John Denver and I Made Up Today…

Remember this?

Today, for the first time in a month, Sunshine on My Shoulders came up on my random mp3 disk.  But today was a gorgeous day.

So John and I are officially back together. 

Wearing my $5, non-prescription sunglasses in the springtime sunshine, letting my eyes caress the hollow of each individual leaf shimmying in the wind on the distant trees, I had that “new glasses” feeling.

My myopic readers will know what I mean… that moment when you walk out of the optometrist’s office with brand-spankin’ new lenses on your face and realize, “Oh, yeah… this is what the world is supposed to look like.”  Everything looks brighter and more intricate than you remembered.

Except I now get this feeling with naked eyeballs.

Thank you, LASIK.  

Six months later, and you still seriously rock.  

Brain the Size of a Planet and Still Dumb

Ms. Brain-the-Size-of-a-Planet was one of my ex-boyfriend’s nicknames for me (Douglas Adams fan, natch). There is ample subjective and objective evidence to suggest that I am a smart person. And yet…

I have a lovely mp3 mix that I listen to in my car. A playlist of ~200 songs that I listened to while writing The Edge of Memory. In short, songs that I have listened to approximately 116,000 times, give or take a thou.

About once or twice a month for the last 4 -5 months, I have the following internal conversation with myself in the car:

Huh… I never noticed the back melody in this song before… *tilts head to listen closer*... It’s an odd rhythm, really… *wrinkles nose*... I don’t think I like it. It really doesn’t fit with the rest of the tune… *shrugs* Huh… I don’t hear it anymore… *slaps forehead*… Crap, that was my cell phone, wasn’t it?

I have rationalizations of course. I hardly use my cell phone. When folks need to reach me, they usually page. My pager is on 24/7, and I can pick that sound out of any din, even when deeply asleep.

But still… you’d think I’d have figured it out by now, wouldn’t you?

What I’ve learned about writing a novel and trying to publish, part two

It’s hard to believe it’s been a month already since What I’ve Learned, Part One.

So, Time for Part Two:

Read the Directions.

I know this seems too obvious to bother pointing out. Specifically, it reminds me of one of the most major verbal ass-kickings I survived as a child.

When I was in fourth grade, our teacher, Miss Spix, announced a surprise test which would be worth half of our grade. The classroom filled with tension as she passed out the thick stapled bundles to each student.

My eyes scanned quickly down the first page… history, science, math… all much more advanced than our coursework. It wasn’t multiple choice, either. With a sigh, I returned to the top of the page to read the directions:

Do not answer any of the questions in this test. Write your full name in the upper righthand corner and the word “Yes”. Circle your name, and then turn the test face down on your desk. You may then read quietly for the remainder of the test period.

So, I did and garnered many dirty glances from my classmates as they wondered why Miss Spix did not reprimand me for reading A Wrinkle in Time (again) while they struggled to solve algebra problems. Which was nothing compared to their response when Miss Spix finally collected all the exams and then announced that I would receive a prize for being the only person to follow the directions. The playground was an ugly and dangerous place at recess that day.

That said, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that writers are literate. So I find the reports I’ve encountered from agents regarding inappropriate query letters simultaneously disturbing and comforting.

Colleen Lindsay on Inappropriate Queries

Jennifer Jackson on Inappropriate Queries

Nathan Bransford on Inappropriate Queries

Many agents have clearly listed their personal preferences and submission guidelines on their agency websites, or on their blogs, or on sites like agentquery.com (or often, all of the above.)

So use the resources available and make a kick-ass, tailor-made query. Apparently this will put you ahead of 30% to 50% of your competition.

Query Thoughts From a Serial Monogamist

I have been a serial monogamist for as long as I can remember. I got engaged to my first boyfriend at 3 years old. Our engagement lasted two years, until we started separate kindergarten classes and decided to part ways.

