tanaise reminded me that I shouldn't make statements like "my ferrets are the cutest" without having done polls or surveys first. So here's a poll so I can start saying that with authority.


Poll #1424815 Cutest ferrets
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Whose ferrets are the cutest?

Ferrets are...

Jodi's ferrets are...

One of my most favorite things is to walk into the yarn store, choose pretty colors, and then give the owner money...only to wonder later whether she charged me nearly enough. Then I looked at my receipt and discovered...

It was 40% off.

I'd seen sale signs around, but not floating over the cubbies of sock yarn I was going through. They've done stealth sales before, but it's always thrilling, especially when a certain husband was just telling me I don't need yarn, because I already have a ton, and there's that yarn I spin now, too... But I need sale yarn, and even he can't deny that!

I'll be forced to reorganize my yarn closet mmmphfff soon, and then we'll see how much of a yarn problem I really have. I don't think it's that serious.

--

Yesterday morning, I went to the eye doctor, and with the help of the entire office and its patients, I also managed to choose new frames. They're cute and brownish and have tiny tan flowers on the sides. I'll get pictures if they ever get here. (The receptionist said 10-12 days. *sigh*)

--

Progress on MUNDANE MAGIC is at a crawl, but that's okay. Things are cooking. I have the skeleton of chapter four -- I need to go through and fill out the last scene -- and I'd like to post it to the OWW soon, but I should probably do a few more reviews first. Crit guilt is a mighty thing with me.

Still, I have dragons now, and I figured out something really exciting for later in the story. I knew something had to happen, but I wasn't sure how or why. Now I do!

Yesterday I slushed, and then thought I've been staring at Scrivener until it gets dark, so I'll do something else until dark. So I did a couple crits on the OWW.

I deleted one word in MUNDANE MAGIC. I added in another word. Hmm. I added another word. HMMM.

Then Jeff called, saying they were out of work for his machine and he was coming home.

At some point I managed to squeeze in another ten words, for a grand total of eleven. Super. Now it's morning and I have to go to the eye doctor where I will no doubt be scolded for my broken frames, and made to pick out new ones. This is ungood, because I really stink at choosing. There's so much pressure! They'll be on my face for the next year! (Hopefully two or three, if I can manage not to break them.)

Siiiiigh.

(At least they don't dilate eyes here. I can get to work as soon as I'm over "A...or B...? A...or B...?")

Yesterday, I forgot to blog because I was a little distracted with a book. (Okay, two, actually. I read a great partial.) I made awesome progress on MUNDANE MAGIC, though I still have a long way to go and a lot of stuff to figure out. Haven't started yet today. I've been hard at work on...work, and a guest blog post for a friend. (I'll link when it's up. Should be fun.)

You might remember that my glasses broke the other day, and I've been stuck wearing contacts all day every day. Normally I love contacts, but for some reason the brand my eye doctor gave me last time just kind of stinks. I have a hard time focusing on the computer screen while wearing them. Unfortunately, I live in front of the computer, so this is not ideal. I can turn up the zoom on most programs, though, so that helps a lot. Otherwise, I might be slower at stuff while I take breaks to give my eyes a rest.

I never thought I'd look forward to an eye doctor appointment so much. (And I know I could go to a one-hour place and get new glasses fast, but I actually do need a new prescription.)

Okay, off to MUNDANE MAGIC.

Jeff and I have been watching the BBC's PLANET EARTH lately. We also saw another one they did called THE BIOGRAPHY OF EARTH (I think). And, when we see it packaged by itself (not with PE, that is), we want to get THE BLUE PLANET, which has to do with oceans.

We want more. So my question to you, oh brilliant and well-TVed friends, is what do you recommend? Those are the only ones we have (or will have soon), and we don't want a ton of repeat information and video, but we'd definitely like to see similar things.

Any suggestions?

It has to be available on DVD, obviously. As a couple, we've never owned a VCR. :P Blu-ray would be nice, but it's not a requirement.

Queries: 109
Requests: 3: 1 fantasy, 1 YA fantasy, 1 UF/YA
In my inbox: 1 partial, 1 full

--

So my glasses broke last night (I didn't do anything to them, I swear!) and all I have are my contacts, which aren't the best for staring at the screen, so it took me a bit longer to get through slush today. (Plus, we went away from the house for several hours.) Which means I'm late with slush stats, and I'm afraid it's not really going to be worth the wait. I don't have much to talk about. :)

Snarky_writer asked: "How about how long it takes on average to figure out whether something's a form reject/partial request?"

