How Did I Get Here After Shelving the Book?!

While I sit here hoping none of my politicians or their campaign managers call me, I thought I’d go in to a bit more detail about Tuesday shocker.

Way back in July I thought it’d be a good idea to try being a novelist.  I had a couple of novels on my computer, and I jumped right in to trying to figure out query letter writing (which you can read about here, here, and here), finding an agent (here, here, here, and an entire category on the right sidebar of the blog), and trying to write a summary.  Then I jumped in to some online communities for authors.  I began sending out the query letter and getting rejections.  So, I did as everyone suggested and tried revising the query letter.  More than once, in fact.  And that’s when I read on a few sites that if your query letter(s) doesn’t get a nibble in the first 12 agents, your query letter is horrible.

That’s also when I read that most family sagas are between 75,000 and 80,000 words.  My first novel, THE EARLY YEARS, is slightly over 160,000 words.  Little difference.  My query letter broke all the rules.  I started with a paragraph full of questions.  It was a bit wordy.  (Hello, we are talking about me here.  I am wordy.)  Needless to say, after all of this, um, rejection, I was less than happy.  I decided to do more than shelve THE EARLY YEARS.  I pretty much destroyed the book.  I cut it up in to three sections and began to come up with a different approach.  Needless to say, I was not quite sure what to do with the first book.  So, I shelved the books and decided they’d be a prequel.

I decided to concentrate on SWEET SIXTEEN.  (Aka, the previous second novel in the series.)  I was trying to write a query letter (as evident a few weeks back on this very blog) when politics kicked up to the point writing a query letter was not gonna happen.  (Y’all remember that lovely little post on my query letter and GOTV phone script becoming one nice little document, don’t ya?)  For the sake of my sanity I decided to leave the writing off on the side until after the election.  As we all know, that lasted until last Saturday.

Anywho, Saturday and Sunday I wrote 5,000 words.  Monday I got rid of about 2,000 of those words in a rewrite, and got the news I had lost another contest.  Tuesday I get this email out of the blue to send the first 50 pages.  And we all know the response.  Tuesday Night I remembered why being a GOTV coordinator means I feel like I am underappreciated.  Something about everyone at the office (minus Su and Diane) going “Whatever, can you get me the likelihood so-and-so will win in House District such-and-such?”  (Sure, right after I realize that you only need me for my intelligence.)

Wednesday had me going “Wait, that agency?  Didn’t I send them that query back in July?  And doesn’t their website say two weeks?  Not three months?  Okay, me confused.  That query letter was horrible.  Awful.  Pathetic.  Like everyone ripped me over that query letter.  And they want a sample of my writing?  Check out the website to see if they requested one.  Nope, no request for a sample to be sent.  Hum?  Can I hope they will look past the wordiness of the first 50 pages and ask for the rest of the book? (Fingers crossed!)  Did I write the email response right?  Now I’m really nervous.  This is as bad as sending out the first few query letters.  No one warned me that an agency might actually look past a bad query letter.”

Oh, and a whole bunch of nerves every single time my cell phone chirped to let me know I had an email.  I think I almost had a heart attack yesterday.  No request for a full, or rejection.  I hear tell it is usually 3 months to six months on a partial request before you hear back.  I’m gonna just try to forget that some agent somewhere is finally reading my writing.  After all, I can’t spend a few months being nervous every single time I get an email.  Or can I?  And can I carry my laptop and my 3G card all over creation waiting for that email?  (Thinking positive here, Sherri.  I need to email the full manuscript as soon as I get the request, right?)

I’ll just be over here in the American West having a heart attack while some agent back East decides if he likes the partial.

-Amanda Nicole

PS: I was gonna put up my losing short story this week, but something changed my plans to post the story yesterday.  I think I got an email or something.  I’ll post it later.

 

A Small Bit of News

PARTY TIME!  Okay, not quite a full party, but a little party.  Very little party.  With lots of hope!  I got a partial request from an agent!  In other words, an agent asked me for the first 50 pages of the manuscript I had decided to toss!  Oh, and this was off the query letter that – to put it mildly – sucked!  I was in a lunch meeting and might have made my friend/semi-co-worker reread the email a few times.  Little ol’ me thought it had to be a rejection.

