How is everyone?

Jan, hope you got some sleep! Cool here in Maine last night, and it's a lovely day. I'm planning on writing later today, but the lawn needs mowing and I have to put clapboard siding on the house - well, on my miniature house, but it's still thirsty work!

Am I procrastinating? Despite the fact that I've woken up early these last two mornings because my brain is working furiously on my WIP? Yep!

Lawn mowed a couple of times. Siding up on one side of my miniature house, but had to install the shower and toilet, so played plumber!

The WIP is coming along in fits and starts. But I'm pleased with the direction it's headed in.

Will you have another chance to do some writing at camp again?

Jan - My miniature house is a 1:12 scale dollhouse. I call it a miniature house because no dolls will be in residence.
It's meant to be an 18th century house on Cape Cod that has been renovated as a summer getaway. You need a backstory for your house and it's fun making up the how and why of the house. I have another house which is I'm turning into a bed & breakfast on Nantucket.

I'm looking forward to fall, too. I LOVE October. I could live somewhere where it's October all year 'round!

I'll look in my stash and see if I have any photos from when I had decorated some of the rooms just to get a feel for it. The house is now on its back as I work on siding the front. My husband had a contractor in to see about kitchen renovation and he saw my house on its worktable. He told my husband that if I ever want a part time job, he'd hire me to do siding!

Halloween is my favorite time of year and when I used to live in Massachusetts, and was in Salem every day, it was the best! They have a Halloween Happenings from October 1 until the big blowout on Halloween. But beyond that, all the historic houses with their corn stalks and pumpkins on the porches, and the warm glow in the fanlights over the doors are just perfect. One year I was fascinated with a huge full moon in the branches of an old maple. The tree stands in front of the 350 year old "Witch House". During the day the contrast between the red leaves and the black clapboards of the old house is stunning! Photo ops are everywhere! I'm hoping to go down this year and hang out for some of that magic. I miss it!

Jan, no luck in posting pics! I don't quite have the hang of it, or maybe I don't have permission. I'll look into it and if I can, I'll get some pics up for you of the house.

I LOVE historic houses! They have ghost stories by candlelight at Haunted Happenings. I think one of them is at The House of the Seven Gables. There are also haunted tours, "witch" shops and all kinds of museums, from historical to wax! Halloween is like a PG-rated Mardi Gras.

How am I? Well, i'm trying to edit about three novels at once, plus a novella! I know, it shouldn't really work that way.

One of the novels I feel is pretty good at this point, in terms of the editing I've done. But I'm sure it still has some problem areas that I will discover through critiques and so on.

The other two novels need a fair bit more work, but I have made quite good progress already with fixing previous problems.

The novella I am not feeling the love for at the moment, so maybe I'll leave that one for now.

Talking myself into posting in SYW. Then successfully talking myself out again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

What is SYW? Also, you should post. What do you have to lose?

Proserpina - it's the Share Your Work section.

No one but my mother, my ex-husband, my sister and various creative writing instructors has ever read anything I've written.

Posting in SYW would be totally out of my comfort zone...but I know I've got to squeeze out of it some time. 'Cause it's getting' pretty tight in here!

It just might not be today. Yes, definitely NOT today!

But that little voice will keep nagging me. Just like it does when it tells me to NOT eat the whole package of Klondike bars, and I don't listen, and a few days later the button pops off my jeans. And it pipes up, "I told you so."

Proserpina said:

What is SYW? Also, you should post. What do you have to lose?

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SYW = the Share Your Work threads here on AW. They're password protected critique threads organized by genre. "Password protected" meaning they won't show up in search results. You need a minimum of 50 posts in order to share your own stuff, but you can critique others' work anytime.

How am I doing? Hmm, let's see. I'm still working on two short erotic stories for anthology calls. One is almost ready to go, but the beginning is giving me trouble. The second lacks conflict and a complete character arc--in other words, story. Besides that, I've started a new medication that has me feeling not quite myself.

