Three Weeks

It's been three weeks today since I submitted my manuscript to an agent. This was not a blind submission, he asked to see the full manuscripts for two books. Yeah! I still get excited saying that.

Knowing that it is two full manuscripts I figure I should give him a month before I try to contact him again.  I was thinking just a quick remember me email.  I don't want to let it go too long and have him think that I am not interested or lack drive and follow up.

Is a month too long to wait?  It's been a bit tough on me but from his perspective when you are busy at work a month can just fly by with that pile sitting on the corner of your desk growing.

What do you guys think?  What is the best next step and when should I make it?

I'd love advice from anyone who's been through this before.

Thanks.

Happy Writing
KAT                            

S is for Set-backs

Sadly, I am behind my self imposed deadline of getting my manuscript completed and off to the person who offered to review it.

Being in a car accident and losing time to that has been a set-back, family commitments and even being in a pitch contest and in the A to Z blog, while positives I am happy about, have been set-backs to working on my manuscript.

One of my set backs was me.  I didn't realize it but I started editing two different drafts of my manuscript and did a couple of chapters more than once, while they seemed familiar I have read my own manuscript many times.  This problem is due to not having a dedicated work space and moving myself from room to room.  I had one copy of my manuscript in one room and another in the other room and thought they were the same copy.  Oops.

For all the set backs we encounter.  There is always the opportunity to overcome.  As I make inroads and pass mile markers I love the feeling of accomplishment.  I know what my final goal is but I set small ones along the way so as I fall behind I can still make accomplishments and the overall goal does not seem insurmountable.

Yes I am behind; but I only have a couple of chapters left to go and I have managed to keep up with my A to Z blogging, I entered and was accepted into a pitch contest and have been trying like mad to read like authors and I have a few books under my belt now since this started.  Overall I have accomplished a lot but I certainly can't wait to have fewer things on my plate.

Set backs happen but they can only derail you from your goal if you allow it.  Keep going.  The fun is in the journey.

Happy writing!

Q is for Question

Looking  for the Like a Virgin Blog Hop please scroll down to the post below this one.  Thanks.


Q was going to be for query but since I changed P to pitch, which is a key part of your query I thought I would go with a less repetitive post.  So Q is for Question.

A lot of books that I like, including the one I am currently unable to put down, Tom Perrotta's The Leftovers started with a 'what if' question.  What if.. half the people on the planet just vanished, what if super heroes had to go into hiding?  Let your mind wander and embrace these wacky trains of thought you never know where they might lead you.

I was asked by a fellow author if I had questioned if my story would work better in the first person point of view, instead of the third person.  I thought she was nuts to suggest changing how it was written, especially when I was already 50k words into it, but taking her advice seriously and running the exercise proved to be an incredible help to my story.  Sometimes we are so close to what we are doing we don't question the basics and these things we take for granted may be exactly what we need to change to let your work soar.

Ask your beta readers and writers specific questions.  Don't just ask what do you think?  You know where your concerns are and unless you ask very specific questions you won't get the answers you need.  Is the pacing okay?  Are the main characters names too similar or hard to pronounce?
What do you think motivated my main character to leave her true love?  You get the point.

Happy Writing!

P is for Pitch

Welcome to the letter P.  I was originally going to talk about Platform today but I had some very welcome news that my pitch for my New Adult genre novel, working title Kate's Quest, was included in the Like a Virgin Pitch Contest.  Which is what the blog post just above this one is for, they are doing a blog hop for the contestants.

Since I have pitches on my mind and we all know how important they are I thought I would post the pitch I have been working on for the manuscript, Finding Life, we have been discussing throughout this A to Z blog journey.

I truly want any feedback you can give and it does not have to be positive if it is not warranted.  I have thick skin and value honest feedback.  

___________________________________________________________________________________

For three years widow Lilly Steadman has focused solely on her two children.  Her husband may have died that day but it was Lilly who lost her life.

