Friday Four

1. I've now written almost 44,000 words since November the first. I have 6k to go in order to be a "winner" of NaNoWriMo, but probably another 10-15k in order to complete the novel. I think I can do it!

2. My very cool agent, Michelle Humphrey, set up a group for her YA authors, so we could virtually meet, exchange ideas, talk trash about her, etc. hee hee. Anyway, it's a very fun group, full of life and expletives. We did a little icebreaker to get to know one another, and I thought I'd share the little bit with all of you that I shared with them about my current NaNo work in progress.

Title or working title of your WIP? Perfect Aim
What is your main character’s name? Lex Chambers
What is he/she wearing right now? A pair of overalls from her new farmgirl friend Mallory.
What is his/her favourite movie? The Matrix
Describe his/her favourite shoes. Black Pumas

That's all I'm telling for now...

3. I've also been feverishly working at my second round of revisions for LOSING FAITH, and I'm happy to report that they are going swimmingly! I think I've made the majority of the changes and am just now doing a read-through to see how everything flows.

4. My good friend, Jerrica Santos, is releasing her first album this week. Jerrica and I have danced together in our professional Polynesian dance troupe for many years. I remember taking her on tour to Japan when she was 12, watching her place in the top 32 of Canadian Idol when she was 16, and stacking up numerous achievements and awards along the way. She's talented, driven, yet levelheaded (she's studying to be a doctor in case this music thing doesn't fly) and a real inspiration. Now at 21 she's putting out her first album, and the songs I've heard so far are awesome. Congrats, Jerrica!

5. I know, I know, I'm an under-writer and I'm only supposed to have four items on my friday four. But it must be the NaNo influence that's making me finger-happy. One more thing I HAVE TO mention. I just heard back from two VERY COOL authors who have agreed to appear on Teen Author Tuesday. One of them may be on there as early as THIS COMING TUESDAY if I can manage it. You'll have to check back to see who it is, but suffice to say, my husband can't wait till I stop squeeling about it.

Class of 2k10 Trailer

People have been asking me what the difference is between The Class of 2k10 and The Tenners, since I am a member of both. The Class of 2k10 is a group of debut authors (about 22 of us, I think) who are all working together to get our names out there to teachers, booksellers, and librarians. We will be promoting ourselves via a website, blog, and outreaches. The Tenners is a larger group of around ninety, whose main goals are support, community, and just generally being a cool group of people.

Class of 2k10 will officially launch on December the first with a small tribute to Class of 2k9. Keep an eye on our Blog and Website for details.

Even though we haven't officially launched, I wanted to give y'all a little early taste of what we are about. Here's the new book trailer for the Class of 2k10. Let me know what you think!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0H79WFPYpc

Friday Four

1. My life has been, in a word, NUTS. This week my household drama included the chaos of my child turning six, painting my half-renovated bathroom, and catching up on things like filling obligations from LAST Christmas.

2. Writing drama has included somewhere in the neighborhood of 28k of new words on my NaNoWriMo work in progress. My poor overworked brain has also come up with some vision for my LOSING FAITH edits. Finally. But the vision feels good, right, and I think my editor and I will both be happy.

3. Speaking of which, I should really give a shout out to my awesome critique partner, Shana Silver, who told me again and again, "Denise, just step away from the edits," until I finally listened. Sometimes it's hard to practice what you preach. Even though I've always advocated taking some time to let criticism and suggestions settle before implementing them, this set of revisions came around during such a busy stressful time, and thought I NEEDED to start them right away. Good thing Shana was around to knock some sense into me. Now that I've had a break and have a much clearer head, I'm feeling much better about...everything.

4. Oh yes, can't forget this...Awesome editor A+ has given me permission to share my projected release date. This could still change, but as of right now it looks like Losing Faith will hit the shelves September 7, 2010! YAY!!!

Friday Four: SIWC Conference Notes - Finally!

I thought I'd do this as a Friday Four this week, so I would actually do it! Here are a few of the great things I learned at the recent Surrey International Writers' Conference. (I'm just offering a few highlights - it wouldn't be fair to share all the hard work of the presenters, but I do want to show how amazing they were!)

1. You Think That's Funny? Using Humor in Writing with Eileen Cook. (http://www.eileencook.com/)
Oh my gosh, I had a great time in this workshop! Eileen used examples from movie clips to explain how and why comedy works. She introduced us to the ingredients of comedy (some of which are exaggeration, surprise, and irony), showed us some great benefits of using comedy (pacing and exploring a character's worldview), and gave us several brilliant humor tips, such as...don't go for the joke.

2. Then I went to a fabulous Mystery writing workshop with Hallie Ephron. (http://www.hallieephron.com/)
Among her THIRTY tips on writing mysterys, here are a few that were really insightful for me: Make the crime matter to your sleuth, Give your sleuth a dark past to raise the stakes, she told us why "The Butler did it" doesn't work anymore.

