Book extras

As I’m sitting here, reclining on the couch, tweaking my book for the billionth time, a random thought pops into my head: How much stuff did the writers of my favorite books scrap during their editing?




For movies, we have director’s cuts and extended scenes so we can see more of our beloved characters, but not for books. Sure, some authors have created Facebook and twitter accounts for their characters so that fans can follow and interact with them, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the one thing that majority of people want no matter what subject we’re discussing. I’m talking about MORE.
Think about your favorite book...
Are you thinking about it?
Good.
How many more beautifully written scenes about your favorite literary characters exist solely on those author’s computers?
Intrigued yet?
What if they had more action scenes, or went out on more dates, or had more close calls. What if the dialogue was different or their personalities? What if... God forbid... that wasn’t even their original name? Gasp!

Sometimes this is brought up during author interviews, but those aren’t always easy to find. And when you do find them, it’s just the author discussing what they did or didn’t change. I don’t want that. I want to read it. I want to read about them doing something trivial. Or read about them doing something that has absolutely nothing to do with the overall plot, but still was a great scene anyway. And dang it, I want to read a scene that sucked! (If nothing else, it will make the writer me happy that other authors have written them too ;) )

As I write, and re-write, and cut, and so forth, I have saved everything so that one day, if all nine planets line up (Pluto will always be a planet, screw you science) and my book gets published, I can say to some brilliant individual who thinks my books are amazeballs, “Did you know that my MC originally had an older sister?” Their jaw drops to release the gas from their mind exploding.

Maybe someday, with the way technology is going, we can have something like author cuts or extended versions for books, but until that day we are all just left to dream about it.

Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my query, so sign me maybe?

Holy cow I haven’t posted since September?!?! My bad. Seriously guys, I’m sorry. Give me just a moment to play catch up and answer a question about my last post that has come up a few times on twitter. My son eventually did stop crying at preschool. I wish I could take credit, but I can’t. Honestly. Three weeks into his school year and my day job changed my schedule so my hubs had to do solo trips to the Y with two toddlers. THAT was interesting...

So what else have I been doing while neglecting this site. Hmmm... Revisions. Revisions. Training for a half marathon. And oh yeah, did I mention revisions?

Moment of truth here peeps, I did a small round of queries last summer (ten all together) and had three requests for fulls. Amazing, I know. But alas, they all passed. Don’t cry for me Argentina because that inspired me to join a writers group, where I found two amazing critique partners, Alisha and Astrid. Then I joined another writers website where I found a third critique partner and beta reader, Mizi and Jennifer. And somewhere along the way I discovered that a friend wanted to get back into being an editor. I didn’t even know she did that previously, but she wanted me to be her first gig. SWEET! You women are fantastic! Thank you for telling me what sucked, and for putting up with all my rewrites. New title, new scenes, and now told in multiple points of view. Basically, it’s a whole new book. To those agents that passed, thank you for giving me the motivation and opportunity to grow as a writer.

Now that we’re all caught up, we can get to the point of this post: I’m submitting again!!! My query, or as I like to call it, “this evil thing designed for the soul purpose of making writers cry” is nearly finished. Same goes for the equally hellish nightmare aka synopsis. Now I’m on the fun task of researching agents. No joke there, I do enjoy this part.

I write YA. According to a website that I absolutely love and wouldn’t be where I am today without it: www.querytracker.net , there are 375 agents listed with them that rep YA. Uhhhh... damn skippy, that’s a lot. So I’m currently researching them, which is a fine line of digging and cyber stalking to find out whom among them is:  

A: Open for submissions.

B: Interested in topics that exist in my book (jeez YA covers a lot)  

C: I can see working with this agent for many years.

I know it’s not a long list, but that is what I look for in regards to the agent, not the agency as a whole. That list is longer ;)

A is a no brainer. Why query someone who is closed?

B stems from a mistake I did last year. After many hours researching and developing an agent-crush (if that is not a thing, it should be) I submitted to an agent and after two weeks of “Oh, was that my email ping?” *opens email* Not him *sigh* I stumbled on an interview he had just recently gave that offered a more in-depth look at what he is/isn’t looking for. Three of the things on his “isn’t looking for list” were in my story. I stopped getting excited for my email reply from him and ate lots of ice cream that day. Now, when I find an agent in that mass of 375 that I have an agent-crush on (I’ve found a few) you bet your sweet cheeks I’m doing everything I can to NOT go through that again. I may even email the top three just to be on the safe-side.

C is because I want an agent I can trust and feel comfortable with and won’t groan when their name comes up on my phone or email. If at any point during my research into your agency, you, your blog, and whatever else I can find, you’ve made me laugh, you’re in my dream team and I will be submitting to you soon.  

