Gotta Say it Again

I honestly can't say enough "good" about, From the Query to the Call by Elana Johnson...aka the Query Ninja. Why the second post of kudos? Well, I went back and Query Ninja'd my first query for THE END OF NORMAL (my first-ever novel). Wow did my query miss the mark on so many levels.

I was over at Literary Rambles and saw that Susan Hawk just joined Jenny Bent Agency, and she's looking for MG science fiction. And that's what THE END OF NORMAL is!!!!

I just hit send on my Query-Ninja-revised query to Ms. Hawk. You never know...

The Thankful Post

This will be brief.

I am really thankful for encouragement, kind words, pushes, good thoughts, nice comments, and people still believing in me and my dream. If you've ever provided any of those things, well, then, I'm thankful for you. Cool huh?

Thank you for helping me keep keepin' on. I will achieve in 2010. I will.

Great E-book

I finished reading Elana Johnson's From the Query to the Call. An e-book that is beyond helpful if you are crafting your query letter or if your letter is in need of a serious revision (like I was).

She breaks down the query letter into critical parts, shows you real life query examples and explains the how and why of querying.

Great book. Just thought I'd share.

YA Novel Contest

I found out about this via Pink Ink, and I entered.
Check it out:
http://www.writingclasses.com/ContestPages/YAPitch.php

One Old Soul

If you didn't read yesterday's post, I think you may need to or this will mean nothing.

Got a partial request today for the first 50 pages of EVERYTHING'S NOT LOST and I had to get myself to Staples. Gathered the kids and my flashdrive and took care of business. Ended up going to dinner with my boys. Amidst the warm bread and butter I ran my cross-roads-scenario by them for their opinions.

Lil' son says, "Mom, you can NOT quit writing! You love to write. Just make time, you can do that."

Sweetness.

Big son says, "Mom, I saw this on a t-shirt recently and I think it fits here, You never know how far you have to go when you're chasing a dream. Think about it, Mom. If you stop writing, your dream will never come true."

I'm pretty sure my salad dressing dribbled down my chin. This kid is only twelve, but he's one old soul.

I ain't quitting. Won't do it. No matter if new business takes off or not. Writing make me happy and I like happy.

If You Were Wondering...

I've sort of fallen off the face of the earth lately from this blog and all subsequent reading of my blog-friends' blogs. Sorry 'bout that. I'm sort of at a weird cross roads in my life. I'm in a strange, confused place. And I am not a confused person. I usually know what I want to do and then I do everything in my power to not only do it, but do it to the best of my ability. But I'm a wee bit lost at the moment.

See, I started up that new job. The one where I'm an instructional coach for teachers, coaching them on how to be highly effective in their instructional practice. It's intellectually stimulating and professionally exciting on many, many levels. The teachers at the middle school where I'm currently coaching are beyond receptive to what I've been saying. I really like the job. That's not what I'm confused about.

Well, let me keep going with the story. This new job has spurred my former teaching colleague and instructional coaching colleague, Margie (I've included her in a few of my posts) and I to start writing an educational book. We meet on Sundays and write. It is pretty cool. We also started planning out professional development presentations that we could do for schools...that coincides with this educational book we're currently writing. That spurred me to start a new blog and new Twitter account and new Ning account...sort of a new business.

I read this book called Now is the Time to Crush It! Cash in on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk. The dude's a social networking wizard and has mastered how to spread the word on just about anything. Hence my new blogs and new Twitter account.

I'm finally getting to my inner battle. All of this "new business" stuff is steering me away from my writing and this blog and querying. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not. I seriously feel verklempt every time I sit down at my laptop. For the first time since I wrote my virgin novel two summer ago I feel lost. Off point. Lost the path. I continue to read of other writers landing agents. I continue to read of other writers selling their first novels. I continue to wonder (and I do mean think very deeply about) if it will ever happen to me.
*I'm not looking for any sympathy here, I swear. I'm just saying how I feel lately.

So, I stopped querying. I stopped NaNo'ing. I stopped torturing myself with other writer's good news. I stopped blogging (this blog). I stopped reading others' blogs & commenting. I stopped anything writer'y. I just stopped it all.

And it felt awful. It felt wrong. It still feels wrong and awful.

See? I don't know what to do. I can't do it all. I can't work full time, write an educational book, start a new business, continue writing my YA novel, query, revise, blog, read others' blogs, etc... My head is going to explode, and see, I need my head to do stuff.

I thought this post would clear my head. Not so much. I need an espresso martini and a hot bath.

Oh, and if you're interested, or happen to know ANYONE connected with education in any way. I'd be all sorts of grateful if you passed along my new blog:
http://wecanfixeducation.blogspot.com

or my new Twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/fixeducation

NaNo Write-Off

I had a slow start to my very first NaNo, so I decided to challenge fellow blogger, Mercedes, to a friendly NaNo Write-Off this weekend.

The Challenge was simple. Whoever wrote the most words by 10:00 p.m. EST on Sunday would be declared the winner. Loser will have to post of the winner's wonderful'ness either in written or song form.

At the start I was at 996 words. Now, at challenge end, I'm at 4,587 words.

We'll see who will be singing...

p.s. I'm liking this new book - it's another realistic YA. I really like the MC and her best friend.