That’s when I got engaged to the boy I called “Mucho Macho Jason” who looked like a miniature prize fighter and who proposed to me with vows to guarantee my choice of any seat on the school bus and provide “a pile of candy”.

I have never, in my adult life or prior, dated more than one person at a time. I’ve always ended one relationship before moving on to the next. My brain just isn’t wired for dating several people casually until finding the right one to get serious with.

Which brings me to the query process… I’m not wired for proper querying. I’ve read that to effectively query, you should send out five to ten letters a week until you get a request for an exclusive read or an offer of representation. Granted, I’ve only just begun the query process, but already I feel disloyal as I send out 2 or 3 letters and then wait for replies.

I have to learn how to be a query player.

My revised beginning from a few weeks ago is up for review in the public queue on critiquecircle.com this week. Provided the revision is well-received (and early reviews are promising). I am committed to becoming a coquette when it comes to query letters.  No really.  I mean it.

Here’s hoping I uncover my inner Belle of the Ball.

Getting Widgety

I found a cool gadget for Windows Vista.  It links to a site called Bloglines where you can keep track of all your blog feeds.

So I have a sweet little box on my desktop that will instantly tell me if any of my favorite Agent Blogs have new postings, or if there’s any breaking news on the Chittie/Kitten blogs I follow.

Highly cool.

Perfecting a Pitch Blurb

Kristin Nelson rocks. Seriously.

I attended her workshop on Query Pitch Blurbs at the Chicago-North RWA Spring Fling. Using her suggestions, I crafted a query letter and sent out an equery on Monday night.

Tuesday afternoon, I got a request for a partial.

She has been blogging on the same topic. Well worth reading.

You can find most of the information here. Or if you visit her main blog page, the entries from April 21 - 28 address this topic. And there’s more coming.

My Pitch for The Edge of Memory

Warning! The following post is slightly spoilerific. So you’ll have to click “continue” to read it.

In case you read about my first agent meeting and wondered what my 60-second pitch was…

All Flung Out: Chicago NRWA Spring Fling

Well, I’m back to my regularly scheduled doctorhood today.

I got in late last night and I’m working a 24+ hour shift today. So I didn’t have a chance to finish blogging about the conference.

Wow. What a crazy, wonderful experience that was!

Saturday, I drove in early for more workshops. I had a great session on writing query pitches with Kristin Nelson, which was highly cool. She had us share parts of our pitches and then helped us know what to focus on. Awesome… seriously worth the price of the conference all on its own.

Next was a “Meet the Agents” panel, where we got to ask questions to all the amazing agents that were participating in the conference.  It also meant I got a chance to hear from the agent I was scheduled to meet with later, Erin C. Niumata.

At lunch, another agent, Christina Hogrebe, just happened to be sitting at my table. She was very kind and told me not to panic about my meeting that afternoon, which helped. Also highly cool.

Despite her sound advice, I was a basketcase by the time I was supposed to present my pitch. I mean, I swear… I’m a physician. I speak to strangers all day long. Often giving bad news to them. I was on the debate team and speech team in high school. I give presentations constantly. And I have never, ever been so nervous to make a speech before.

I had seven minutes total time (the volunteers were clicking a kitchen timer on as you walked through the door).

After introducing myself and apologizing for my nervousness, I sat down.

Voice-cracking and probably WAY too fast, I delivered my little speech.

“What were you nervous about? That’s a great pitch!”
My face is on fire. “Thank you. I really appreciate that.”
“How long is the manuscript?”
“90,000 words”
“That’s a good length. Is it complete?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’d like to look at it. I need a synopsis and the first 100 pages. Can you do that?”

You bet I can.

“Thank you. If your book is as good as your pitch, it will be great.”

I shook her hand and nearly walked right into the volunteer who was coming to say we had one minute to wrap it up.

90 minutes later, my hands were still shaking.

