So, as the waiting, and working continues, I sometimes find myself experimenting with new characters and new worlds, hence, the WattPad trial.  In the next few days I’m going to post the first chapter of something.  This something doesn’t have a plan, and I’m not sure where it is going, but I’m hoping to get some feedback from WattPad readers that will help me with my writing.  Check back in a few days and I will post a link to my newest work, which will slowly appear in WattPad format bit by bit.

Trying to get published is like waiting in line for a new ride at a theme park in the middle of summer vacation on a planet with over 10 billion people who are all in line for the new ride and you were the last one to cue up.

Yes, I am waiting.

So I thought I would make a list of things to do while you are waiting, and not just waiting to be published but waiting in general: at the doctors office, in traffic, at the grocery store, for the phone to ring, for your future favorite movie to appear in theaters, for the last book in the trilogy to finally be published – you get the idea.  Here are 25 ideas:

1.  Read a Book
2. Tap your toes
3. Count the freckles on the backs of your hands.
4.  Sing a song (silently or outloud).
5. Knit
6. Sew
7. Play Sudoku.
8. Count the number of tiles on the floor.
9.  Count the number of tiles in the ceiling.
10.  Count how many people you see talking or playing on a cell phone.
11.  Count to a hundred in another language.
12.  Learn another language.
13.  Try to name all of the heads of state in order from first to last.
14.  Try to name all of the heads of state in order from last to first.
15.  Make lists of things to do while you’re waiting.
16.  Bake.
17.  Eat (something healthy would probably be the wiser choice).
18.  Think of something to add to your bucket list.
19.  Debate where you would travel to if you could go somewhere tomorrow.
20.  Draw a face on your hand and talk to it.
21.  Write a poem or compose a haiku in your head.
22.  Find out how to write a haiku if you don’t know how.
23.  Click the “Random Article” button on the Wikipedia website and read about it.
24.  Sketch something.
25.  Spy on the people around you and covertly listen to their conversations, storing the information for later use.

What do you do when you’re waiting?

Magic.  Mystery.  Mysticism.

What does it mean to you?

In our magicless world, ordinary objects often seem magical.  I’m constantly amazed by technology – cell phones, tablets, computers – when I sit and think about them.  I’m also amazed by clear blue skies, the smell of incense, that tingling feeling I get on the back of my skull sometimes that I’ve never been able to figure out.

I am amazed by bright colours, ancient stories, and what can come out of my own mind.

What amazes you?

Yesterday I ran into someone I hadn’t seen in a long time, some one I may have once considered myself friends with, but now would be more of acquaintance/frenemy territory.  This made me wonder about life paths.  Would life be different if we were still friends?  Would life be the same and we would have fallen out over something else?  In other words, is our life path truly variable?

I’ve always thought the biggest test of this is my own inability to go back in time and actually end up on a different path.  I can’t time travel and I can’t change the past.  That has to be proof that I’m on the path I’m meant to be on, right?  That’s what I like to think.  It sounds better when i’ve made no mistakes.

But, what if I’m living the wrong life?  Or, in terms of my penchant for creative writing, what if I have a character who is living the wrong life?  What is a wrong life?  Is it working the wrong job, living in the wrong house, marrying the wrong person?

I love my house and my husband, but as for my day job, let’s just say it’s not the best fit.  Which is why I’m still working so hard on being a writer.  Why I will edit Tales again and again in the hopes that it one days finds a publisher.  And, well, if it doesn’t, there’s always SW.

Some moments in life are destined to remind me of Star Wars.  “These are not the droids you’re looking for.”  Yesterday I received not the news I was looking for.

Agent X said Tales is still not ready.

Big Sigh.

Heading into the holidays this isn’t what I wanted to hear.  Part of me wished the agent would have waited until January to share the news.  Another part is glad that I at least know and I can now spend a few extra days off in deep contemplation of what to do.  Do I keep editing the same work?  Do I get a professional to provide more feedback (maybe at a cost?)? Do I move on?

Seems to me like I have some thinking ahead.  Each of the options has it’s light.  Editing the same work means I’m not giving up on it.  Getting a professional editor to provide more feedback means that I will be improving my skills.  Moving on  means I can focus more clearly on new projects.

Each of the options also has it’s darkness.  Editing the same work can be tiresome and irritating and keeps me from working on new projects – some of which I believe to be much stronger.  Getting a professional editor to provide more feedback will cost me money and I may get a result that I don’t agree with.  Moving on means giving up – or does it?  I could always self-publish, I suppose, and see where I go from there.

What do you think I should do?

