Who's Got The Time?

I'm stretched too thin these days, thinner than ever before though the scale says differently (darn it). I'm cutting back temporarily and going on hiatus from this locale. You can sometimes find me where I live and on Twitter (@sarahlaurenson). There have been rare sightings on Facebook as well.

This past weekend was an awesome SCBWI-L.A. Working Writer's Retreat. As a gift, I've been granted a clear path to begin my writing career on the dark side (edgy YA). And so off I go to write my butt off (but again with no appreciable weight difference, at least not in the negative direction).

I'll be visiting your parts of the blogosphere as I can.

Garlic Synopsis Critique

My The Trouble With Garlic synopsis is up for critique here. Please feel free to shred it. I welcome the blood. :-)

Vote For Me...

And I'll set you free.

Yeah. Like that'll happen. I just like the song.

And okay. I'm not being original as I've stolen this post from my other blog.

Writtenwyrd's having her 4th bloggaversary flash fiction contest and I entered. Appreciate it if you stop by and vote for your favorites (even if mine isn't one of them). Voting ends this Sunday.

Episodic

I'm working heavily on two projects right now, gearing up for the SCBWI-L.A. Working Writer's Retreat.

Yesterday, I spent many hours taking two episodic manuscripts and squishing them together to create a complete story. It's getting there.

The issues:
The style of each manuscript is different
The focus on each manuscript is different

And yet they do share a strong common bond. Shoving two into one is forcing me to flesh them both out to smooth the transition. Looks like they'll actually reach a respectable book length as a single entity.


On the MG side, I'm plowing through a long rewrite. More than halfway through the manuscript, but the second half requires more work.

Feeling productive this week and that feels really good.

Time Out

Life has been interfering.

First 50 Words

Thought I'd stick something light into Miss Snark's First Victim's 50 Words.

My entry

Hopefully I won't make her followers want to throw up this time.

:-)

BIC, BIC, BIC

A little time off to deal with a cracked filling, the resulting infection and two root canals and now I'm ready to write (even though I feel like someone punched me in the face - again).

So it's BIC day today and tomorrow and we'll see how the productivity fares.

Shiny New Idea

While walking the dog, I came up with a shiny new idea. Only it's based on the oldest idea in my idea file.

What's my idea file? Any time I get an idea, an interesting line, a crazy dream, I write about it in my idea file and save it for another time when I want to write that book.

At the bottom of this file is a one sentence quote. I've mulled this one over several times in the past and always came up with something very maudlin that did not entice me to write it. This time, the voice came to me and I wrote the first chapter. That's enough for now as I have other irons that are screaming in the fire.

But, oh, it feels good to have that started as I really, really like that first line. Really.

Revise, Revise, Revise

A good blogging friend has given me great feeedback on Garlic. Some of it I really did know and didn't want to look at. *sigh*

So it's revisions time again. Not a major one like changing from 3rd person to 1st. But still - killing off a minor character and choosing one major theme to stick to and emphasize.

Still debating on which theme.

First order of business:
Time to go kill Scott. Poor kid. But that means I get to pull in stuff from the chapters I deleted when I fixed the geographic bouncing around. Never permanently delete such things. You might need them later. (Not adding back geographic bouncing - I just need a piece of this action.)

Second order of business:
Come up with one paragraph on Tommy's journey to help solidify his major theme.

February Contests

I entered Miss Snark's First Victim's February Secret Agent contest.

It's my alter ego this time - dark, edgy YA.

My entry.


Then there's this one: "Dear Lucky Agent" Contest. This one needs a tag line, so I have some tinkering to do.

Hm. On second thought, this one has a lot of rules that I'm not so comfortable with. Check the comments before you enter.

Here's Another One

In for a penny...

Agent Mary Kole (Andrea Brown Literary Agency) is holding a Novel Beginnings contest on the kidlit blog.

There are some interesting rules to enter. Good time to practice your paying attention to submission guidelines skill.

January Contest Entries

Miss Snark's First Victim's Secret Agent Contest

Clarity of Night Short Fiction Contest

Interestingly entries 10 and 11. Would've been too weird if they wound up being the same number.

Hope to have updates on both of these soon.


Update #1: I am in the list of Notable Mentions in the Secret Agent contest and get to submit my query and first three chapters.

Update #2: Got some great feedback from Jason over at Clarity of Night. This entry had a bit of a problem with pacing - choose what information in the opening paragraph is important.
I wound up cutting one sentence from this piece as a result.

NaJaWhaWE

Doesn't quite have the same ring, but I'm trying to do in one weekend what I wanted to do in the month of November - revise Garlic - completely.

Over halfway through. Only 92 more pages to go - today. Last night I hit the chapter that I forgot needed to be written. I had gutted several chapters and left notes for the information that had to be included. Got that done and I'm moving on.

Weekend, thy name is BIC.


Update: 11:11am and 43 pages done. This is looking doable.

Update to the Update: 2:30pm - DONE!