So what do you do to decide which agent/agency is right for you? Is there something you think I should be doing that I’m not?

Thanks for reading and remember, If/when you uncover something embarrassing about an agent like photos of their cat’s birthday, good research is when you say, “aww cute” and move on. Cyber-stalking is when you comment on it in the query.

TTFN and I promise not take such a long hiatus,

Laurie

First Day of Preschool

Today was my three-year-olds first day of Preschool.
 
Of course we (his parents) were excited and nervous - it's a new adventure not just for him, but us also. It means our little boy is not so little anymore. But he was not happy. We could tell this was going to be a struggle last week when we had orientation.
His preschool is at our YMCA. We go there often, not on a set schedule by any means, but enough for him to know the lay of the land. So when we pulled into the parking lot last week, he was immediately excited. To him, the Y means playing with trains in the child watch area or playing in the ball pit or occasionally swimming.
So when I took him to his classroom for orientation, while his father dropped his younger brother off in child watch, the water works began. He wanted his brother. He wanted to play trains. He wanted his routine. He did eventually get used to his classroom, especially once he saw they too had a train table. When it came time to leave through, the tears sprang up again. Even though he spent the last 30 minutes playing with trains and other fun new toys, he still wanted to go in the child watch and play with "those" trains. Never mind the fact that we have an over abundance of trains at home to play with. Ours aren't wooden. Ohhh.
Today was meet with trepidation. We tried talking to him about all the fun he was going to have today and all the new kids he was going to meet, and he responded with the "deer in headlights" look.

  We went to his classroom, he checked in like he was supposed to, we hugged and said our goodbyes. Then we took our almost two year old to the child watch so my husband and I could work out for two hours. The little one cried, which he always does when we leave him there, or at either grandparents house. But he's usually fine in five minutes.
When we left the room we could hear more crying. Several of the Preschoolers we crying. My heart plummeted. One of them was my son. A mom knows the sound of her kids cry. Add to that he was saying, "I want my mommy" "I want to play choo-choos" (<--what other kid would say that) "No. Get my mommy." And I was about to melt right there. I kept it together though and I went to work out.
Afterwards, we first picked up our youngest and we were right, after five minutes he was fine. But the oldest, it took 45 minutes before he would calm down! I'm thinking, why didn't you call me? I would have come up! Grrr! But, now I can see the rational behind it. If I would have caved and gone to sooth him, we would be right back to square one the next school day.
He refused to talk to us or hold either of our hands. He' stubborn and I have no idea who he got that from...
It wasn't until I pulled him aside in the lobby and made him hug me and told him how much I missed him that he thawed. He pulled back and his big blue eyes looked into mine and he asked, "you missed me?" Again, I melt. My sweet, sensitive, little guy thought that I'd all but abandoned him there. At home, my husband and I sat him down and explained why he has to go to school and that, even though he can't see us, we are still in the building. We would never leave him there. We've told him that he will be going back in two days, two moons (he loves seeing the moon at night. he introduces himself and anyone else standing near him whenever he sees it). I think he is understanding this concept, but only time will tell.
Now he is slowly telling me little fun things he did today and playing with his trains like normal.
His class is twice a week until the end of May, so this will be our new routine. Hopefully, after a week or two, we can do it with much less crying.

 

Unforgettable drive to work

Today was colder than normal for August but, I was excited - I was wearing my new white and black fall long-sleeve top that has the shoulders cut out, a cute pair of black pants, and my black sandals with kitten heels. I looked good.

So I leave the house a few minutes before 5:30 for work, jamming out to my favorite song by the Black Keys, “Howlin for you”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sKzpU33coQ

and I begin my 1 mile drive to work. I know, I should walk, and I do on occasion but, I’m not a morning person, it’s dark that early, I hit snooze until that moment when “if I don’t get up now, I will be late” arrives, and I usually stay up until 11 each night writing so I’m generally tired in the am regardless. You walk to work :P

Anyway, I’m on my route through side streets lined with sleepy homes and I see something small and white a few blocks ahead of me. It could garbage - there is a McDonalds about a block behind me and occasionally I see some litter from thoughtless people with their logo on the road – or it could be an animal like a bunny or something.

There are two stop signs between me and my white mystery and, after stopping at both, it hasn’t moved. My sub-par headlights inch closer and closer to it and still no reaction. I’m now fairly certain that it’s junk but, I’m an animal lover. I have been raised on Disney so I pictured Thumper, the cute rambunctious rabbit from Bambi,

 

and I slowed down and moved to the wrong side of the road. No one else was on the road... it’s okay.