Generally, when I can actually see my computer screen, it doesn't take long to figure out it's going to be a form reject. Usually the first paragraph will tell me. (I definitely give it 'til the end of the query, but I'm not often wrong.) Sometimes it takes longer to decide. Just the other day, one started off really strong, but didn't live up to what I hoped it'd be by the end of the query. (Which isn't necessarily the story or writer's fault. Insert yammer on subjective business.)

As for the time it takes to decide to request? Significantly longer. Usually I know I want to request right away, too, because there's something about the opening lines of the query that signals this writer knows what they're doing. But the actual deciding involves reading the query a couple times, reading the first pages at least once, sometimes more, and just to be certain, I head into the synopsis as long as I can stand to read a synopsis.

Usually that ends up being about twenty minutes, depending on how long everything is, and how many other things are distracting me at the time. When I request something, I want to be sure about it.

I was hoping that talking about my plot before bed would make the answers appear as I fell asleep, thereby forcing me to get out of bed and have a glorious note-writing session, but it didn't happen. My last resort was a shower this morning, and it totally happened.

I even squeaked I was so excited.

It was totally worth the wait. I love this idea. I think it's fantabulous, and I'm absolutely giddy. It's still going to take a lot of work to figure out, because I need to understand more about the worldbuilding, but now that I know what's going on and what's at stake, I can do this.

I am beyond excited.



Yes, there really is that much yarn sitting on my desk at any given moment. There's actually more, but Kippy's in the way. Or on top of it. Or it's out of the frame.



I'm not sure how Simon got like that, but it's awfully cute.

This afternoon I read two partials, played with spindles and ferrets for a while (not at the same time), and sat down to write...except I wasn't sure what happened in the next scene.

This is the second (last) scene of chapter three. My choices were: a) reveal something about the plot the reader is already familiar with, breaking their illusions, b) start hitting on the main plot a little harder to really throw the story into motion, or c) something entirely different I hadn't thought of.

I went with option B, because what I have for A is good, but I'm not ready to reveal that information yet. That part of the plot needs more building up before I knock it over. (Bigger crash. Yay!) Plus, I think the order of information revealed here will only strengthen the impact A has, if I can ever get there. (I did manage to squeeze a little bit more building up for A in the very beginning of the scene. I don't want to let it fall off the radar and be too much of a surprise later. It must be an "oh duh, of course!" surprise.)

So I decided to (mostly) go with B, except there's still a lot about the plot of this story I don't know. Like,erm, the big big stakes. Anyone remember when I was working on the blurb? I know that was a long time ago now. I'll dig it up...

( Blurb, if you want it. )

Okay, so you see that big empty space at the end of the blurb? The one where the stakes would go, rather than just the ominous spooooooky implying there's something going on? Heh. Yeah. That's the part I don't have. (I think the blurb is fine without the stakes there, but I'm not pleased by the absence!) I actually stared at that space for a long time when I was writing the blurb, because I knew I was missing something. There was a lot of grumbling involved before I decided to let it go for now.

I almost know what it is. I mostly know, except for the specifics. I tried the standard things to get answers: laundry, dishes, exercising. (I showered this morning, and I don't want to waste water just because I can't figure out one itty bitty little teeny plot.)

I do know it's already in the story, somewhere in these two and a half chapters. It's in the worldbuilding I haven't yet put on the page. It's somewhere under the surface, and either I'm not looking hard enough, or I'm not looking in the right places.

You know what else? I'm sure it will come to me as soon as I'm start to fall asleep tonight, and force me to either get out of bed or risk forget it by morning.

Because stories are like that. (Little jerks.)

Last night, fter I decided to stop writing for the night, I got a bunch more words. (Figures.) So far, today hasn't been very wordful, but I did manage to reskein my yarns with just enough sunlight left in the day for pictures. Had to go outside since the sunlight's off the floor in the house, but I think they turned out nicely.

These are off the wheel. Stormy on the left, Rhubarb on the right.