After all, this agency may have said on their website that if you have not heard from them in two(2) weeks to assume you have been rejected.  Said agency has been sitting on the query letter since August.  Don’t know why I would have written them off.

Here’s how it went.  I’m one week from an election, so I’ve been getting upwards of 500 emails a day.  This one went to my email that only a few people have.  But, I thought it was political.  So, like Jack and I had been doing the entire meeting, I checked my email.  Noticing the subject line (“Submission”) I figured it was another rejection.  That’s when I read the one sentence saying the agency wanted the first 50 pages!  I may not have believed the email.  Somehow, after making Jack read it, I went back to the meeting about my candidate.

I then rushed to my parents’ house.  (My 3G card I am living off of will not upload that big of a file.)  Downtown Denver to Aurora is a bit further than say Downtown Las Cruces to almost Organ (where we live.)  Of course, I tried calling my husband.  The man I love and want to spend the rest of my life with.  Also currently known as the man who won’t answer or return my phone calls.  (Hello, life changing event here!  I was seriously thinking of not writing another query letter, but this has changed my mind.)  Anywho, I then called a couple of really good friends.  I got to my parents’ house while my mother was out shopping.  You can guess what my mother was thinking when her eldest daughter comes bounding out of the house as soon as the minivan pulls up.

About this time my computer finally came out of hibernation.  It took 75 seconds.  (Not that I was counting.)  I then wrote a quick email to the agency, along with sending both a Word document and a PDF.  Why take any chances that they wanted the other format?  I sent off the sample, and now comes the worry that my next email from the agency will be a rejection.  Urg!  I hate this part.  But I do love finally getting a request for my writing.

I’ll write more once I get past this whole emotional high!

-Amanda Nicole

 

Another Loss

Okay, I get that Glimmer Train Press is a hard competition.  I do realize everyone and their dog wants to be published in Glimmer Train Press.  I’m okay with the fact Glimmer Train Press is selective.  Sadly enough, I will admit that the story I entered was not that great compared to some of the other literary pieces of work I have seen in Glimmer Train Press.

Not that I am giving up!  I will not give up!  I am now going to keep entering contests at Glimmer Train Press until I get that win!  And, yes, part of me is thinking about entering the story I am currently writing this month.  Won’t happen, because it is six days from the deadline, seven from my portion of campaigning being complete, eight from Election Day, and, oh yeah, the story isn’t even out of the first draft.  I’m pretty sure I’d die of embarrassment if anyone read the story in its current form.

Guess I know what the first few weeks of November will be spent doing.  But, I love it!

-Amanda Nicole

 

Feeling Better!

I’m feeling better.  Thanks for all of the well wishes.  Now, if I could just get through the stress of the next eight days…

I have to admit to slacking with the political job, too.  Little ol’ me spent Friday in bed working.  I still only got three hours of sleep.  Yet, staying in bed was quite nice versus going to the office and being in the hectic political world.  It is nice at times to be the person normally hidden from the others.  I don’t think anyone noticed I was missing.

Saturday I tried to put in a full day.  Somewhere around 7:00 pm I hit a wall.  I was tired, sick and stressed.  Changing programs on the computer, I promised myself I’d only write a few lines before I went back to working on the numbers.  I hadn’t touched Alexandria and gang since I got to Colorado.  What would a few moments with my favorite female lead hurt?

Ha!  A few minutes?  Midnight rolled around before I put the computer down.  Alexandria and Peter continued to tell their story to me as I dreamed.  And I woke up feeling rejuvenated at 5:00 in the morning.

A good me was supposed to go right to work on numbers.  I checked, and we had no new updates from the Secretary of State’s office.  And that’s when I noticed my Word Doc was still opened.  Little ol’ me thought “Just a few more minutes…”  I did get work done, after spending an hour rewriting what I wrote Saturday night.  My “few moments” turned in to 5,000 words.  And it felt good.