On the bright side, my garden is looking good! (Instagram links; safe for work)

Zinnia
Poppy

Thanks for explaining ladies. I totally get where you're coming from MerriTudor! Its really hard to put it out there, especially for the first time.

MerriTudor said:

No one but my mother, my ex-husband, my sister and various creative writing instructors has ever read anything I've written.

Posting in SYW would be totally out of my comfort zone...but I know I've got to squeeze out of it some time. 'Cause it's getting' pretty tight in here!

It just might not be today. Yes, definitely NOT today!

But that little voice will keep nagging me. Just like it does when it tells me to NOT eat the whole package of Klondike bars, and I don't listen, and a few days later the button pops off my jeans. And it pipes up, "I told you so."

Click to expand...

Hey, I know that voice! For me, it's foods from my childhood: Toaster Strudels and Lucky Charms, aka dessert disguised as breakfast.

As for SYW, don't worry, you'll get there someday.

I entered pitchwars, but have had no requests, which I suspect is due to its corpulence. No worries, pitchwars was the catalyst I needed to make changes. so I am trying to whittle it down to a more manageable size to prepare it for beta readers. Then hopefully begin pitching to agents late fallish. I have lots of ideas how to strip it down, but not the experience to feel confident I am taking out the chaff, ya know?

Hey, I know that voice! For me, it's foods from my childhood: Toaster Strudels and Lucky Charms, aka dessert disguised as breakfast.

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Toaster Strudels. Oh, yes. Yes! YES!!

It's a scientific fact that Toaster Strudels are wicked, sticky, orgasm-inducing delights that will turn you into a hopeless icing-packet junkie. I know. I was the Lindsay Lohan of Toaster Strudel rehab.

Gorgeous flowers, Story! And my condolences on the troublesome story. What are anthology calls?

I entered pitchwars, but have had no requests, which I suspect is due to its corpulence. No worries, pitchwars was the catalyst I needed to make changes.

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See? Now that's gutsy! I salute you, Proserpina!

I had an editor / publisher guy read one of my romance novels once (a novel I had gone through 5 revisions of and felt I had honed to near perfection). He was very kind and said, "You can definitely write...but you need to rewrite this whole novel! Change the setting! Make the hero the grieving one, not the heroine! Give us some steaminess earlier in the book, it doesn't start till the 70% mark!" etc.

After I got over the shock, I realised how correct he was (yes, he gave me very in-depth feedback as to WHY I had to rewrite), and I was suddenly itching to get started. The novel looks a lot better nowadays.

yoghurtelf said:

After I got over the shock, I realised how correct he was (yes, he gave me very in-depth feedback as to WHY I had to rewrite), and I was suddenly itching to get started. The novel looks a lot better nowadays.

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This has been my experience with feedback. While I WANTED to hear how utterly fabulous my work was, when I received helpful criticism instead, it wasn't the devastation I had expected at all. That itching to get started feeling was actually a good feeling! It opened my eyes to where my work needed improvement and made ALL my work going forward better. *I* was able to see my own work more clearly after.
That said, I have also had unhelpful feedback. But I had a VERY clear feeling in my gut about it. The good news is that was fairly easy to recognize.

Yes, you get good and bad feedback. Some people want to hurt feelings, I think, but it's good when you get to the point when you recognise that and can brush it off (after wanting to cry for a little moment, maybe ).

I definitely appreciate honest feedback, e.g. if someone hates my character that I think everyone will love, and so on. The guy who read my book told me my MC was whiny and very passive. I hadn't even realised she was exactly that until he said it! So I worked on changing that during my rewrite, since I never meant for her to be a passive person.

