Friday Fricassee

What a fun assortment of Middle Grade!!  Thanks for all the great critique -- KEEP IT COMING!  If you haven't had a chance to leave feedback for your colleagues, don't hesitate to pop in any time over the weekend.

Participants, please remember to critique a minimum of 4 other entries.  Your way of giving back.

PSA from Operation Awesome for all entrants (whose work is FINISHED and POLISHED), and also any of you middle grade writers who missed the entry window:

Their PASS OR PAGES contest is open next month for MIDDLE GRADE SPECULATIVE FICTION.  If that's you, and if you'd like to enter for a chance to have your query and first page evaluated, GO HERE TO READ THE DETAILS.

(Note:  PASS OR PAGES includes agents, like our Secret Agent Contests.  So be sure your work is agent-ready if you decide to enter!)

For those of you who DON'T write Middle Grade:  The success of this week's critique round has encouraged me to do more of the same, so keep an eye out for the next one:  Adult Genre Fiction!  (Spread the word!  Spread the word!)

As for me--quick Authoress Update:

• I'm hitting 45,000 words in my WIP today.  SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE!
• I'm also thickly into the planning of Another Novel, about which I am so excited that I can barely contain myself.  My protagonist now has a name (this was no small task--for whatever reason, her name simply would NOT come to me!  But now it has.), and I've developed a secondary character whom I'm already in love with.  I'm just exhilarated right now!
• Story Idea #2 won't go away, so this weekend I'm planning on jotting down all the little snippets that have been dancing around in my head over the past several days.  WHO AM I?

I'm so busy writing and planning and dreaming about stories that I haven't had a whole lot of time to obsess about the submission process, which feels SO VERY HEALTHY.  Sure, we've had a few early rejections come in, which is normal, but for the most part my manuscript is out in the editorial wild, and the silence is deafening (and also normal).  I'm thankful to have so much creative energy right now.  (If any of you figure out how to regulate that, rather than to simply be a victim of its fickle waxing and waning, please clue me in!)

All right, then -- onward!  Happy weekend, happy writing, happy everything!