly because of the number of people who seem to be viewing the few short stories I’ve already posted here. While there’s nothing wrong with them, I think my writing has progressed and it’s probably time to showcase some different work. The problem with that is – my current work is devoted to a select group of characters dear to my heart. I don’t want to start posting chapters of my WIP because, well, it’s a WIP and not ready for public consumption. Plus, if I find myself with an agent and we send the MS on submission to editors I’ll have to remove it anyway.

So, what do you think? Is writing short stories involving characters of your own creation a good or bad thing?

C.

Shiny Plot Threads December 11, 2010

WOOT!

1707 words of fabulous plotness last night! I wrestled my plot knot into submission: turning it, pulling it, poking it, and hurling it against the wall until it finally revealed its secret. By untangling the the mess, I revealed the block in my mind and like dominoes, everything fell into place.

It wasn’t easy though. Not by a long shot. And not just for me either.

I whined at my cheerleader for over an hour. I tried to explain what I was wrestling with, but in such a way as to not give away upcoming elements in the story – and that made tackling the plot issues even harder. She was a dear and put up with my ravings, and I thank her for her patience. After that, I moved onto my poor innocent friend. She thought we were going to have a friendly chat as usual, but I ended up rambling and rambling about my plot knots while she sat there with her eyes glazing over. I may have imposed on our friendship, but the conversation helped and I owe her a big thanks too. Then I attacked my poor husband with the same problem – and while he initially suggested I simply blow something up, he listened to my tales of woe and prodded me in a couple of places, causing the last of the knots to slip away.

So, after more than four hours of ranting and rambling and smashing my head against a brick wall, I sat down to write.

I wrote.

And I wrote.

And I got into the zone and it was marvelous!

Thank goodness for friends – they are the best cure for untangling plot knots and revealing writer’s blocks!

C.