Rock star,Taylor Radcliffe will do anything to be famous again, even if that means being clean and sober.  Dating Lilly was a lark until she became his muse; who unfortunately came with unwanted, tiresome baggage.  Whenever she abandons him for her responsibilities he gets into trouble.  He convinces Lilly to move her family to London so he can continue his rise to fame.

Lilly connects with her children, discovers life and who Taylor really is in London.  Family man and Taylor’s best mate, Nick Schuster becomes her only friend and confidant.  Lilly tries to keep Neil out of their problems but with no one else to turn to he becomes enmeshed in Lilly’s struggles, if only for selfish reasons of his own.

Thank you for any help you can offer.  I look forward to your comments.

Happy writing!

N is for Novice Novelist

That is me, a novice novelist, a newbie.  Like any other new undertaking I started with loads of enthusiasm and research.  However with this undertaking, unlike any other, everyone I have come into contact with was helpful.  Not reluctantly helpful but happily helpful.

I have learned so much thanks to the assistance of others and I know I will be relying on the assistance of others as I try to decide my path forward with my maiden manuscript.  Agent or no, traditional publishing, indie or self?

I think this processes is going so slowly for me not only because I am new to it but because it is my first novel.  My first baby that I am putting out into the world and you can only be a first time author once.  For that reason I want to make the best decisions possible and am weighing all options for my introduction to the world as an author.

I would love to hear what other authors have learned along the way, any advice that they wish they had know before they published their book.

Thanks for the support.

Happy Writing.

M is for Manuscript

 If you started following my blog after theme reveal day in March you are unaware that my theme was tossed out the window by some wonderful news (which caused me great elation, which I quickly tempered with realism) that there is a person, a professional in the writing world, who is willing to review my manuscript and if he judged it worthy, he would pass it on to an agent, who would only look at me thanks to his say so; so after that extremely long sentence, if you are still with me... I felt it was time for a manuscript update.

I set, what I thought to be a completely realistic goal of, a month to get back to him, however I forgot that I was compelled to complete a blog a day so a month really is not realistic in April, any other month yes.  I could not drop my second A-Z because I really need to have a platform for when the agent sees my manuscript and wants to check me out.  Of course you know the more followers I have the better it will look to the agent so I am hoping and praying for an A to Z miracle and adding at least 100 new followers in this month, slow going so far I must confess but there is still time. (Hint, hint, nudge nudge, wink wink ;) Just click on the little follow link to the right please.)

I have also been reading other novels like crazy.  My pitch for my manuscript was compared to works by Nick Hornby so I have been reading two of his books and one by Tom Perrotta (a fellow New Englander) as he came up as similar to Nick Hornby. [You can visit my previous post about comparison authors http://katloveswriting.blogspot.com/2014/04/c-is-for-comparison.html for more information.]   I have to stop and say I am in love with the concept behind 'The Leftovers' by Perrotta and while I have only made it 80 pages in I would recommend picking up a copy.

So with all these tasks demanding to be completed simultaneously I am only half way through the re-read and edit of my manuscript.  I have tense issues, a lot of tense issues.  I am working them out but every time I start reading my work I think it is not that great. Other writers are much better wordsmiths, they show don't tell, I am at a third grade level while they have achieved, what, if I remember my Aristotle correctly, would be called a wholeness or the thinghood of their writing.  It is the true form that we are striving towards, the central core of the item that brings it to be recognized for what it is, literature.

Then I pick up one of the 10 books I bought or borrowed from the library as comparison books and realize I am not a third grader I am writing the way I expect my characters would speak.  I am writing a book that is comprised of my writing style, shorter sentences (wouldn't guess it from this post would you!), dialogue and the human experience, for my main character in this manuscript that contains some second guessing and self-doubt.  My work is comparable to the work I am seeing here in published books.  So I am pushing on and hope and pray that I will achieve my goal and finish this manuscript by week end (notice the wiggle room I left there, could be Friday could be Sunday).