The whole conference was just phenomenal. I met so many warm, funny, and fabulous people. I learned many cool things and got great advice. I survived my first pitch meeting. And I went home with a bag full of great books and other cool loot. I’m so thrilled that I decided to go.

To borrow a phrase from my wonderful test reader Kendra, “Two wildly enthusiastic thumbs up!!!”

Now I have to figure out which RWA chapter to join.

Still Flinging…

Well, last night got interesting.

First, I attended a great lecture on the nuts and bolts of publishing from agent Christina Hogrebe and author Maureen Lang.

After the lecture was the “Chocolate Reception”.  There, I recognized agent Kristin Nelson from her blog picture and hovered nearby like a star-struck teenager for about ten minutes, but there never seemed to be a break in conversation to approach and introduce myself.

Then, I bumped into Susan Rae again, who introduced me to DL Larson.  How exciting to meet authors who have been published already!

Honestly, I was so nervous, but I’m so glad I attended this conference.  Now, off for more…

My First Conference: Chicago RWA Spring Fling

Well, here I sit on break from my very first writing conference. A surreal experience to say the least.

After working up a vigorous lather of panic and caffeine this morning, I arrived at the Spring Fling conference muttering my 60-second pitch to myself and trying not to puke.

Much ado about nothing, like most panic. There will be no hallway pitching for me at this conference. At least, I doubt it. I would not be able to pick out the agents/editors from the sea of faces in these conference rooms, even if they were present (which I’m not sure they are.) So short of devising some ancient sit-com plan to be smuggled into someone’s room under a room service cart, I will not be pitching today.

Which is a bit of a relief, but I think I could do with going through my pitch a couple times before my meeting tomorrow.

Here’s the story so far:

1. I got a swag bag. Who knew? Three novels, a usb flash drive, oatmeal cookies, a pen and a binder at first peek.
2. I’ve spent the breaks sitting by myself in the hotel lobby, trying to remember my pitch.
3. The Q & A with Authors panel was hysterical. Debbie Macomber is a hoot. So were the other panelists, Eloisa James and Christie Ridgway, for that matter. I enjoyed it immensely, even though a lot of the discussion was naturally Romance-focused (this is a RWA conference, after all)
4. I chatted with a woman before one of the lectures who has turned out to be Susan Rae, author of Heartbeats, a romantic suspense novel about a pediatric cardiologist and an FBI agent. She’s currently writing the sequel. She asked what mine was about and I stumbled through my “hook” sentence feeling like a dork.
5. I’m eating dinner by myself at McDonalds, cuz the “optional pizza dinner” required pre-registration, even though it didn’t say so on the website.
6. My agent appointment tomorrow is for “3:07″ which makes me wonder how long I have for the meeting.

More later as it unfolds. I must now brave the construction on Lake Cook Road to get back for the next workshop.

Critical Choices: Making Every Word Count

Yesterday, my husband and I had dinner out.  As we perused the menu, we took in the evening’s entertainment, which was provided by two child-sized diners.

A little girl, about 3, in overalls, and her 5-year-old brother were careening in reckless circles from the dining room, through the bar and back again.

During the fourth lap, a booming male voice demanded attention.  “No more running!” he shouted.  “If I catch you running in here again, you’re in big trouble.”

The older kiddo grasped the spirit of the warning and slunk back to his seat.  About a minute later, though, the little girl came speeding around the corner into our section of the dining room again… skipping this time.

This appeals to me both as pediatrician regarding development of literal and figurative understanding, and as a writer in love with the power of precise words.

You go, girl.

Earthquake! No really.

The songs for the day are “I Feel the Earth Move” and “You Shook Me All Night Long”

My sleepy thought process at 4:30-ish am:

Huh… bed shaking… why?… mattress vibrating… hey, I wrote about feeling the mattress vibrating in my book when the train goes by the cheap motel… maybe I’m dreaming that I’m in my book… it’s 4:30… that sucks… windy… house never shook like this from the wind before though… and now it’s stopped… but the wind didn’t stop… earthquake?… no way… this is Illinois not California… Hey, it’s only 2:30 in California, but still too late to call Clara… durn birds are chirping outside… screams of the dying dark… shut up, little bird, I want to go back to sleep.

