America's Next Author - In Review

Overall:  Good -- I put my writing out there.  That's the hardest thing for me.  I'm so afraid of rejection (which being a writer, one must expect and embrace).  Understanding and acceptance of this fact are two very different things.

Not only did people see my writing, but I went out to several local (and not so local) businesses and talked to people.  Another thing I'm not so strong at.  (One reason I wanted to write when I was young).  I now see my faulty thinking in that.  Of course, when I am actually writing, I do not need to interact with people.  However, if I want people to read my stuff, I now know I do - and a lot.

Next I need to send out some serious thanks!  First to my husband, Rob, who I sent to work with instructions to make everyone he worked with read my story and vote.  I could not have done this well without him.  Thank you to everyone who reviewed my story.  Your input will help me become a better writer.  Thank you to everyone who voted, shared, tweeted, and asked friends to vote too!

Complaints:
-My biggest complaint about the competition is I am still not sure how the votes were tabulated.  I know they stated the reason being for that is that no one could cheat.  However, it would have at least been helpful to see how many quick votes everyone had.  I am guessing this had the biggest effect and in the weeks where I was in the top 20, I think being able to say "I am 50 votes behind number one" would have helped reach more readers.  Just a thought.
-I also did not like that the voting started a new every week, but it didn't seem to in all respects.  I guess I just wished that I had understood the voting system better.

What next?  Well I am going to read, vote, and review all of the finalists starting Wednesday.  I would like to read what I lost against and help (who I feel to be) the best writer win.  I encourage anyone who reads this to do the same.

Next next?  I will go back to the novel I was writing before NaNoWriMo.  No I didn't even come close to winning.  However, I do like where my NaNo novel was going, and I suspect that I will finish that some day too.

Reaction to Reviews

The America's Next Author contest is coming to a close with this week as the last to secure a nomination or wild card spot (however one get's that).  I have gotten mostly positive feedback, which makes me feel amazing and sends me smiling ear to ear, especially if someone gives specific positive feedback.  Negative feedback on the other hand sends waves of irritation streaming through my blood.  There were only a couple that were negative, and after being in multiple creative writing workshops in my life, I have the innate need to defend my work.  I've been letting this simmer for a couple of weeks now and I think it's time to share.

1.  I proof read this piece over and over again.  If there is a misspelled/misused word, incorrect punctuation, or something else, I obviously missed it.  I'm sorry.  No one is perfect.  If it bothers you or you want to help me improve my writing, please email me at tinarazz@yahoo.com and tell me where the errors are, I will be happy to fix them.  I too, have not earned a single penny from writing and cannot afford to pay someone to edit my work.

2.  This is NOT part of some larger story.  I have had many people say that they would like, "more".  There is no more.  I also do not feel that it ended abruptly, 911 was obviously called, the little boy was secluded from everyone else, and we find out he likes fire trucks.  Does it really matter where the knife hit the clown, how serious his injuries were, if he is alive?

3.  I too, have worked with individuals who have autism.  I am sorry if this specific story upsets anyone.  This is one, FICTIONAL, character.  He in no way represents anyone I have ever known or heard of.  I did not set out to scare anyone, but rather illustrate how misunderstood he is by the people around him, including his parents.  There are many people who are misunderstood in the world.  I just wanted the opportunity to get inside this particular character's head.

Well that just about covers it.  I miss the ability to have the dialog with my readers.  I appreciate feedback.  It means someone cared.

It's started

I can't freak out about my first book any longer, because I have officially started book 2. No, I haven't sent the queries out yet. My deadline (for myself) is Friday and I have someone looking over them for me at the moment. How far in to the second book? (You ask) 198 words. But, to be fair, I outlined what will probably be the whole first chapter before I started., I also did a bit of research, to make sure my science was or could be accurate.