Happy Writing!

C is for Comparison

I know when I began writing I believed my work to be wholly and completely unique and my own. Why would I want to find other authors to whom I am similar?  Why would I want my book to be like someone else's story?

As I learn about publishing and what it will take to get my baby out into the world I discovered that it is actually important to know which authors and which books are similar to you and your story.  It is also very important to know how your story is different from these comparison authors and books.

When you are pitching your story to an agent, a publisher or a potential buyer you have to be able to tell them your story is like an author or book that they already know and love and then how your book is different so they know they have not already read your story and now they know why they want to read your book.

Take a moment to read the reviews of books, the book synopsis, the blurbs, and you will see many of them contain comparisons to other popular books or authors.

If you are an unknown author knowing your comparison author or story are very important to selling your book to the right audience and helping your audience find you.

Go to your local bookstore and ask the staff what books they have that are similar to yours.  Purchase them and start reading.   When you find the one that you think is the best comparison you can go back to the bookstore or go to Amazon and see the recommendations that pop up for people who bought that story. Then read those books.  Now you have your arsenal full and can talk with agents and publishers intelligently about how your book compares and is different to these other wonderful published books.

Happy reading.

A is for Authors, Wonderful Amazing Authors

Authors have always made my life wonderful.  The first books I read changed my life and started me on a path of wonder, escape, creativity, learning, enchantment, sharing, questioning and growing.

I never thought I would would be an author and that I would know so many.  My journey to become a published author has brought me in contact with some of the most amazing people I have ever met.  Writers as a community are wonderfully inclusive and helpful.  I love being able to call myself a part of this wonderful community.

I hope that everyone who stops by and joins me on this journey to finish editing my manuscript and get it out into the world while tripping through the alphabet in April will enjoy the journey and will find information to help them get their manuscript out into the world as well so that we may all enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Happy writing!
Kathryn Thornton

Best Laid Plans (Theme Reveal)

I am not a planner.  If you have done NaNoWriMo then you know the term pantster and I should be the poster child for that term.  

If something is going to be a lot of effort, is very important or will require the help of others I try so hard to plan ahead.  But I usually find myself running around at the last minute saying, "I meant to do this two weeks ago.  Where did that time go?"

But not this year, oh no.  I was all prepared and ready to go for Blogging A to Z.  I had my theme and all my work and research done.  I just had to start writing the blog posts this weekend and then...

I had the most amazing, uplifting, exciting phone conversation with David Henry Sterry of the Book Doctors the other day and all my planning- which I never do and was feeling so accomplished and responsible adult about- has been shot to hell.   Please realize that I am not, I repeat, not complaining.  David gave me some very favorable feedback- which I am tempering with a lot of realism as he has not actually read my manuscript - but this feedback has re-energized my interest in my first book, which I hadn't touched since November because I wrote another book during NaNoWriMo.  I also set a deadline for myself and it may not have been realistic but I told him it would be done in a month; right in the middle of blogging A to Z.   Do you see my problem here?

So my theme will go away- and I was really excited about it so I will make it part of my normal blog instead- and blogging A-Z will follow the challenges of getting my manuscript ready to go.

The Book Doctors are available for consultation and I recommend reaching out to them through their website if you need professional advice.  I love my writing groups but none of us have ever been published and one of my groups couldn't find a bad thing to say about a tornado if it had recently torn through their homes and left them homeless and destitute. Super wonderful group, God bless their hearts, who I love dearly but my book and everything I write cannot be as fabulous as they say.

Working with the Book Doctors through seminars and personal consultations has given me a lot of very helpful and useful as well as realistic information about writing and publishing my book. 

http://www.thebookdoctors.com/

I can't wait for Blogging A-Z and a chance to have some of you cheer me on as I work tirelessly to shore up my manuscript and get it out into the world.  I am sure I will be needing some encouragement.

I look forward to all the new blogs I will discover and some new friends along the way.  

Happy blogging everyone.