3. Back to Eileen Cook for her Psych 101 For Fiction workshop.
It was obvious, right from the start that Eileen has a strong background in psychology. I LOVED the way she applied this to characters, and this may have been my favorite workshop of the weekend.  Here's just a few tidbits to consider about your characters:
How emotionally self-aware are they? Do they know what they are feeling (many times anger might actually be sadness or fear). What do your characters see as their strengths and weeknesses? Would others also consider these their strengths and weaknesses? What's fun for your characters? Would others describe them as happy?

That's only the tip of a very large iceberg of notes I have from the conference. I have to run for today, but I'll leave you with a completely different number 4 (because I can't actually concentrate on anything else)...

4. NaNo word count total so far: 11,016.

We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Program...

Teen Author Tuesday will be back! I promise I have some AMAZING authors lined up, but with the hecticness of starting NaNo, I had to put it on hold for a couple of weeks.

The truth is, I've always fit NaNoWriMo into my schedule with a bit of fudging, but really not dropping the ball in any area. This year, however, hit me like an out of control elephant on roller skates (sorry, my decent metaphor quota has already been used up for the day.)

Three days before D-day (November first), my edits arrived from my editor, my bathroom was torn apart in renovations and I was seriously PMS-SY. To be perfectly honest, even on Sunday morning, I had doubts of whether I really would start NaNo (because I'm one of those people that if I start something I HAVE TO finish it). For the first time in the three years I've done NaNo, I was actually dreading it.

Thankfully, I decided to go to church that day, because that's where my revelation hit (don't worry, it's not heavy-laden in religion). But here's the revelation if you're interested: First drafts are for fun.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, it is. I was feeling incredibly stressed about the idea of starting another book, putting All That Work into it and then having it perhaps not be publishable. And I wasn't sure if I was in the place emotionally and time-wise to write a publishable book. But here's the thing...Outlines and revisions are the main ingredients for a publishable book. First drafts are simply for fun.

I did spend a long time working on an outline for this NaNo project and I will no doubt spend a lot of time working on revisions. But once I realized this next month could really be fairly stress-free (aside from the LOSING FAITH revisions and that darn torn-apart bathroom) I could get to work.

So I have started, and I WILL FINISH!

4707 words and counting...

Ready, Set, NANO!!!

Am I the only one who JUST realized November is only two days away?!?

So who's with me? Who's going to do this ridiculous task of trying to write a novel in a month?
We have to do this as a team, people, or it Just Won't Work! Let me know if you're going to attempt NaNoWriMo and if you have the time, go add me to your buddy list. My handle over there is denisej.

I'm not much of a pep-talker (just ask my poor critique partners) but if you sign up at http://www.nanowrimo.org/, I promise you several amazing pep-talks will be delivered to your inbox.

Get ready...Get set...

Thankful Thursday

In keeping with the SIWC highlights I plan to post (but can never seem to find time to do!) I thought I'd quickly list a few of the things (and people) I'm thankful for from the conference.

1. I'm thankful that I could attend and stay with two good writer friends. It gave us a chance to catch up, share new story ideas, and oh yeah, drink some wine.
2. Which brings me to number two...the great party we had on Saturday night (602 at 6:02!) with our new Vancouver and Alberta writer friends. A great time was had by all.
3. I wasn't sure if an author I met at last year's conference (and have been chatting with on Facebook) would recognize me. Not only did the ultru cool James McCann recognize me, he had already told his author friends about me! And here's why...I must admit, my success with LOSING FAITH is due in part to James's encouragement. When I met him for a Blue Pencil appointment at last Surrey's conference, he insisted that my manuscript was ready to send out, while I made all sorts of excuses of why it may not be. Turns out James was right, as shortly after the conference I got an agent and sold my book to Simon Pulse! Not to mention, James and Lee Edward Fodi have been so helpful with advice for a new author. Thanks, guys!
4. Another person to whom I feel I owe a shout out to is Lisa Rector. Her workshops and Blue Pencil appointments have been instrumental in making me a better writer. She's an expert on fixing things like sagging middles and slow beginnings. She runs her own independent editing company, but I was super-blessed to benefit from her expertise during the last several conferences. If you have a polished manuscript that you just can't seem to sell, I highly recommend her editing skills.
5. I LOVED meeting some great people from Simon Pulse. My editor was unable to attend, but I did get a chance to hang a little with super-friendly Annette Pollert and hilarious Pulse-author-sister, Eileen Cook. I hope (crosses fingers) to host Eileen for a Teen Author Tuesday in the next few months when her latest book, GETTING REVENGE ON LAUREN WOOD is released.

This thankful list only covers a few people and doesn't even touch on the abundance of things I learned during workshops. I hope to have more of that by next week sometime.