Query Letter Time!

Ok, here's a new version of my (ongoing) attempts to write a query letter for Troll Wife. I'm not there yet, but in writing this I discovered a little plot hole and was able to fix it. It tied up a loose thread that I didn't know was there. Yay for writing mock query letters!

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It's hard being a young female troll. First off, unless you're really special, you haven't earned a name and everyone just calls you "Troll Wife". Second, it's hard to get work (except maybe as a bouncer) because, hey, you're a troll. Third, you don't have any friends because again, hey, troll.

So when Troll Wife gets accepted into the tooth fairy training program, she wants three things. A job, to make friends, and earn a name. She's not thinking about why tooth fairies collect teeth and she certainly isn't thinking about monsters.

But there is a monster. Oubliette is determined to kill any human that hasn't kept the terms of an ancient pact between the humans and the fae. And any child that has lost a tooth but hasn't received money for it yet, hasn't kept the pact.

As a tooth fairy, Troll Wife has friends, a job, and the tools to continue the long fight against Oubliette. As a troll, she has the ability to actually stop Oubliette. She must choose. Give up everything she is and continue the fight against Oubliette? Or give up everything she's ever wanted and stop Oubliette?

Cutting and cutting some more

I've been sick since Wednesday. Not the flu, just an icky cold. So what should of, could of, would of been a four day weekend of writing has been mostly a four day weekend of whining, sneezing and sleeping. My husband did the grocery shopping for me, but today I had to do some banking.

While we were out, I figured I'd shave my head. My husband, wise man that he is, only said, "If that's what you want to do, I'll drive you over there". Once there, I backed off from totally shaving my head, and just had her take four inches off. (You've seen my pic, right? Now imagine that with four inches less hair.)

I can't decide if I like it or hate it. I hated my hair before, so even if I still hate it, now there is just less of it to hate :)

Finally! (not what you think)

Well, I'm finally done!

Sadly, not with this round of revisions (though I think I'm really close). Nope, I'm finally done importing Troll Wife into Scrivener and breaking it down into scenes. I have about 20,000 words that I've pulled out of my original draft to be relocated someplace else in this revision.

I'm breaking out the time line again. Obviously, when Oubliette hints that she is attacking faeish, that has to happen before Brux is attacked. But some things aren't so clear. They may end up getting cut from the final draft.

Which means that Troll Wife would be about 75,000 words. Not good. I guess I better find a way to stitch those scenes back in.

Scrivener Beta 1.3 is out

Just so you know, Scrivener for Windows Beta 1.3 came out this morning! You can find it here, but I believe you have to already be logged in to the forums in order to get there. (I'm sure all the Mac Scrivener users know that 2.0 came out a few days ago.)

Now there is an "About Scrivener" in the help menu, so you can see what version you're working with (very nice). It also fixes the disappearing indents problem and the lag problem. (I didn't notice the lag problem, which was related to how spell check was checking words while typing.) I love that it's fixed the disappearing indents problem. It wasn't a huge issue, but it bugged me.

They think they've also fixed the invisible text problem, but they're not sure, since they were never able to reproduce it. (This was a problem where the last part of what you had written seemed to disappear, even though it was really still there. You could go to "show invisible" and it would reappear, but it caused a few writerly heart attacks until that trick was discovered.

There are lots of other updates and changes listed in the link, but those struck me as the big ones. 

QR Codes

Since I've gotten my Droid, I've been happily clicking at QR codes. It's like magic. My camera sees it, and I get taken to a web page, or download a program, or whatever. After reading an article about how writers could be using QR codes by Sierra Godfrey, I'm totally going to be spending some time creating my own QR code.

For more information about QR codes, what they are, what you can do with them, and how to make one, please check out Sierra Godfrey's post "QR Codes for Writers".

Today's Word Count

I made today's word count. Too bad about yesterday. Maybe I can make it up a little bit at a time. Now I'm off to bed.