I had an erotic romance, Seducing His True Love, come out two weeks ago, and it looks like the sales have been abysmal. Which is nothing new, as the sales for all eleven of my books (with four different publishers) have been pretty poor, and my expectations aren't even very high. I really don't know what to do now. I have become so disillusioned with the romance publishing industry for many reasons lately. I am thinking of starting a new pen name, branding myself as writing diverse romantic comedy, but...I really don't want some of the hassles of self-publishing, and I'll likely lose a lot of money. So...I don't know. I am just so frustrated and pessimistic... *sigh*

Made it through the toughest revisions in my novella, now looking at not-grueling-but-still-hard last stretch.

About feedback, I depend heavily on my core beta readers (who know my work enough that I consider them more writing partners than betas). I still have very little ability to see the biggest flaws in my stories, and I have zero faith in my ability to make the correct changes the first time. I keep thinking the more projects I finish, the better I'll get at preventing major problems to begin with, but no. *sigh* My betas are invaluable for their honesty, pointing out issues, brainstorming after feedback, but it's still up to me to make the correct changes and I'm terrible at it. Which also means it takes me WAY too long to write a book.

Thus, my goal for acquiring an agent/getting published is 100% about having a professional lead me through a big edit so I can see the effective steps. I've never had the kind of professional, specific feedback yoghurtelf got. (*jealous* ) That said, this novella is likely to get pulled apart by my editor so we'll see how much I like it in the end. I'm a bit worried it's going to be more like tooth extraction sans anesthesia than a spa facial.

LJD said:

I had an erotic romance, Seducing His True Love, come out two weeks ago, and it looks like the sales have been abysmal. Which is nothing new, as the sales for all eleven of my books (with four different publishers) have been pretty poor, and my expectations aren't even very high. I really don't know what to do now. I have become so disillusioned with the romance publishing industry for many reasons lately. I am thinking of starting a new pen name, branding myself as writing diverse romantic comedy, but...I really don't want some of the hassles of self-publishing, and I'll likely lose a lot of money. So...I don't know. I am just so frustrated and pessimistic... *sigh*

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I'm envious that you are publishing anything - even with self-pubbing I haven't put anything out there yet. I don't really have anything to say about the state of publishing, but I'm sorry to hear sales aren't going well. I have author friends who often mention that their books are being pirated - do you think that could be a factor for yours too?

ElaineA said:

Thus, my goal for acquiring an agent/getting published is 100% about having a professional lead me through a big edit so I can see the effective steps. I've never had the kind of professional, specific feedback yoghurtelf got. (*jealous* ) That said, this novella is likely to get pulled apart by my editor so we'll see how much I like it in the end. I'm a bit worried it's going to be more like tooth extraction sans anesthesia than a spa facial.

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I was just having a read back through the advice he sent me - it was numerous emails with a lot of meat to them! The only reason I got that lucky was that I had a beta reader who had to pike on her obligation to me, and she asked her partner to help me out instead. He just so happened to work in publishing. So I do feel pretty fortunate there. He was very generous with his time, and helped to make my novel so much better than it was. If only I could translate that advice to the rest of my novels

I used to have a good group of betas, but sadly the group has sort of dissipated now, so I don't have anyone I hope to find some betas who will help me out, maybe even through these forums on the beta forum etc. I just want to get my novels in as good shape as I think I can get them before inflicting them on someone. That's what I've been working on for much of this year. I have three novels I think are *almost* there, the aforementioned one being the 'most there' of the three.

MerriTudor, you can just post a couple hundred words and specifically ask for gentle feedback. It might sting for a bit--let it, and let a few days go by. After that, you'll probably find it very helpful. I know that when I get edit letters from my agent or an editor, I'm horribly depressed and demoralized for a day, and fixate on all the "bad" comments in my head. I read the letter once, and go off and sulk. A few days later when I go back to it, though, it never seems as bad...and usually my brain has been working on what needs fixing, and I can happily jump in and revise.

I've been side-swiped by the horribleness that is the news these days, but I think I'm clawing my way back into my new YA. Plus New Agent Lady is preparing to take a series (Regency historical fantasy) out on submission in September, and I'm totally chuffed about that.