January 2008

Transition
Transitions is the theme for 2008. There are big-big changes all around me. I moved in with my fiancé in mid-December 2007. I hope to sell my condo by the end of January 2008. While I plan to continue my tech writing with Amazon and to do more of it on a monthly average than before, I also plan to get a contract job outside the house. I do not have to do this but I think I need to do it for a good 6-12 months. It will refill the coffers and give me a break from the writing. I need to refill my creative coffers, too. That means I need to rest my brain for a little bit.

In May, I will be married to my fiancé. That will bring on a whole new set of changes including taking his last name as my own. After thinking about this for a bit, I've decided, for many reasons, that this is a good idea. Besides, I love the guy. I want to be Mrs. Jeff. I will, of course, still have the problem of people spelling it wrong, just like my maiden name, but that's OK. I'm used to it.

(Eek! I have a fiancé! I will have a husband. I'm going to be a wife! OMG, I never thought this would happen to me. It's all too cool for words.)

There are other transitions. Just getting used to living with someone new. So far, so good. Here's hoping the other shoe never falls. Plus, my writing habits are going to change. I have a whole lot of editing to do along with making sure The Edge of Propinquity 2008 - Retribution gets off the ground in a big way. Freaky Friday Fiction will also end this year in late May. I decided to write only 105 Freaky Friday Fictions. Perhaps I will try to sell them as a book. Perhaps not. I don't know. They will all have to be edited no matter what.

Resolutions versus Resolve. Lots of people make resolutions they intend to keep but don't. They shoot too high or they write stuff down and never look at their list again. I rarely do resolutions any more. I have goals that I intend for the year but I need to really want them. Last year, it was all about the writing. I was an overachiever and I'm pretty proud of that.

This year, my goals are going to be very different. It was all about the writing last year. This year it is about me, my health and my career. My two goals are:

1. Lose 50 pounds. I stalled on my weight loss but I did not gain. That's good but now it's time to start thinking about my health again. I've already got a membership to a local gym and set up 8 weeks of trainer time. It will be a good start to this resolution. Plus, Jeff will be joining me.

2. Get an agent to sell the books I've already written and to sell the trilogies that go with a couple of the books. This goal is harder. I've got to get a good agent and I have some on tap to query this month. I've got a fantasy book, a sci-fi space opera book and a finance book to woo good agents with.

Obviously, Goal #2 is a multi-part evolving goal. Once I get the agent, when they sell my book or trilogy, that will push my focus back to editing and writing on that particular book/series.

For the record, I intend to continue to publish under my maiden name and never under my married name.

I think these two goals are doable and realistic. One is health based. One is writing career based. While I am doing both, I will continue to edit the books I've written and I have vague plans of beginning the second book of the Catalyst trilogy called The Acolyte's Sacrifice in June 2008. I will need the rest of that time to edit the other books.

In all honesty, this is about 80% of my Year in review for 2007. My focus and purpose for 2007 was to "just write" and I think I did that admirably. I'm pretty proud of myself.

I have just ended my Writing Sabbatical Year. Let's see where my Year-to-Date report card finished up:

Progress Is Made
I guess the last couple of weeks could be summed up with: Edit, work on condo, edit, freak out about condo, write, worry about condo, job hunt, write... rinse, lather, repeat.

The last couple of weeks have been tough on both Jeff and I. He's been a trooper all throughout my freak outs over the condo - getting it ready to sell, the delays in getting it ready to sell and the cost of getting it ready to sell (which was a couple thousand dollars more than expected). However, all that is done and the condo is officially on the market now. There is nothing left for me to do except wait for a buyer. I've never been good at waiting but I really have no choice now. Let's hope for a short wait.

Also in the last two weeks, I finished editing The Little Finance Book That Could and sent it out to my 1st Round Reader group. This first round reader group is different than most of my first round readers. Most of them, I haven't worked with before but they all requested that they read the finance book because they really need guidance. Since that is what this book is for, I figure it would be a good litmus test.

Now, on the writing front, I'm taking a small break from writing fiction and only writing on Year Three of Kendrick for the Edge of Propinquity. I'm very proud of my project and the fact that it is in its third year. This may be its last year. I don't know. It's a long time for a writing project to run. We will see.