Who doesn’t like that time of year where we all get time off to do nothing?  Or maybe you’re the kind of person who gets time off and does everything!  That’s usually how I am.  Currently, as I blogged the other week, I’m working on two projects:  Tales2 and SW.   Hopefully I get some extra words down over my all-too-short x-mas vacation (if only I hadn’t taken all that time off earlier this year). 

Good news is I heard from Agent X last week.  Still no review – but an encouraging email that Agent X will get around to reading it soon, and is really looking forward to it.  So, to sum it up, it’s been 2 – almost 2.5 – months, and I’m still waiting to hear back from an agent.  Rest assured, this is normal.  And it gives me time to work on other projects.

And I love my other projects.

In order to get pumped for the writing (and reworking) of Tales2, I spent time in Surrey in late November and took a couple of pics to inspire myself.  Below is one of the rainy days I spent walking around. 

What gets you pumped for your projects?  (Whether it be writing or something else – I’m curious)

I’m pretty sure that I oon’t have any regular readers – but for the thousands that do wait impatiently for my next words, I’m sorry for the long absence from my blog.  I finished Tales edits in early October and sent the updated draft to Agent X who had asked for the rewrite.  It’s approaching two months now and I haven’t heard anything back.  This is normal.

I tell myself this everyday.  And then I begin to dream about big contracts or turning around and self-publishing.  Whichever way it happens I will be happy.  I wrote a book, I finished it.  Now I need to work on something else.

Which is my main excuse for the long absence of blogging: too many projects.  It’s not a bad thing, right?  I can work on multiple projects and spend all my time playing around in the world of the imaginary.  Which brings me to what I am currently working on:  the next book in the Tales Trilogy (I’ll call it Tales 2), and an entry for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award which you can read about at the following link if you are interested.  Entries are due in January which means I have a lot of work to do over the holiday season.

http://www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Novel-Award-Books/b?ie=UTF8&node=332264011 

So again, I’m sorry for the absence.  I’m going to get back to my weekly postings of my experience trying to get published. 

See you next week.

It’s not a word.  But I feel like it should be.  I’ve spent the past week doing the polishing edits on the Tales manuscript and I have to say:  I am completely, utterly, and almost unbearably sick of my own writing.

I’ve read it before from other authors, that re-writing, and re-writing, and re-writing, gets to be very tiring, tedious, and exhausting.  But it has to be done.

And the changes I’ve made are great ones.  I think.

It’s always hard to cut words that just aren’t working.  Or scenes.  Or chapters  (thankfully chapters mostly happen earlier).  But it is easier to think of making your novel or story better.  Focus on that.  Even though I know exactly what the page says without looking at it, I force myself to open my eyes, because eventually I will see something I haven’t seen, and what I do see will be something I can fix to make my book stronger – better.  So I will keep working away at it.  Typo after typo.  Bad sentence after bad sentence.  Fallen brick after fallen brick.  And one day, hopefully, it will be published, on the the shelves, and never get another polish again.

This coming weekend is Thanksgiving, and I’m going to be done by then, because if there is one thing I dislike, it’s working on the holidays.  Especially one with pumpkin pie…

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

In a couple days fall will be here.  I have two weeks left in my personal deadline to get the edits back to agent X.  Things are coming to a close.  As I am busy finishing up the final polish on the newest version of my manuscript, this week’s post is going to be a sweet ode to the summer which has almost completely passed us by.  This picture I took on a very short trip to a local lake this summer.  I love how the sun reflects on the water.  I love how just looking at the water makes me feel the amber warmth of the sun on my skin.  It was a beautiful evening.

What was your favorite part of summer 2012?

One of the main elements of my novel is water.  Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch would be nothing if water didn’t exist.  But also, the main character wouldn’t have her powers.  Sometime after I began writing this book, I realized that I was writing about something that absolutely terrifies me.  That’s right, I’m afraid of water.  Maybe it’s because my parents put me in swimming lessons when I was too young.  Maybe it’s because of that one time my aunt took me down a water-slide and I swallowed a lungful of water. Whatever it was, it stuck.  To this day I hate swimming.

But I do love water.

My favorite thing about water is how it quenches thirst.  My second favourite thing is a cascading waterfall and how awesomely mesmerizing it is to watch gallon after gallon of fresh, clear glacier water come pounding over a cliff.  Whenever I travel, I try to visit a waterfall.  The picture below is from one of the road trips I took this summer.  This waterfall is Takakkaw, in Yoho National Park in British Columbia.  This is one of the most beautiful and accessible waterfalls I’ve ever been too.  Even though you can drive right up to it, it’s still in the middle of nature (unlike certain other falls on the opposite end of the continent).  You could walk right up to the base of Takakkaw, and feel the cold, chilly spray on your skin.  I loved it.