Friday Fricassee

It's another one of those really-busy-Fridays-so-I'm-posting-fast-and-early.  Because, yanno, this Fricassee thing has become a sort of compulsion.

Okay, not really.  But it is an important connection point, because I usually hear from more of you during my Friday posts--and I love that!

So let's talk about character names.  This is probably on the top of my mind because my husband, the Dear Mr. A, actually named one of the main characters in my WIP.  I was stuck, and the first suggestion Mr. A made was...well, perfect.  Either he knows me well, he's magical, or it was dumb luck.

Character names are intensely personal for me, so getting a name from my husband was outside the box.  What about you?  Do you choose character names wrought with meaning and symbolism inherent to the story (think JK Rowling)? Do you choose character names that convey strength (Stone...Buck...Gibraltar...?) or beauty (Belle...Vista...Lovelytoes...?)?  Do you bestow your characters with the names of your best friends, spouses, poodles, eccentric neighbors?  Or do you make up names in the hope of being uber-creative (L'frentia DeLu'u'y)?

Share your naming process!  And, just for fun, share the names of characters in novels you've read that you've absolutely hated (the names, not the novels).  As in, I-can't-take-this-character-seriously-because-his-name-is-so-stupid.  (Or maybe because it's the name of your ex-boyfriend or the gal who beat you up in the locker room...but that's a different story.)

Happy weekend!

February Secret Agent Early Info

Wow, this one sneaked up on me!! I apologize for not having posted this on Monday, like I normally do.
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Please note: This is NOT the call for submissions! The contest will open next Monday, February 13.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (please read carefully):

*There are TWO WAYS to enter: a) via email to authoress.submissions(at)gmail.com OR via web form at msfv.thoughtbin.org
* This month's submissions will be A LOTTERY.  This means that all entries will be assigned a "lottery number" and the bot will choose the winners.  Submissions will open at 9 am EST and will close at 5 pm EST.
* 2 alternates will also be accepted, for a total of 52 entries.
* PLEASE NOTE: You are responsible for figuring out your own time zone. "Time Zone differences" are NOT a reason for not getting your entry in.
* Submissions received before the contest opens will be rejected.
* Submissions are for COMPLETED MANUSCRIPTS ONLY. If you wouldn't want an agent to read the entire thing, DON'T SEND IT. If an "entire thing" doesn't exist, you shouldn't even be reading these rules.
* Manuscripts THAT HAVE BEEN IN A SECRET AGENT CONTEST DURING THE PAST SIX MONTHS (August-January) will not be accepted.
* You may submit A DIFFERENT MANUSCRIPT if you've participated in any previous Secret Agent contests.
* Only ONE ENTRY per person per contest. If you send more than one, your subsequent entry(ies) will be rejected.
* If you are a PAST WINNER (i.e., offered any kind of prize from a Secret Agent), please DO NOT ENTER THIS CONTEST. (Unless it's a different manuscript.)
* Submissions are for THE FIRST 250 WORDS of your manuscript. Please do not stop in the middle of a

GO HERE to submit via our web form.

If you choose to submit via email, your submission for this contest should be formatted EXACTLY as follows:

SCREEN NAME: Your Screen Name Here
TITLE: Your Title Here
GENRE: Your Genre Here

(Followed by the excerpt here.)

* No "chapter one," chapter titles, etc.
* You will receive a confirmation email with your lottery number.
* Submissions go to authoress.submissions(at)gmail.com. They DO NOT GO to my facelesswords address. Or any other address.
*It doesn't matter what you put in the subject line. The only thing you MUST NOT do is to use "RE:" The bot will think you are attempting to respond to an email, and will reject you.

As always, there is no fee to enter the Secret Agent contest.

This month's contest will include the following genres:

• Adult literary
• Women's fiction
• MG (all genres)
• YA (all genres)

Thank You For Your Votes!!

Miss Snark's First Victim has been voted #1Writing Blog on eCollegeFinder.  Thanks for your ABSOLUTELY RABID voting!

(No, seriously.  I think some of you stayed up at night casting votes.  If the folks at eCollegeFinder are wise, they'll change their voting system to one-per-day next year!)

Here's the announcement.

Thanks again for your loyalty!  You surely do know how to make a gal feel loved and appreciated.

A "Better Late Than Never" Success Story

And, as always, it's my own fault.  Amanda shared her story with me MONTHS ago, and it got lost in my disorganized mess-that-I-call-email.  At any rate, she's been kind enough to nudge me with a freshly revised story, and I'm delighted to share it with you!



Dear Authoress and lovely community,

I’m so excited to share my story with you!


After watching so many SA contests on the edge of my seat, I decided to go for it and enter my YA novel.  I wasn’t having a lot of luck querying it—friendly and helpful rejections to be sure, but no takers—and I knew I could trust the opinions on Authoress’ blog. My entry wasn’t chosen, but the feedback was, as always, helpful and encouraging.

During this time I was working on novel #2. I was busy working away when Authoress posted about her First Kiss critique. I was so excited and sent mine in.