This small break in fiction does not mean I am not writing. Far from it. My Amazon tech writing ramped up a lot because it is my job until I get a contract. Even then, I'll continue to write for Amazon while I'm doing a contract. It's a good way to supplement my income and keep my writing up. My editor believed me when I said "Give me what you got." He's given me the most he ever has at one time. It's pretty cool. I know what I'm working on for the rest of the month.

The job hunt for a decent contract is also underway and I've got two very positive hits so far. The recruiter loves me and has put me in for two decently paying QA V- contracts at MS. One is a test lead. One is not. Both sound ideal for what I want. They both start at 3-4 months with opportunities to extend. They both pay enough to sooth my freaking out miser who is freaking out due to the plummeting housing market and my condo being on the market for less than we had hoped. Both would be enough to refill coffers and allow me to feel comfortable again in a financial sense. I am cautiously optimistic and even hopeful.

Speaking of that, agent query letters are in the process of going out now. The first one went out to the one agent I really want and want to give first shot to. The rest will go out next Monday to everyone else. I have a lot to offer as an author and hope they can see it.

Thinking of that, I finished up the first draft of my part of my Chill contract and I'm waiting to hear what else I need to do with it. In the meantime, I've been told what I'm going to be working on for Margaret Weis Productions for this next year. Two contracts. One small. One big. I'm very excited about both. The big one might include a cover credit which really makes me smile. I'm just waiting for the actual contracts on them before I say more.

Oh, yeah. Jeff and I visited the Mau kittens we are buying. We picked out the female we wanted because we get first choice and put in our preference for the male since we get second choice. They are the cutest things. We'll be visiting them again in late January, early February with a camera for more pictures. We should be able to pick them up right after I get back from DundraCon.

So, definite progress is being made on all fronts. The condo is on the market. The third year of TEoP is up and running. Agent letters are going out. The finance book is out to readers. I'm writing my little fingers off for my Amazon gig and the job hunt is underway.

There's a lot more I could be doing (like organizing the house and such) but, over all, I'm happy. Jeff is working hard at work and working even harder with his musical - he has one of the lead roles. I don't see him as much as I'd like but we're getting along. Moving in together seems to have gone pretty well over all and that makes me even happier.

Want of Solitude... or Something
I have a lot on my plate right now. A lot that I am actively doing: Job hunting, interviewing, tech writing for Amazon, waiting for my condo to sell, sending out Agent query letters and writing on my DDC LARP. Some of the more important stuff, I have little or no control over. It's stressful. It's making the introvert in me want to hide. As a consequence, I am constantly fighting with myself and my desire to hole up in my office and forget the world.

I will admit, I do this a lot but the urge is much, much stronger right now. It reminds me of the time when I holed up for three years. Yeah. Three years. I went to work. I came home. I lived online where I could control things in the fashion I wanted to control them in. It was a very safe, solitary, lonely time in my life. It's one of the reasons I fight against this isolationist tendency.

I say isolationist instead of hermiting because Jeff is on the island now. He's got his own hut and everything. He's not even eligible to be voted off. I have no problem with him around. I like it and him. Mostly, I just fight against my desire to stay home. I know I'm right to fight against this mood. I almost didn't go to a special event LARP but since I said I would I did not want to back down. I'm glad I didn't. I had a pretty darned good time at it.

I suspect that a lot of this stress and need to hide will lessen as the stressful things drop off my list - after the condo sells, after I get a QA contract, after I finished up with the LARP writing. At least I'm recognizing and combating this as best I can.

The rest of the first round of agent query letters have gone out now. If I were smart, I'd already be putting together a second round of agent query letters. I am choosing to be optimistic over smart today. In a week, I will do a second round of queries. We will see what we see.

In the meantime, I've got plenty of tech writing to do and homework from Margaret Weis Productions to do in preparation for the big contract. As well as short term writing on the DDC LARP. Bill has tossed it back at me and I need to put the finishing touches on it this week so he can do the final bits and start the packet stuffing.

I'm trying very hard not to freak out about money and such because I still own the condo. I have to believe that it will sell this weekend. Apparently, there was almost a sale but another condo reduced their price by $25K (and thus, lower than mine) and the buyer went with them. However, I have faith in James. He will sell my condo this weekend.

