Merinda's Meanderings

1. Green Tree, 2. nov 5 2007, 3. Ocean Rainbow

I just wanted to take small time out from talking about the writing (which I haven’t been doing great with anyway) and point out my photography.

I’m not fantastic with it, but I’m getting better. These shots and others are available for purchase at my cafepress shop. Any other pictures of mine you’d like to see on stuff, let me know. The link is always there on the sidebar and it’s also right here:

Merinda’s Mercantile

Survived the road trip. Almost 2000 miles in a week, 900 of those on Sunday. Good to see everyone though. One of the amusing things we saw was a sign offering “building” material, yes with those quote marks. Makes you wonder what they were really selling.

I picked up a big thick book on Kansas history, and I was reminded that I need to figure out what exactly the geography of northwest Kansas is, since the first part of Grace is set there. I also got a good idea for scene while driving, but managed to hold it off until yesterday morning when I could write it down.

Finished the rewrite of chapter one yesterday. It’s amazing to me how much easier it is to write this story now. Maybe it’s because I have a better grasp on their character arcs. Or maybe their just more full characters now. Like usual, I had to move back the start of the story just a little, to help establish things better, but it works. I know the rest of this story won’t be so easy, but if I keep up at this rate I might double the length. We’ll just have to see. I’ve got a couple scenes in mind anyway.

Got some more rejection in the mail. Looks like I’m looking for another place to send “What Cost Tyranny” to. Still haven’t heard back on the fairy story. Seven more query letters out there, I think, for The Unthinkable.

I just did a bit of driving, going from Texas to Kansas to visit family. One of the things I try to do on trips like this is pay attention to what’s around me. From red dirt in Oklahoma to a dilapidated maybe hundred year old cabin I try to notice things. Plus if I ever set a story in the area then hopefully I’ll have a slightly better idea of things. When we drove in country North Carolina I noticed a lot of old houses and cabins that looked at least a hundred years old. Besides, it’s a long road trip, might as well look out the window!

I got two quick returns on the novel queries I sent out Monday. One said they only really dealt with reprints, the other was a form letter.

That leaves 11 queries still out there for The Unthinkable. Plus I have two short stories still out there I haven’t heard back from yet. Oh and I have yet to find another market to send Pisces Luger out to, or decided what exactly to do with it.

I’m working on my next First Line submission. This one is even better then the last, or it has the potential to be. Which is good, as the last one got rejected. I think starting this next week I’ll begin the first edit of Grace, now that it’s had a little bit of time to rest. Game plan is to do it the same way I did on the Unthinkable; go through the whole thing on the computer first, then print out one chapter at a time.

So, at least it sounds like I’m really working on this writing thing.

I’m sure most of you who read this have heard about the passing of Gary Gygax. Those of you that haven’t heard probably don’t care, but I’m going to mention it anyway.

I never played D&D until I left home and married a gamer geek. I’d always sort of wanted to, but never knew the right people. Since then I’ve spent countless hours with various groups, although it hasn’t been a regular habit for a long time. My standard character is an axe-wielding human fighter, for the record, of either gender. I used to play mostly females, got tired of getting hit on and switched to playing males. Still an axe-wielding human fighter though (single class only).

Anyway one of the things that I think is neat is how many of the people I read regularly on the web have stopped and taken a moment this week to acknowledge Gary Gygax. Pretty much all the webcomics I read and a lot of the bloggers. I really like what Wil Wheaton had to say.

So, thats my two cents . I like many others, would be different today if it were not for D&D.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s of America has some very useful things on their website:

Manuscript Prepartion by Vonda N. McIntyre : I use this one ALL the time. For maximum usefulness you should probably print it out and keep it as a reference, but even looking at it on a computer screen is helpful. For any questions on how to format a manuscript, this is where I go.

Hunting for an Agent (With Sample Synopsis) by John E. Stith: This is a good example of a query letter and a synopsis.

There are more on the writing page, but so far these are the two I use most often.

Corollary to that, I’m going to put up links page instead of having an increasing long sidebar, and these two will be on it. Some other stuff might get moved over there too.

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In other news,I started working on my next story for First Line. I tossed out the vague idea I had and went with something based on a dream I had yesterday morning. We’ll see how it goes.

Yesterday was really productive. I spent most of the day putting together query letters for The Unthinkable. That was a very time consuming task! I probably made it harder on myself with the number of queries I was sending out at once. See, first I was going to send 5, then 10, then I realized my labels come in sheets of 30, so I decided to do 15 (15 labels for agents, 15 for the SASE). Least I have mail merge figured out now, for the most part. I’ve got 10 queries in the mailbox, 3 I need to take to the post office and 2 more that want an outline with the query and I have to figure out how to do that.

The other good thing is I finished the first draft of Grace yesterday. I’m not 100% happy with the last couple of chapters, but thats pretty normal for me. At least this ending is better then the debacle I had at first for The Unthinkable. I also finished it at one a.m. because I could feel how close I was to the end and I just wanted to get there. So it’ll probably be amusing to go back and read my punchy tired writing there at the end. But, it’s an ending.

So, game plan: Put the first draft down and walk away for at least a week or two so it can settle. Go write my next short story for The First Line. Maybe poke around for another project or short story after that. Then I’ll start working on Grace again and begin the rewrite. I suppose I could go back to Sean as well, but I think I’m going to let that sleeping dog lie for a bit.