NaNo post

Ok, I've decided to write/explore The Monster of Dewsberry Drink as my NaNoWriMo project. I'm not sure I'll win NaNo this year. I just don't have enough writing time in my schedule to be able to do almost 2,000 words a day. But I'm going to try!

(And yes, Scrivener is every bit as cool as I thought it was, even in the Windows Beta version that doesn't do everything yet.)

My husband has offered to buy me a copy of Scrivener for my birthday, so trying to win doesn't have that extra pressure on me :)

Scrivener for Windows (and free trial for NaNoWriMo!)

OMG! I've heard about Scrivener for ages, and always had Mac envy for that alone, since Scrivener was Mac only. I've tried other software for novel writing, some free and some not, but deep in my heart I believed that nothing was as good as Scrivener. For a while, I contemplated getting a Mac, just so I could get Scrivener, but decided $2,000 was a little much for just one piece of software.

Now, courtesy of Lifehhacker, I discovered that Scrivener has a Windows version and they're offering a free trial in honor of NaNoWriMo! (I made that link extra long, so you wouldn't miss it.) Plus you get a 50% discount off the price if you're a NaNoWriMo winner! How cool is that? Now I'm going to have to sign up for NaNoWriMo and see if I can win again.

Revision Class

Sorry in advance, but this post is going to be full of links. It's link soup goodness!

Several years ago, I joined an online writer's group called Forward Motion. (It's free.) It was founded by Holly Lisle (this is a link to her Amazon book list, not her website...yet). The idea is that published authors "pay back" by helping out budding authors. Holly left Forward Motion just about the time I joined, to devote more time and energy to her writing, so I don't know her, even in the internet sense of the word when you "internet know" someone.

(As a side note, I took the 2 Year Novel Class at Forward Motion, more later if anyone is interested, and used that to write my first draft of Troll Wife. I loved that class.)

Holly also has a website. And she has lots of good articles on her website. I have a link to her "one pass revision" article up in my side bar. I joined her email list a few months ago, and yesterday I read that she's offering a 21 week How To Revise Your Novel class. This class is not free. It costs $49.95 a month. It's a subscription, so you can quit any time along the way.

I'm seriously thinking about taking it. Yes, it would mean that my hoped for end date for revisions would get pushed back, but if it makes my book stronger, it would be worth it. My big issues/fears are:
1. I've never had a class from Holly, so I don't know what it will be like. On the other hand, I do like her One Pass Revision Article, so chances are pretty good that I would like the class.
2. Am I just putting off the date for starting my agent search?
3. The cost. Ouch! I don't think I can afford it, though I always manage to find room in my budget if I want something enough.

I'm afraid the second one is the biggest one, because how can I tell? If I'm making a strong story, that's good. If I'm just avoiding the next phase (querying) that's very bad.

Anyway, I thought I'd share the info, in case anyone needs help with revisions and wants to take a look at the class outline.

New Opening Line

This is how it works for me. I get the opening and the story grows from it. So here's the new opening I got yesterday.

"I finally picked the guy I wanted to kill me. Finding a way to end my life was harder than you might imagine. I couldn't kill myself, because I didn't want friends or family to be the ones to find my body. I didn't want to hire someone, because what if the police thought my husband did the hiring? That would suck. I didn't just want to walk in front of an oncoming car and give some decent person nightmares for the rest of their life.

Nope, I needed to pick a jerk. A real scumbag, who wouldn't feel bad after mowing me down, and I wouldn't feel bad if he went to jail after killing me."

Ugh! Not another first person book! But I'm not sure the inner turmoil of the woman could be carried by third person. This one would probably go one of two ways. Either she finds a reason to live after all, or she discovers that the more you learn about a person, the more sympathy you have for them. So her "total scumbag" isn't as totally a scumbag as she first thought.

Eh, doesn't make me jump up and down. Let's see if it haunts me over the next few years.