In other news: Twitter baffles me. It seems like it may be the quick and dirty way to network with real life writers and audiences around the world. Which is awesome! I mean seriously. SERIOUSLY. However, I'm so green that I'm afraid I'm going to commit some faux pas that banishes me from the Twitter World. (Which is a totally fun alien world where we are all pretty blue birds that fly around tweeting.) Obviously.

Anyway, I'm going to make another cup of coffee and get back to writing.

done.

Yes, the synopsis. If I am allowed to consider something that I haven't read over as done . . .

Ok. The hard part is done. It's there in black and white.

My question is: Why the hell does anyone want to read one? How can anyone tell if a book will be good? Seriously, it's cut down to: this happens, then this happens, she feels this way, he feels this way. How can I convince anyone it is well written, a master piece perhaps, when all of my characterization is cut out. How can anyone like characters who just do things? I don't think I even like my novel right now. I surely don't like my characters. The only part I do like about it are my first two paragraphs, which read more like a book cover. Maybe I should read over it.

How long is it supposed to be anyway? I've got like 9 1/2 pages. Too long? Too short? I need Goldilocks perfection here.

Writing and literary magazines

I write, a little bit of everything: poetry, a novel (in progress), short shorts, a blog (obviously), lists of all kinds, notes to myself, a lot of things I never finish, and I journal, but I think that was all fairly common knowledge. The problem is, I don't know what to do with anything after it's done. There are like a million literary magazines and I have no idea which ones are right for me. Online or print? Artsy or edu-ish? The problem is: I know what I like to read, and I like to read what I write, but is what I write like what I like to read? Sometime consider the fact that a lot of popular authors are published and become famous posthumously, that could be me, but then I shouldn't hold back so much when I write. Get it all out there, ya know? But I really want people to know me when I'm alive, like my writing, want to read it, can't wait for more. That brings me back to the problem I started with: where to submit?

Chugging along

I'm happy to report that I have over 39,000 words written at this point. I have written about 2000 in the past two days. I need more days like this. I really want a rough draft done by the end of the year. It's all fitting together nicely and the only major road blocks I have are feeling what my characters are going through and not writing because I don't want to deal with bad things for them. I wonder if this is a common writer thing? Maybe some day I will know.

I found a genius way of studying vocabulary for the GRE. I have been helping out a friend bringing and picking her kid up from pre-school. This is a brave new world of mini-vans, suv's, mother's, and a plethora of children that I so don't fit in to. However, they do a pick up line that takes forever and a day to get through. In fact, getting in line ten minutes early only ensures that I will be at least fifteen cars back. So, I got smart last Thursday and brought my flashcards with me. I had nothing else to do during that time, so it was a HUGE success. I may just leave the flashcards in the car for good. Pre-school pick up = four days a week and if they're in there, traffic jams, accidents, red lights could all help me get in studying in otherwise wasted time when I would be rocking out to the radio (which is probably embarrassing, yet I so don't care).

In other news I thought of a genius way to put together a lot of my short stories into a book while I was about to take a nap earlier today. The main theme will be examining truth through a characters eyes, because as we all know in every story there is more than one truth depending on whose eyes the story is told through. The terrorist sees what they are doing as a noble act, the victim sees it as (dare I say) terrifying. While everyone won't agree with either perspective, it's the truth to someone.

Last thing of note pertaining to writing: I have officially set out on my quest to decide what my "critical" paper for getting into graduate school will be about. There are suggestions that candidates often revise papers that were written as an undergrad for this task. I have printed out three of the more likely choices to mull over. They are all hugely different, and they seem like I wrote them forever ago. (It was about four years ago, yikes!) So that will be fun . . .

New Story!!!

So I started a new story yesterday, obviously since that's the title of this post. I am excited about. I am about 9 pages in and while at work today I couldn't stop thinking about what would happen next, and had no idea. When I got home, I started writing and bam stuff happened. My character(s) are running the show; they only need me because I have fingers to type with. Gonna keep this short because I would like to spend some time writing before I go to bed in 40 mins. Bye.