Updates

I've been quiet for a few days, so here are a few updates for you:

Update #1: I'm still here. In other words, despite my boring diet of fresh fruits, vegetables, and the occasional splash of flavor, I haven't wasted away.

Update #2: This is finals week. No, I'm not a student. I'm a teacher, which makes finals week worse. Students have at most five papers/assignments to write. I have about 20 exams and 40 essays to grade from two classes. I can't imagine how full-time instructors feel this week in grading exams and essays from hundreds of students!

Update #3: THE DINER ON THIRD, my YA paranormal mystery about 17-year-old ghost hunter Leia Angeletti is out on submission with several agents. I've had some positive reponses and two outright rejections. I'm hopeful, but I'm also beginning to think the manuscript could be improved in a few ways.

Update #4: The April Marathon is over, obviously. I spent some quality time with great writers, racing to a finish line of either 500 or 1,000 words, and little by little I developed the plot for Leia Angeletti's second adventure. However, revisions for THE DINER ON THIRD and query letters slowed down the momentum for book two. Although I didn't meet my goal, I'm proud to say I finished the month with 25,000 words towards my next book!

Update #5: I've been looking forward to May for a loooooooong time! Here's why:

• May 4, Festival of Mystery hosted by Mystery Lover's Bookshop (FYI - The staff is fantastic, and they offer free shipping on any book orders more than $10, so give them a call). I'm going to embrace a dork moment and say I'm giggling inside at the opportunity to visit with writers I admire and meet new writers as well.
• May 9, Summer vacation begins. To focus my efforts on fiction, I won't be teaching this summer. Although I love my students, this is my first vacation from teaching since the fall semester of 2006. I'm looking forward to it :-)
• May 15-17, PennWriters Conference. I'm a newbie to the PennWriters organization, and the giddy dork inside will blossom mid-month to meet with agents and writers at the annual conference in Pittsburgh.
• May 24-30, New York City, here we come! My great friend and writerly colleague, Liz Hayes, and I are heading to the big city for some fun and some business. Monday to Wednesday, we'll be hanging out with awesome chicas (and I mean you Katie, Chelsea, and Kailen!!!), and Thursday to Saturday, we're attending the fantastic Backspace Conference.
• May 31, Bon anniversaire a moi! For those of you who know French, it's not my birthday. Let me spit out a cliche and say I can't believe a year has passed since my high school sweetheart and I tied the knot. But it has, and let's hope flights are on schedule, so I can rush home from New York to eat a year-old strawberry cheesecake before he eats it all on his own (and because I love him and all that)!

P.S. A.S. King's DUST OF 100 DOGS was discussed as a Great Read on this blog in March. She's an awesome writer and a cool gal, and she's running a contest on her blog this weekend. Write a 100-word story to win an autographed copy of her book. You know this giggling dork will be giving it a shot. You should too. Check it out.

Writing is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Speaking of marathon, the Backspace April Marathon is going well so far. Although it's a thirty-day challenge, I've been participating in smaller 500-word sprints with a few other writers (mostly J.E. Taylor and A.S. King).

These races have been incredibly helpful.

Basically, this is how it works. In the Backspace forum, everyone meets at the starting line, and someone types "GO!" From there, writers around the country (and one writer from Germany) clickety clack their keyboards until they hit 500. When they do, they post a victorious "Yay," and we have a winner.

The good news is by the time I hit 500 words, I'm deep enough into the writing that I'm able to keep going for another thousand words or so. And my win-loss record is strong, by the way, or maybe it just seems that way because hitting 500 words in less than 20 minutes is a win for everyone.

Word Count: 12,100

Kissing books goodbye - for now

Last night I was able to finish A.S. King's The Dust of 100 Dogs, and the timing couldn't have been better (the ending was fabulous, by the way). The author and I have been chatty over private messages in the Backspace forum. I have to admit I've been interacting with authors often in the past year. I've emailed with them, rubbed elbows with them at conferences, and followed their blogs like a lost puppy. And I get this sort of excited 12-year-old girl inside of me screaming when I get emails/messages/etc. from authors I admire.

Such as A.S. King.

She might check back to see this blog, which would be great. But I guess this kind of puts me out there like a seventh grader who has a crush on a classmate, athough this crush is purely professional.

In any case, her book might be the last one I read for a while as I've signed up to challenge myself with a writing marathon this month - 50,000 words of my next book. April 1 to April 30.

Deep breath.

A.S. King herself is joining in on the fun as the marathon is sponsored by the fantastic writing group we're both members of, Backspace.

I succeeded at a similar marathon in November, which is National Novel Writing Month. Nanowrimo is an international phenomenon in which writers spend thirty days writing 50,000 words. I met that goal and haven't opened the Microsoft file containing my 50K since. I'm not sure I'll be able to do much with it. Nanowrimo 2008 taught me a few things.

1. I can write every day, producing lots of words.

2. Without preparation (for me a detailed outline) before I begin, the result is nearly useless.

So this time around, I'm hitting the keyboard with an outline beside me. I've already written about my characters before, in The Diner on Third, and I'm hoping that's a bonus. In any case, I'm going to be spending more time this month writing than reading.

If you're up for a challenge, another contest to consider this month is ScriptFrenzy. This is a Nanowrimo-ish contest for scriptwriters. This isn't an April Fool's Day joke. The good thing about writing is if you want to write, you can write. It's up to you to do it. Maybe I should turn that finger around and feed myself that advice.

It's Day One of the marathon. Time to get writing.

War, pirates, reincarnation, and dogs make for a great read

The past few days have been busy with boring duties like laundry, cleaning, and grocery shopping, so I haven't been able to do what I want to do most: sit down and read A.S. King's The Dust of 100 Dogs.

The author, Amy Sarig King, is a fellow Pennsylvania resident who spent some time close to my second home (Scotland). For years, King wrote and taught literacy in Ireland. This debut novel of hers is marketed as young adult fiction, which I'm an avid reader of since I write in the genre, but I have to say it will appeal to a much wider audience.

The book tells the story of Emer Morrisey, a brave and innovative Irish girl who watches her family destroyed at the hands of Cromwell's army. She's taken in by a brutish uncle who ultimately sells her to be the wife of an old, unattractive French man, tearing Emer away from her true love.

But Emer's too strong to let someone else control her life.

While we're learning about Emer's challenges and successes in the 17th century, we're also learning about her life in the 21st century. The jacket copy does a great job of explaining why that is:

In the late seventeenth century, famed teenage pirate Emer Morrisey was on the cusp of escaping the pirate life with her one true love and unfathomable riches when she was slain and cursed with the dust of one hundred dogs, dooming her to one hundred lives as a dog before returning to a human body - with her memories intact.

Now, she's a contemporary American teenager, and all she needs is a shovel and a ride to Jamaica.

I wish I had a few hours to sit alone with King's incredibly-woven, rich story of the past, the present, and the intricate workings of canine minds. Until then, I'll be enjoying the book bit by bit when I have a few moments, and I would strongly encourage you to do the same.