The money issue reared its ugly head recently because I was looking at my February budget (paying the end of January bills). I did about double what I usually do for Amazon this month. That is a nice chunk of change. If I don't own the condo anymore, it would be an ideal amount of money for me. As it is, I am looking at it all being eaten up by a mortgage and HOA payment. I suppose this is why I want this weekend (and the impending condo sale) to happen NOW.

Jeff, of course, is assuring me that everything will be just fine and I believe him. It will. I know it will.

More than 50% of the agent query letters have already come back rejected. This is the hard part of being an author. A really hard part. Rejections are a part of life when it comes to writing and submitting work. I have pondered the responses and the letter I wrote. I think, for this second time around, I need to do a series of letters. In the first one, I gave them a choice of books. This next time around, I'm going to do one book per letter and I'm going to do a different set of focuses. Instead of a wilder variety, I'm going to focus on each "silo" of publishing (Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Finance, Drama) separately. We'll see how that works.

Leveling Up as a Human
I think it can be said that we all grow and expand, in a metaphorical sense, as we get older. That's normal. However, sometimes it can be very strange to actually realize it is happening and to be able to categorize it in game terms. Yet, that is what I do. So, it was no surprise with a friend of mine mentioned that I must have put some of my leveled up skill points into Ally: Spouse. Immediately, I thought, that I was actually leveling up my Ally from a four point Fiancé to a five point Spouse. Silly but true.

In other modifications to my personal character sheet, I just bought off the flaw: Afraid of snail mail queries and submissions. Silly but also true. Up until today, I have been terrified of the thought of sending out hard copy queries and submissions. However, somewhere in the last week, there was an almost audible *click* in the back of my brain and I realized that it was a no-brainer and it had always been a no-brainer... just waiting for me to see it. If that isn't the metaphorical buying off of flaw, I don't know what is.

With experience comes a certain sense of familiarity. Now that I have sent out my first set of letters, part of me wonders why I dreaded it all these years. No clue. However, it's nice that I'm over that fear. In other areas of familiarity, I received and finished an Amazon gig today. It was quick work once I started on it. Granted, a couple of things got sent back for me to fix but instead of beating myself up, I fixed the first thing without quibble and investigated the second thing to figure out what my editor was on about... and yes, there were mistakes that I should have seen but didn't. I fixed them and sent the second version back. That was that. No emotional gut wrenching. Just a "Damn, I should have caught that."

The current query stats look pretty good. Originally, I split them up by agent letter queries (Hi! I'm looking for an agent.) and book queries (Hi! I'm looking to sell this one book.) but since both result in the same thing (No. Yes, send me three chapters. Or, yes, send me the manuscript!) I'm squishing them all into a single set of statistics. With today's mailed queries, my numbers look like this:

Agent & Book Query Letters: 25
Manuscript requests: 5
Accepted: 0
Rejected: 6

Yes, that is five requests for manuscripts now for four different books. By the end of the week, I will have the following manuscripts out the door and in other hands: GRANTS PASS, THE LITTLE FINANCE BOOK THAT COULD, THE THIEF'S MISTAKE and THE OLD WOMAN IN THE WHITE CADILLAC. The last two manuscripts are going to the same agent... the agent I most want to be my agent. I am still doing cartwheels at getting her attention and getting it for two manuscripts. She is also interested in REGRESSER'S EVOLUTION but she wants to look at these first two projects first. Fine by me.

Of course, I've been combing my manuscripts trying to make sure they are in their best possible shape. After a bit, I had to call my mom and thank her for the editing she has done on these manuscripts. They are so much better with her input. She is totally going in the dedication of my first book and in my first awards acceptance speech. (Yes, I aim high. Why not? It's the only way to work.) In any case, I am much more comfortable with these manuscripts and almost ready to print them out.

By-the-by... I take it as a good sign that I still tear up as I read the last bits of THE OLD WOMAN manuscript. I haven't looked at that manuscript in months. It is almost like a book I haven't read in years but still remember parts of. Bits and pieces would catch my eye as I edited and I would think, "That's a nice bit right there." Or I would read something as if I had never read it because I forgot I wrote it and it is an interesting bit. Part of me just grins.

But, I digress. These days, I can almost hear the dice rolling around me and the scribbles to my personal character sheet as I reach a new milestone and level up. I love it. It is the most interesting part of life for me right now.