Oh, in case anyone was wondering, that 5,000 words is an almost complete short story I am going to submit to Glimmer Train Press for the November contest.  I don’t think it’ll get polished before Halloween to meet this month’s contest deadline.  If it doesn’t win the Glimmer Train Press November contest, I’ll work a bit more on the polish before submitting it to Harper’s Magazine.  Now, to figure out how to write a query letter, write a short story, Get Out The Vote, and finish getting over the flu all at the same time…

 

Time Off

That horrible post yesterday might be because not only am I working 20 hours a day on a campaign, I have the flu!  Chills, aches, stuffy nose, fever, the works.  So, while I can’t take off from the real job 12 days before an election, I think I’m taking a three day weekend (maybe four) from here.  Sorry, gang!  I’ll be back as soon as my temp returns to normal and I can think straight.

-Amanda Nicole

A Bit of Work on the Query Letter

I found some time yesterday in my busy schedule to work on my query letter.  And I sat there for about five minutes staring at a blank screen.  Part of me thought “This is completely getting annoying having writer’s block every single time I try to rewrite this letter.”  That’s about the time I started to sneeze.  And sneeze.  And sneeze.  That’s also when I felt that lovely foggy feeling that comes with sinuI found some time yesterday in my busy schedule to work on my query letter. And I sat there for about five minutes staring at a blank screen. Part of me thought “This is completely getting annoying having writer’s block every single time I try to rewrite this letter.” That’s about the time I started to sneeze. And sneeze. And sneeze. That’s also when I felt that lovely foggy feeling that comes with sinus pressure. Grand, a cold! Every politically active person can tell you that there is the dreaded “campaign cold” that always shows up about fourteen days out from an election up to the day of the election. It seems this year it is my turn to start the cold. With stuffed up ears, a stuffed and running nose, sinus pressure and sneezing, I decided that this was not gonna work. I couldn’t even write a Facebook status for one of my candidates. I was just staring at Facebook as though the computer should somehow download the information from my mind and make sense of it. (All I was trying to do was write that my candidate is holding a job fair tonight. Too bad there aren’t any literary agents at the job fair.) That’s when it happened. The last paragraph of the query letter has been killing me. For some reason I cannot figure out how to end the dang query letter. I have to add the title of the book (which probably still needs some help), who the target audience is, and somehow go “Read This” without saying those words. I have only struggled with this since the first letter I wrote. I thought I was still struggling with the whole last paragraph. Here’s what came to me. I do want to quit feeling like my head is feeling like it’s filled with cotton before I look at this again. I think it just might work, though. If I’ve got one paragraph down, the rest should follow: SWEET SIXTEEN is an 85,000 word family saga novel that will appeal to women between 35 and 60 years of age. SWEET SIXTEEN is complete and available for your consideration at your convenience. -Amanda Nicole s pressure.  Grand, a cold!  Every politically active person can tell you that there is the dreaded “campaign cold” that always shows up about fourteen days out from an election up to the day of the election.  It seems this year it is my turn to start the cold.

With stuffed up ears, a stuffed and running nose, sinus pressure and sneezing, I decided that this was not gonna work.  I couldn’t even write a Facebook status for one of my candidates.  I was just staring at Facebook as though the computer should somehow download the information from my mind and make sense of it.  (All I was trying to do was write that my candidate is holding a job fair tonight.  Too bad there aren’t any literary agents at the job fair.)

That’s when it happened.  The last paragraph of the query letter has been killing me.  For some reason I cannot figure out how to end the dang query letter.  I have to add the title of the book (which probably still needs some help), who the target audience is, and somehow go “Read This” without saying those words.  I have only struggled with this since the first letter I wrote.  I thought I was still struggling with the whole last paragraph.

Here’s what came to me.  I do want to quit feeling like my head is feeling like it’s filled with cotton before I look at this again.  I think it just might work, though.  If I’ve got one paragraph down, the rest should follow:

SWEET SIXTEEN is an 85,000 word family saga novel that will appeal to women between 35 and 60 years of age.  SWEET SIXTEEN is complete and available for your consideration at your convenience.

-Amanda Nicole

PS. I stupidly tried to respond to comments while feeling like this.  If my responses didn’t make sense, I apologize.

I Am A Star!

