ROW80 Check In. Where am I?

ROW80 check-in. Star Date, July 27th, 2011.

We find ourself in a strange, non-writing place. The inhabitants are friendly and the climate temperate. Which only leads to our own inability to put words on paper...how much longer can we go on?

This strange place's name? Staycation.

All silliness aside, I had great plans for this staycation 2 weeks of no work and lots of writing time. Yeah, not so much so. As you can see Sunday, when I should have been writing a ROW80 check-in, I was at a Twins game with our youngest. Monday and Tuesday a bit of writing got done, mainly for a contest. Plus, another baseball game, little league semi-finals. They lost :( after rallying back from a 5 run deficit, they were ahead by 1...other team had last ups and they pulled it off.

Plus, I don't know what I was thinking: no work. Ha! No work, except for laundry and vacuuming and dusting and organising and cooking. Not to mention all the stuff that needs to be done, but not enough time like, re-paint porch and basement. Crap.

Enough with the whining.

Even more than new words on the page, I need to nail the outline for my YA steampunk/fantasy.

NEW PLAN

Brainstorm and notecard outline

Re-write query 

Post on Blog 2x a week not counting ROW80 check-ins

I'm not posting a goal for wordcount this go around. We'll see how I feel on Sunday.

How's everyone else doing?

GEARING UP TO GET AN AGENT WEEK 4 FIRST 200 WORDS!

For week 4 of Gearing up to Get an Agent we're posting the first 200 words of our manuscript...I have started this in so many places, I no longer know what makes sense. Here's the first 200 words of my YA steampunk romance:

I was alone in the attic bedroom. That wasn't entirely true, I had the skitterings of Aurora in the eaves to keep me company. My foster sisters were performing in the production tonight so they would not be along to for another few hours. I hadn't felt well earlier and was excused from my duties as second stage-hand. I didn't act or sing, my foster parents said acting was not my cup of tea -- what they meant was, I had no talent for it. It's not the life for you, they'd say.

It's alright, I didn't care for the theatre, I only cared for the corner of the Mississippi I could see with my distance goggles through my bedroom window. Every moment That could be spared I me eyes were on that bend. One day soon, I would see the AirPirate ship that carried the Captain who was responsible for my parents' death.

If only I knew what I would do after I spied the ship. It's not as if I could call him out for a duel. I might be able to tinker a bomb...but, that was no good, I only wanted vengeance on the Captain not the whole crew.

ROW80 CHECK-IN SERIOUSLY.

Okay, okayokayokay. A funny thing happened on my way to Sunday's check-in.

I got a rejection from an editor who had requested my first three chapters from a pitch on twitter-- and it was the second most exciting thing that had happened to me in the world of writing (the first being, the original request that came from the twitter pitch).

A rejection exciting? Yes. It was a long rejection letter telling me, not one, but two people reviewed it. They told me what they liked and why it didn't work for them...yet. They told me what I could do to make it better, and then they told me that although it wasn't right for them now, it didn't mean it never would be.

So, yay!

On to the check-in: feel as if I've been running in place, lots of writing, just not on anything I had planned out. Wrote a horrible query, got lots of lovely feedback from folks here:

Deana Barnhardt's blog -- Gearing up to Get an Agent

Such good advice.

So, I guess I'll have to wait until Sunday to see how I succeeded this week.

Good Luck everyone.

GEARING UP TO GET AN AGENT WEEK 3 QUERY LETTER

Okay, here it is...I know it needs work -- lots o' work -- just wanted to get it up. Yikes!

Dear Dream Agent's Name,

In a time of gaslit streets how can a young woman hope to avenge her parents' death?

Finding out you're the descendant of Thor is a good start. Having the power to seek out the AirPirate responsible for their deaths is brilliant. Retrieving the legendary hammer from a Mad Genius might be daunting. And learning your almost boyfriend was instrumental in your parents' death might very well be debilitating.

Tess O'Dell has a wonderful opportunity to attend Miss Carmila's School for Exceptional Young People. At the school she copes with discovering her true identity, a best friend and a strong attraction to a mysterious boy; Sebastian St. Camael.

Sebastian has his own problems. Raised by pirates, yet born a true Angel he and his adoptive father are used in a cruel plot causing the deaths of Tess's parents. Unknown to each other by their twisted relationship, Tess and Sebastian meet at school.

Betwixt is a Young Adult Steampunk Romance, set in St. Paul, Minnesota on the Mississippi in 1869. This is my first Young Adult novel.

Thank you for time, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,
Amy Kennedy

THINKING THURSDAY HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO BRAIN MALFUNCTION

Hope this works. Love these guys. If language offends, it was unintended.
Mumford & Sons. Little Lion Man


http://youtu.be/lLJf9qJHR3E

GEARING UP TO GET AN AGENT BLOGFEST. WEEK2 STORY CHAIN!

Here's the part before mine http://sivmaria.blogspot.com/

My part is weaving in backstory and my words are: kiss, delve, bruise. Here's to living up to those words! Skol!

I bent lower, and searching his face I kissed him on his bruised cheek. I would have done anything to stay with him, but I had to make it to the cave of the Larva. I stood and backed away from his helpless form.

"I'll not forget this Roddern," I sobbed and ran.

Larva. The name sent chills down my spine even as sweat dripped down my back.

Would the Larva help, or would it lead to more death and pain. Once again, I hated myself for finding the book -- finding it and openening the damn thing. And as if I held it in my hands the stench of eggs rotting filled my nostrils.

I wiped my forehead and looked once again at the map. I'd been running for what seemed like hours, the sun was lower in the sky, I hoped to reach the cave before sunset. What would the cave be like in total darkness. Chills again. A nagging thought, if you had the book, you could right the wrongs...maybe even your father's death. No. Those thoughts were not mine. And I would not delve into memories any longer. Yet there was a strange comfort to them.

And then, there it was. The cave. I could smell the Larva. It reminded me of the book.

For the next installment go to: http://weavingataleortwo.blogspot.com/

ROW80 Check In

http://aroundofwordsin80days.wordpress.com/
So far so good. The weekly goals seem to be working. What is it in me that I almost hate to admit this -- as if the Universe will say, "Oh, look, she thinks it's working...bwahahaha! Let's wreck it!"

Idiotic, I do believe in positive thinking. I do, I do.

Words: 800 -- almost half way to my 7 pages
Edits/Revisions: 1.5 hours, not quite where I wanted to be, but not panic time either.

Feeling good. Gonna stay that way.