Then about a week later I received an unexpected email. An agent had seen both my SA and my First
Kiss entries and requested BOTH manuscripts! I was over the moon and sent the first one, working
steadily to finish the second.

In September 2010, after receiving as lovely a rejection as possible for book #1, I sent book #2. And
waited, as querying goes. At the same time I took on a marketing internship at Harlequin TEEN, because
let’s face it—as long as I’m contributing to great books getting into the hands of great readers, I’m happy.

Then in December 2010, I couldn’t resist trying my luck to get into the Baker’s Dozen Agent Auction.
My email went through and then—so exciting!—Authoress chose my piece. I was so excited to watch
the bids on the manuscript and see the positive feedback. I was starting to really feel like book #2 might
be “the one”.

But it still needed a lot of work. In January, the agent asked me to do a rewrite. At the same time
another agent asked for the same. So until April, I reworked the novel and polished it up. I knew the
book was better.

And you know what? Both agents passed. My jaw hit the proverbial floor. Talk about a lesson in
humility.

But I knew the book—and I—were more experienced and stronger for it. I kept querying.

And then my manager at Harlequin TEEN let me in on a secret. She’d read my manuscript as a friend,
and sent it down stealth-like to the NY editors. And they loved the revisions! They wanted to make an
offer, but I didn’t have an agent.

Enter Melissa Jeglinski from The Knight Agency. I was in love with her long before I started on book #2. In fact I’d queried her in the past with book #1. And then she wrote me an amazing email, where she
asked if I was serious about representation.

Um…YES!

She was away at a conference so I had to wait until she got back, and then I got The Call!! We had an
awesome chat and got to know each other, and when we saw the match was fantastic, she popped the
publishing question.

Then, in August 2011, this, announced in Publisher’s Lunch!

Amanda Sun's debut INK, in which a sixteen-year-old orphan is uprooted to Japan and crosses paths with her school's arrogant kendo star whose drawings come to life in dangerous ways, pushing them both into Japan's paranormal underworld.

(Two-thirds of that sentence is the logline I developed for the Baker’s Dozen, by the way.)

INK is going to be published in Feb 2013 and I’m excited to share it with all of you. Miss Snark’s First
Victim was a best friend along the way, a fantastic community of encouraging writers and great advice.
Thank you Authoress, and all of you, and I can’t wait until I can congratulate you all on your success
stories!

~Amanda Sun

Friday Fricassee

I'm in the middle of visiting my sister and her Brand New Baby (doesn't get much better than that!), which is a perfect opportunity to wax nostalgic about my early writing days--and the dangers of not letting anyone except family members read your First Novel.

Looking back, it was magical.  I was smack in the middle of writing the cringe-worthy YA fantasy I've mentioned before: The Seeds of Perin Faye.  This was before I understood POV, before I knew what a plot arc was, before I'd written anything remotely resembling a fictional story.  And in the headiness of creating my first world and falling in love with my first characters, I offered up chapters for my sister and her husband to read while they were visiting.

Actually, I offered them to my sister, but my brother-in-law is the highly-creative, let-me-be-involved type (I adore him), so he asked to read them, too.  Both my sister and her husband enjoyed the chapters.  I mean, for real.  They weren't just being nice.

My sister doesn't do "just being nice."  I think it must be genetic.

We discussed the chapters over glasses of wine.  And then (here's where it gets annoying), my let-me-be-involved brother-in-law started telling me what he thought should happen next.


Yeah, that.  And I was supremely annoyed.  As in, "I can't believe he is trying to write my story for me."  Of course, I smiled and listened.  (I'm good at doing mental eyerolls instead of real ones.)  But it wasn't exactly the response I wanted.  Or needed.

All that aside, the worst thing about all this was how much they actually liked what they read.  Not that they thought it was masterpiece material (they're intelligent humans, after all), but they got excited along with me and dove into my world as though it were a wonderful place to be.

From an encouragement standpoint, this rated high!  It's what families are for, right?  But from a writing standpoint, it was deadly.  Because the chapters stank.  And there wasn't anyone in my life to tell me that.

We all need a place of safety from which to launch our first, tentative words.  But if we don't move away from that safety place into the terrifying but very necessary Real Critique From Real Writers place, we'll never become good writers.

We'll remember the sparkles in our family members' eyes and think we're terrific.

I surely do love my sister and brother-in-law, and I'm thankful for the memories of their positive response to my fledgling novel-writing attempt.  But I'm also thankful that I eventually acquired enough wisdom to know that I needed Other Eyes.

(Well, okay.  There was always my husband.  But I tended to not listen well when he tried to tell me something stank.  The irony?  Agent Josh has said things along the way that Mr. A said first.  So, yeah.  Mr. A is crowing a little bit and I'm EATING crow.)

What about you?  Has your family been a source of encouragement?  Have you taken the leap and shared your work with critical-eyed colleagues?

I wouldn't trade those early experiences for anything.  But I'm thankful I've moved beyond them.  And I'm pretty sure my sister and her husband are thankful, too.