Let’s keep this short and sweet today.  I, little ol’ Amanda Nicole, was featured on another blog!  I’m a bit excited, and thought you guys should totally go read all about me somewhere else.  Because, every now and then I can be selfish.  Right?  So, head on over to Sherri’s blog http://tigereyedesigns.blogspot.com/p/featured-artist-tuesday.html and read all about little ol’ me.

Oh, and you might want to check out Sherri’s blog about natural healing and her really cool jewelry while you’re over there, too.  I bought a cool bracelet from Sherri last month.  I managed to keep the bracelet even when my neighbor (cough, Jeanette, cough) attempted to steal it after borrowing my bracelet.  Is it my fault the bracelet is so totally cool?  Nope, but my neighbor can get her own.

Go check out the post about me http://tigereyedesigns.blogspot.com/p/featured-artist-tuesday.html and Sherri’s blog on natural healing http://tigereyedesigns.blogspot.com.  Oh, and do yourself a favor and check out Sherri’s jewelry.  Wonderful designs and if I wasn’t falling asleep from campaigning and crunching numbers, I’d actually be able to string the words together to tell you how cool the jewelry is.  As it is, I can barely remember my name, let alone how to form a sentence.  So, go to  for Sherri’s jewelry at Tigereyedesigns Artisan Studio ArtFire Buy & Sell Handmade.  Totally worth your time, and the pictures will show off Sherri’s work a lot better than my tired mind.

-Amanda Nicole

 

Every Blog Needs a Button

Creating a button for the blog sounded easy.  After all, I write code.  How hard can a button be to create?  Especially when I had code to start from?  We aren’t talking a dang website, and I have that.  (www.amandanicoletrisdale.com)  It should be easy.

I borrowed my code from Mama Kat and her blog post about creating a blog.  Her post is at http://www.mamakatslosinit.com/2010/01/blog-tips-how-to-make-your-own-blog-button/, in case you’d like to read how to do this from someone who didn’t spend a few days cursing images.

I figured the code should be fine, so I spent a few minutes getting a blog button image all figured out.

That’s when I looked at the code.  It had it set up for Photobucket.  I hopped over to Photobucket and set up an account for my blog button photo.  Then I grabbed the direct link – which is what the instructions said to do – and put the link in to the code.  Except, that’s when I found an issue.  I got a “This picture has been moved or deleted from Photobucket” instead of my picture.  Okay, people, this is bad!

I’m now running late by about half an hour, so the button gets put to the side.  By time I got back, I decided I didn’t like the original button.  So, new button idea with new figurine.

Upload to Photobucket again.  This time it has to work.  Right?  Yeah, wrong.  (Can I blame it on doing this with a sinus headache?)

Next brilliant idea was to put the image in the WordPress Library.  Yeah, that got me a red X.  Back to Mama Kat’s blog to see what I was doing wrong.  Nothing, okay, this is just not cool, people!  Off to Photobucket to see what they say.  “If someone deletes a picture you get this message…”  Yeah, well, what if the picture is there but I’m getting the message.  Okay, trying different links.  Fun!

Tweaking and opening the web page compiler to figure out what my coding issue is.  Turns out that the lovely Photobucket was adding a “t” to the end of the dang line of their code!  Issue fixed, the button goes on the blog.

Until I realize the dang words aren’t readable.  New button time.

And once more, the words can’t be read.  So, back to Corel to fix issues.

That’s when the dang issue with missing image came back.  (Grumbling under my breath!)  New idea?  Reboot computer!  Because reboot is always the answer.

That’s when I realized there was an “http:” issue.  The code dropped the “http:” from the address for the image.  The address became “//i1217.photobucket.com/albums/dd391/antrisdale/BlogPic6-1.jpg”.  That’s an issue.  Fixing the minor problem got me a button!

Now that I had a button, I figured I’d help out a friend or two.  So, adding their images to my photo album, I removed the code for my blog and put in the code for their blog.  It took all of two minutes to create the extra buttons.  My blog roll can start looking cooler with actual JPGs.

For those of you looking for a code for a button, Mama Kat’s blog has a great code.  It’s easy for anyone to copy and use.  You can find it on her blog at http://www.mamakatslosinit.com/2010/01/blog-tips-how-to-make-your-own-blog-button/.  I’d totally go over there and check out her lesson if I were you.

