Friday Fricassee

Winding up for Christmas and winding down the year here on the blog--it's an odd juxtaposition.

Thanks to all of those who submitted lyrics in our Christmas/Chanukah Song Lyric contest.  I have some definite favorites!  Alison Weiss is going to be reading them over the weekend, and I will announce her winner on Monday.

Yes, I've written a couple, too.  I will post mine on Monday as well.  (I couldn't resist.)

I am still in the midst of sending out requests from agents for Baker's Dozen entries.  If you had an entry in the auction and you don't receive another request by the end of the weekend, then it is safe to assume that none are coming.  You will then be free to query anyone who bid on your item.

(Note:  It makes sense to wait, because that way you're getting an official request that gets to be marked, well, "requested".  And those always float to the top in an agent's inbox.  Bear this in mind.)

As for me?  I'm going to hit 70,000 words on my WIP today.  Sounds like an almost-finished book, right?  In fact, I've got my Scrivener project target set to 80,000 words, to be completed by January 1.  I will definitely hit that in the next ten to twelve days...but my story won't be finished.  Which is pretty frustrating, because I'm tired of this drafting thing.

I'm just letting it happen, though.  I figure I'm probably just fleshing things out that will eventually be removed from the page.  This isn't a bad thing!  In the end, I'd rather have to cut and trim than beef up.  So there's that.  It's just that I was really, really hoping to have a completed draft by New Year's Day.

C'est la vie!

And, really, I'm writing this story for me.  I've come to the place where, yes, I realize this is what has to happen, if I am to actually keep writing.  Not to sound fatalistic, but I've stopped believing that my Big Dreams are actually going to come true.  No, this isn't a feel-sorry-for-Authoress thing.  It's just reality.  I've had an agent for four years (as of next week), and if someone had told me that this much time would pass and I still wouldn't have a publishing contract, I probably would have jumped off the nearest overpass.

Well, not really.  But I definitely would have quit.

There's been so much good--really.  I wouldn't have written my currently-on-submission novel if it weren't for Josh.  "You should consider writing a straight-up YA sci-fi," he said.  So I did.  And I honestly believe it's the strongest thing I've ever written.  I completely believe in it.  I've gotten positive editor responses.  It's all good.

All good, but still unpublished.

And, yanno, there's only so much a gal can take.

So I'm channeling my inner writer--the one who writes simply to write.  Sometimes she fights me.  Sometimes her eyes tear up, and she fails to see the point of spending another hour and a half to two hours working on a story that will likely join all the other stories in the land of Stories No One Will Ever See.

But then, somehow, I always get myself together, and I write.  So, yeah.  This one's for me.  This one's to keep me writing, to keep me going.

We do whatever we can to keep our heads afloat, yes?

So, until life actually veers me in a different, undeniable direction, I will continue to write.  And I will continue to champion the rest of you who are on this journey with me.

Please don't give up.  If I can keep going, so can you.

Have a blessed weekend!