As I’m passing my garbage bunny, I look out my passenger window and finally uncover its identity. It’s a person! That’s right. A man was standing in the road wearing a dark grey shirt, dark pants and white shoes with his back to on-coming traffic! And he had the nerve to glare at me like I was disturbing him!

What was he doing for the minute plus that he was un-necessarily endangering his life? Looking at his cell phone! That’s right. He was reading a text or Facebook or something else that could have waited for him to walk the eight or ten feet to the curb but, apparently he suffers from, "I’m a moron" syndrome.

Now... the cynical a**hole part of me thinks he may have been there on purpose. Perhaps he had composed a goodbye text to someone who also thinks he is a moron and he had his finger floating above the send button, waiting for that moment right before impact to send it.

The “people are generally good” part of me thinks it was just an accident. He hadn’t expected anyone to be driving around at o’dark thirty so he didn’t think anything of standing in the road to check for new cat pictures.

Whatever his reason for being there, I’m just glad I love bunnies. Hopefully he does too because Thumper, Bugs Bunny, Peter Cottontail, the Eater Bunny and all the other various bunnies from my youth saved his life today.

something happened to me on the way to writing my book

I'm not talking about this great revelation or brilliant insight that changed my life forever.  I'm talking about something that happened that, at the time, wasn't funny but, now it is and WHEN my book sells, I want to remember this.
While writing this book I've have my share of, "I hate you so much computer!" and "oh no baby please don't die..." and "what just happened? All I did was press one button and now my 90,000 words are gone!" and my personal favorite because it happens too much "oh my god did I save that?"

My biggest OH NO! moment came while my hubs and I were getting ready for something (don't remember what) and my two toddlers were playing toys in the living room. Suddenly the room got quiet. That... is never a good sign. I went into the living room and screamed "NOOO" so loudly and with such devastation that my husband sprinted to the living room thinking something happened to the kids. Looking back at it, it was a bit overly dramatic but, at the time it was the end of the world.

My writing space is the couch in the living room  and my laptop sits on the table next to it. (I can't sit at a desk. It's boring to me. And well... the couch is comfy.) The image that abruptly ended my world was: my two boys sitting on the couch with the lap top open and ALL THE KEYS WERE MISSING! Yes. That's right. They had somehow popped all the keys off the lap top.

While checking to make sure none of the keys were in their mouth, my head was whirling. I hadn't gotten into the habit of saving on a flash drive and I wasn't sure if the computer would be salvageable. I couldn't possibly start from scratch. There was just too many scenes. Too much detail. Too many emotions. I nearly... called it quits right there on my food stained, toy covered gray rug.

My hubs helped locate all the keys and... some did not survive. Among the casualties were - A T . " and the CTRL key. CTRL I could live without (the key, not actual control. I am a control freak) but A T . and  " are essential!

A new keyboard was ordered but, it would take ten days to arrive. Its an off day when I'm not writing so, I tried to push through it. I still had the clear little cone thing that sits on the back side of the key board but, it either wouldn't work or it would work too much and I would end up with five of the desired key. It was a long ten days.

That was several months ago. The new keyboard is in (it's noisier) and I'm still writing almost everyday. There have been a few other mishaps with my frienemy computer but, that was by far the worst. And the funniest. But, if my boys are ever reading this... I love you but, that was not nice. When I eventually get a gray hair - I will say it was a delayed reaction from this event. Unless you boys do something naughtier... then it will be for that.

Family

This weekend will mark a huge milestone for my family... my little sister is getting married! My sister and I have been stuck like glue to each other since the day she was born. She is literally my best friend. I'm very happy for her and my future brother-in-law is wonderful. To make the day even more special, I am the matron of honor. I'm just so honored that she chose me to be by her side as she makes this transition.
Almost all of my last minute to-do list is done, the only thing left is ironing our outfits for both the grooms dinner and the wedding. Since I LOATH ironing, it will end up being done Thursday night, unless I can somehow talk mom into it... Clearly, her love of ironing did not get passed down to me, or any of my sisters for that matter.
The day will be amazing and my sister will look beyond beautiful but, one thing will be missing - the same thing that was missing for my wedding - our dad. He passed in 2005 of a brain aneurysm. I know his presence will be with us that day as it is on most days. The emptiness that we all feel from losing him will just sting a little bit more that day.
I'm sure there will be a few tears, but mostly laughter, lots of smiling and of course dancing!

TTFN-
Laurie

Big step

While beginning this Blogging Adventure my mind instantly warps to say, "One small step for man, one giant leap for the technically challenged!"  I have no idea what I'm doing but, I'm excited to start just the same.  Bear with me please and we will get through this together!