-Amanda Nicole

PS: And after I did all of that work, my friend, Lisa, from over at Lisa’s Urban Nostalgia was sweet enough to send me a new header graphic for my blog.  So, new business cards and a new button that looks better!

Rejection Right Now? Seriously?

In one of those “I love you, honey, but you’re horrible” moments, I called my husband on Friday.  I’m a little stressed with the campaign.  Okay, I’m a bit more than a little.  Anywho, I called my husband because he’s at home and my ballot was supposed to be delivered to our home.  This is when he asks if I want some other envelopes sent up to Colorado.  No, dear, I do not want rejection letters sent to me when I’m stressed!  Seriously, not on my Top Ten List of things to receive when life is going smoothly.  Nowhere near it during the stressful moments!

Anywho, that means I’ve been rejected, again.  You’d think I’d be used to this by now.  All I can think of is “Well, you agents are aware when I get a big best seller and you all want to sign little ol’ me I’ll be with whoever took a chance on me, right?”  Yeah, I know.  I’m a crazy little dreamer.  But, I like dreaming.

The good news is the book they rejected is no longer around.  (Long time readers of the blog will remember that I split the book in to three parts and made the book a prequel to the novel I am currently shopping around.)  And, it does mean only 31 rejections so far.  I’ve been told this is not very high.  And “The Early Years” had a major problem besides its length.  My query letter was horrible.  I did three different ones, and they all were horrible.  So, live and learn.  This next query letter will be perfect.  Right?

And maybe this rejection is just leading to bigger and better things.  After all, the more rejections I get, the longer it takes me to get published.  The longer it takes me to get published, the more readers my blog can get.  The more readers the blog gets, the more likely I have people willing to go buy my books and tell their friends all about it.  (Pre-orders, even at the bookstore, are wonderful.)  The more people and their friends who buy my book, the more likely I get to publish the rest of the story.  So, maybe this rejection is just another way of letting me gather a mini-following before I go big time.  Yep, I’m dreaming again.  But dreaming is what got me in to this place to begin with.

Back to the last fifteen days of the campaign.  Alexandria Houston will never, ever be dumb enough to get this involved in politics.  She’ll realize quite quickly that one cannot change the world through politics, right?  Alexandria is smarter than me.  Or, so I hope.

-Amanda Nicole

My Candidate

Alright, I admit.  I knew coming back to run GOTV on a campaign with less than 21 days left was gonna be a bit hard.  At no time did I think I might forget to post on the blog.  Yesterday’s post didn’t even get written.  Between entering in multiple months worth of canvassing data and trying to decipher the numbers, I spaced the blog.  And, I pretty much would say I did the same thing today.  So, please forgive me for being a bit lax.

If you’re really find yourself bored and want to see about a candidate you probably aren’t gonna have a chance to vote for, my candidate’s website is http://www.suryden.com.  Su’s a wonderful woman who I admire.  She is the owner of a small marketing firm located in Denver, Colorado.  (Ryden and Associates also does communications for businesses.)  Su has been married for a few years to a great man named Jerome Ryden.  (I usually try not to say anything about my candidate’s spouses, but Jerome really helped a lot with the last campaign.  And they both got me a wonderful bottle of whiskey as a “Thank You” gift, which made my year!)  Su is one of those people who is a little in to saving old buildings.  (I love history, so I think Su’s efforts are great.)  Oh, and Su and Jerome have a son who became a doctor.  Impressive, or so I think.

Su is a horrible politician.  I mean the woman is a campaign staff’s worst nightmare come to life.  The reason?  Su doesn’t know how to hide her beliefs or her opinions!  Seriously, as much as I love Su, sometimes I just wanna go “Stop talking and giving them ammunition!”  Now, this is usually on minor stuff.  There’s this old building here in town most people want to see torn to the ground.  Not Su.  The building has unique architecture and is old.  Su wants the building on the National Historical Registry.  Like I said, fairly minor since the building is just sitting there.

So, that’s who is getting the bulk of my attention for the next seventeen days.  I promise to try to remember the blog exists.  Really, I do.  But, if I forget a post or two please don’t shoot me.  Then no one will know what happens to my characters.

-Amanda Nicole