Aftershock at 10:15-ish this morning.  Seriously.  In Chicagoland.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Genre-Crossing and The Edge of Memory

I have struggled a bit with developing the pitch for my novel, since it doesn’t fit easily into a single category. I had lunch with an English teacher friend who’s just finished reading and asked her what she thought about genres.

“Well, it’s sort of a romantic, psychological thriller,” she said.

“With paranormal elements.”

She snorted her iced tea. “Yes, but you tread so lightly there I think you can safely avoid mentioning it.”

“I think the best fit category is Upmarket Women’s Fiction.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s gripping.”

So there you have it.

We also discussed the new title, and I explained the reservations I had with the former working title “Still Haunted” which were:

1. It falsely led people to expect a balls-out ghost story, whereas the ghost elements were subtle and late in the novel
2. By the end, the protagonist is not really so haunted anymore.

My friend suggested “Still Haunted.  Until Recently.” as an alternate title. 

I prefer “Up to a Short While Ago, Quite, Quite Haunted”

Maybe I should try that title for my next queries. 

What I’ve learned about writing a novel and trying to publish, part one.

I am admittedly an utter newbie to this whole process, so I’m no expert.

But in medicine, the philosophy is “See one. Do one. Teach one.” As soon as you learn something, you pass on the knowledge to those behind you on the learning curve.

And, you don’t find the words “Academic Director” in your title without being inclined to try to teach.

There are several things I’ve learned along this crazy journey that I’d never thought about or that straight-out surprised me. So, I’ve decided to mention what I’ve learned here in case it’s helpful to someone else.

I came home after a 24-hour shift in October and unexpectedly started writing what has turned out to be “The Edge of Memory.” I wrote the first two chapters that day. By that night, I posted to my chitties:

---

I have started doing something I have always wanted to do.

It’s a huge overwhelming creative undertaking.

And I both want to tell people all about it and ask their opinions, AND keep it all jealousy close to my chest.

I honestly don’t know if I will ever complete this task.

And while on one hand, telling people about it might provide motivation, it would also embarrass the heck out of me if I never manage to follow through.

I feel like a kid learning to ride a bike… I am pedaling like a madwoman and have just seemingly found my balance, so I want to shout, “Hey! Look at me go!”, but that might just be inviting everyone to watch me fall.

Can anybody relate? Anybody who is not actually learning to ride a bike, that is?

My friend Sandra posted in that thread that she understood completely and that she had signed up to write 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month in November. Which is another thing I had never heard of.

That was the first time I considered wordcount. How long is a novel supposed to be? What counts as a “novel” versus a novella?

I researched this topic when I was procrastinating on actual writing, or incubating some plot problem. And I found a lot of different answers, so I hoped my novel would end up somewhere in the overlapping range of 80,000 to 100,000 words.

I formatted my novel file to 6 x 9 paperback size. Pulling Kent Haruf’s Plainsong from my shelf, I obsessively thumbed through how many pages I’d written thus far to gage whether I was on track throughout my first draft.

As fate and my characters would have it, my novel stands at barely over 90,000 words. It has 40 chapters averaging 2000 - 2500 words each. So, I ended up just about where I wanted to be, which justifies all the research and obsessing.

But I could have saved a lot of time if FinePrint Agent Colleen Lindsay had posted this analysis on novel lengths a few months earlier. Incidentally, her blog is quite funny and worth checking out even if you’re not interested in publishing.

So, things I have learned about novel lengths so far:

1. 80,000 - 100,000 is a good average
2. Erring on the shorter side is probably best if you’re a new writer
3. There are different expected novel lengths by genre
4. Less than 50,000-60,000 words will probably be considered a novella (rather than a novel) and is harder to publish.

