Old People Writing for Teens, IV

OMG, chocolate martini. When I did some light bartending way back when, I created a yummy chocolatey drink: shot of Godiva white or dark chocolate liquor, shot of Bailey's, and half and half over ice in a tall glass. *drool*

And re: writing...no comments on the latest incarnation of my synopsis, so I might just go over it once more to polish to my own liking and then move on to my query letter. Still waiting for the last couple of beta readers to get back to me with notes (I had a ton of people volunteer on Facebook and didn't have the heart to tell any of them no), but I'm trying not to think about revisions to the actual MS until I hear from them. I do have a feeling that there will be pieces to add, which I think is a good thing. It'd be nice to get it to 30k words, but that's probably overestimating things.

30K total? Is it a shot story or is that a Novella? *can't write novels under 80K*

ETA: that drink sounds awesome. What did you name it?

Ugh I am trying to make sure my novel is kinda close to these R+R notes but I think it is so hard to tell with me being too close to the novel. *sigh* So no writing or editing done today. I wish people were ready to read my stuff now, lol. I just want to keep editing!

And melly, the first draft of this novel was 42k and queried it at 46k. Small doesn't always mean too short. But now it's 54,000 so I'm feeling a lot better about it. How do you write 80k?!

Never named it

And I think that the minimum word count for novellas is around 17k words, according to most sources I've come across.

I hope to be able to write something over 40k words someday, lol!

You can do it!!! *waves pompoms*

ETA: I put up my query letter in QLH and would love some advice on it!

Thanks Smiley!

If I thought I could give worthwhile feedback, I'd beta for you, but I don't feel very qualified, lol.

OK, trying to motivate myself to get up and clean the kitchen, put laundry in, and fold the load of towels that I did yesterday. I've already swept and vacuumed the floors (big job here, with a Border Collie in the house), and vacuumed the huge sectional couch, so I feel as if I've had a full day of cleaning already!

No problem and LOL I am just way too impatient. I'm sending my ms to a friend in July (she's in residency right now for her MFA and we went to college together, so I really trust her), but I just want it to be July ASAP.lol so I can get her feedback.

Is it bad I hate cleaning? The only thing I kind of like doing is washing the dishes (with music on so I can dance like the dork I am), and sweeping. And now I'll be the drill sargent - DO THAT CLEANING, JUSTBISHOP!!!! STOP SLACKIN'!

I had a friend, a preacher's wife actually, who made an amazing white chocolate raspberry martini. She moved and I never got the recipe, but I know it involved white chocolate liqueur and raspberry vodka.

No writing today. I've been busy with a difficult co-worker. Ugh. I hate this day job business.

I like cleaning when I'm in the mood. I hate, hate, hate laundry though!

I can't decide whether to watch the 1932 Dracula or Percy Jackson first...

Help?

Smiley0501 said:

No problem and LOL I am just way too impatient. I'm sending my ms to a friend in July (she's in residency right now for her MFA and we went to college together, so I really trust her), but I just want it to be July ASAP.lol so I can get her feedback.

Is it bad I hate cleaning? The only thing I kind of like doing is washing the dishes (with music on so I can dance like the dork I am), and sweeping. And now I'll be the drill sargent - DO THAT CLEANING, JUSTBISHOP!!!! STOP SLACKIN'!

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Ahhhh! OK OK! Kitchen cleaned, laundry started, and towels folded. I really could be clearing the fridge of leftovers and folding the load of laundry that I just took out of the dryer, but I don't wanna.

The husband took yesterday and today off for no good reason, and is hanging out with the kid watching Barney. Tonight is my Panera knitting group at 6, but i think I'm going to show up early for the heck of it. I usually make it by the skin of my teeth or a bit late because of the hubs not pulling into the driveway before 5:30, but I figure I should take advantage of the fact that he's home today.

In the meantime, just waiting for the laundry to finish washing so that I can take a shower without maddening water temperature fluctuation, then I'm heading to the grocery store to buy tofu and popsicles (I'm a picky eater and they take the opportunity on Tuesday nights to eat all of the crap that I don't like, lol).

Smiley0501 said:

You can do it!!! *waves pompoms*

ETA: I put up my query letter in QLH and would love some advice on it!

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So this isn't the Hope's twin sis story?

Bing Zabriskie said:

So this isn't the Hope's twin sis story?

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Nope. And wow I can't believe you remember that. That story is on the backburner (I write like 10 words a year on that thing, ugh)... This one is my forefront/baby. {hugs} I think it's much stronger than anything else I've written.

Watching Percy Jackson/Writing/Keeping track of the football.

Has anyone ever done an outline and then abandoned it because it's... well, been fucked up?

I've abandoned outlines because I get too frustrated...*shifts eyes*

I LIKE writing by this chapter list. But this have happened unexpectedly. Which leaves me frustrated.

OMG QLH people......*hides under covers forever* So brutal. A good brutal. But ohmygosh brutal...

I've written just over 1,000 here at work, and then I'll go home, break out the wine, some music, and get writing. Normally I can't write at home and I go to Starbucks or B&N, but I'm worried about one of my cats and may end up staying home to keep an eye on him.

I'm hoping to write at least 2500 more tonight plus do a new outline for the story (my characters basically made it impossible to stick to my previous outline. I'm usually more of a pantser but there are a lot of strings, this is a rewrite of a finished story anyway, and I'm trying to make it stronger especially in terms of plot and rising tension).

*consoles Smiley*

Lera: How the hell did you manage to do another outline??

You guys are so impressive.

Smiley0501 said:

OMG QLH people......*hides under covers forever* So brutal. A good brutal. But ohmygosh brutal...

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LOL. I've been watching the drama there. {Puts on helm.}

But, you've been getting full and partial requests despite an imperfect query, so you've been doing something really great. Polish it a little and you're looking to some bright future.

I got brutal slaps in the YA SYW, too. Good brutal yet hard-to-swallow brutal, but that's how one learns. I guess there's a reason thick skin is important to writers.

Apparently TV Tropes is good for random inspiration.

Pfffft, the question is always, how do I get it down to 80k i tend to overwrite and then go back in and cut. i'm a pantser so sometimes I just get caught up in scenes, but then I have to go through and cut out stuff that's not completely necessary to the plot or that drags the pacing or combine scene, etc.

I don't think this chapter/scene is going to be finished for a while...

mellymel said:

Pfffft, the question is always, how do I get it down to 80k i tend to overwrite and then go back in and cut. i'm a pantser so sometimes I just get caught up in scenes, but then I have to go through and cut out stuff that's not completely necessary to the plot or that drags the pacing or combine scene, etc.

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I overwrite and still end up with a low count, lol!