I’ll post some other things I’ve learned along the way in my next entry.

The Edge of Memory Cards for Writing Conference

In my continued quest to figure out how to get published, I’ve been researching writing conferences. The Chicago Spring Fling conference I’m attending at the end of this month is sneaking up on me faster than I’d expected.

In addition to cooking up a verbal pitch, I’ve read that I also need to prepare business cards. So, I whipped these up this morning

A new hook for me, too. So we’ll see how that works out.

Bite Me, John Denver.

John Denver is messing with me.

Or maybe the Universe is just laughing behind my back.

Let me preface this blog post by saying that I love my car. When my husband asked me what my dream car was last year, I told him an ‘06 Hyundai Sonata. He said, “you’re kidding.” And I got my dream car.

My car has an MP3 player, which I also love. And so I have mega-mix MP3 disks with me at all times, on random. Over the last month or so, the weather in Chicagoland has been… how shall I say… craptastic.

The only nice days so far have been the ones where I’ve been lucky enough to work a 24-hour shift.

And recently, when the weather is at its most icky– such as just before the blizzard on Good Friday, or at 5 am this morning when I left for work in the cold drizzling gray– my MP3 player keeps picking “Sunshine on My Shoulders”.

“If I had a day that I could give you,

I’d give to you a day just like today.”

I just bet you would. Sadist.

I don’t need “Sunshine All The While”.

But a day or two would be great.

I Can Has Agent?

My test reader chitties will remember this…

Thought I’d just put my original query letter up for review.

I decided it was too formal, though.

Cognitive Dissonance

We have a pond in our subdivision. Usually it’s cobalt blue and sun-dappled. That’s what it does, and it’s good at it.

Today is a gorgeous spring day– a prime opportunity for our pond to add to the springy view. Instead, it is gunmetal gray and cresting into actual whitecaps.

I love wind.

Musical Musings

Someone today mentioned great “Dance Movies”, one of which was West Side Story. This reminded me of an inspiration I had for a silly project back in medical school…

A parody of West Side Story, about rival insurance companies. The sweet young couple love each other dearly, but cannot wed as their preexisting conditions prevent them from adding themselves to the other’s policy.

I thought one “gang” should be the Mets, but I never came up with a good Shark-analog. Still, I composed these parody snippets:

When you’re a Met,

You’re a Met all the way

From your first check that clears

to the last time you pay…

And…

I feel sickly. Oh, so sickly!

I feel crummy and bummy and dead

And so sickly, I just want sit and hold my head.

I feel awful, oh so awful

It’s unlawful how awful I feel

And so sickly that I hardly can believe I’ll heal

See the sickly girl in that mirror there?

Who can that repulsive girl be?

Such a pale face! Such a fuzzy tongue! And such puffy eyes!

What a sickly me!

I feel icky and disgusting

Like my ‘pendix could bust… there it goes!

And my doctor has me paying through my runny nose.

And a friend of mine actually won tickets to see West Side Story while I was in medical school, so I told him about this idea and we whipped up this one that night (this is mostly my friend’s):

I’m an MD in America

Come and see me in America

I’ll make you healthy in America

For a small fee in America

If you are ill in America

I’ll give you a pill in America

Or some Ny-Quil in America

And send you a bill in America!

So, big broadway smash, right?

Heartstrings

Music is extremely important to me. All types of music.

I love the melody and the rhythm, but they are mostly a vehicle for me to mainline powerful lyrics.

So, I recently watched “Easter Parade”, being as the season was right for it. And, as always, Fred Astaire sang about how he was “Drum Crazy”.

I’m not drum crazy.

I love the rhythms and all, but that’s not what gets inside me. It’s the strings that touch on transcendental. Acoustic guitars and violins, harps and cellos– that’s my musical language.

I was fascinated in medical school when I saw real heartstrings.

Zing.