While reskeining, I had some help:



Why reskein, you ask? (Pfft. You don't have to ask. I'm going to tell you anyway.) Well, in order to finish the freshly spun and plied yarn, one must set the twist. (For a variety of boring technical reasons.) This involves taking the new yarn off the bobbin and looping it around something to make a skein. I don't have fancy tools; I use the side of my desk. You tie a few strategically placed pieces of string so the yarn doesn't tangle, then give the whole thing a bath in hot water, cold water, and hot water again. (I also put shampoo and conditioner in the first bath to make it super soft.) Then you take the skein, squeeze all the excess water out...

And beat the yarn against the side of the bathtub as hard as you can.

It's totally fun. (It also does useful things like even out the twist and make the yarn pretty and full. But mostly, it's fun.) However, during all this yarn abuse, the skein gets a little tangled, even with the strings keeping everything together. So, reskein. (Reskeining Stormy involved two major tangle accidents because I might have overplied the yarn just a tad. *coff*)

And now I'm going to pretend not to notice MUNDANE MAGIC over there and maybe it will offer the next sentence. I'm at another part where I know what happens, just not the right words to make it come to life. Even close words would be okay at this point. I can figure out the exact right ones in the next draft.

If we can get close for now.

I started off the day by drowning and beating newly plied yarn, which is always thrilling. Pictures tomorrow.

Made an appointment with my eye doctor for next week so I can get new glasses with non-crooked frames. I am so cool right now with these glasses. I don't need to get new contacts, at least, since I still have a ton from the last time.

After slush and a couple partials, I managed several hundred words on MUNDANE MAGIC. The total is over 10k now, so I'm pleased it's finally getting a move-on. Chapter two went up on the OWW this afternoon.

I'm still having a lot of fun with this. I got to blow up wizards earlier and had to fight my way out of a gigglefit.

--

I took one for the team last night and watched TWILIGHT with Jeff. (This is what happens when I go away for a week. Things like this find their way into the house. Sure, I already had the book for research, but I'd have thought my dire warnings would have been enough...)

Dudes.

Just... Well, I was expecting it to at least be pretty, but the reality was not so much. The blue filter, the queasycam (so dubbed by hawkwing_lb), not to mention the awkward acting... Even without the actual story, dialogue, and unintentionally creepiness, the movie was -- to put it nicely -- disappointing.

On the other hand, it did give me a chance to stretch my powers of mockage.

Actual conversation during movie:

Jeff: You didn't mock that part. Did you like it?
Me: No, I'm just mocking in my head now.

Sometimes, the difference between DELUGE/UNWATER and MUNDANE MAGIC is really, really startling. MM is lighter, and the worldbuilding isn't nearly as dark or depressing. The main characters are also incredibly different people. Angela was triggery and unpredictable in her reactions; when cornered, she was just as likely to fall over and die as fight back. I remember staring at the screen for ages trying to work out how she would react to something as simple as a car backfiring. (Which depended on what had just happened before that, how hyperaware she was feeling, and where she'd been living for the last month.)

Laine is forcing me to stop and think a lot, too. She isn't nearly as triggery as Angela (though she might be after I get through with her), but where I'd probably roll my eyes and go away if someone pissed me off, Laine is more aggressive about telling people how much they suck. Which is totally going to get her in trouble. I just have to keep reminding myself not to let her back down.

And I think I've gotten through chapter two, if I can just find the exit line I know's lurking nearby.

Queries: 98
Requests: 4 partials: UF, paranormal romance, YA/UF, YA fantasy
In my inbox: 4 partials

--

In the immortal words of Miss Snark, EXCLUSIVES SUCK. And again, in case there was any question: More on how exclusives stink.

Recently, on a mailing list I belong to, someone mentioned offering agents an exclusives to get them to reply faster. As in, when the agent says, "Yes, let me read your full!" the writer says, "Sure thing, and I won't send it to anyone else for a whole month. It's yours until then!" The writer didn't mention how agents had responded to this, except to say that agents always got back to them within the set time.

There are a couple reasons I can see for that speedy response, and while one does have to do with setting a time on the exclusive, it isn't necessarily a good thing.

People have offered exclusives to me on not only fulls, but partials and queries as well. It doesn't feel like them being generous. It feels like they're trying to rush me, trying to get a quick response out of me regardless of my other assistantly duties. And I'm just a assistant. Agents have clients to take care of, editors to harass, and tons of other stuff that isn't reading submissions. Submissions come last, for when the agent has a spare moment to think about taking on yet another client.

Which means they're getting to that full manuscript as fast as they possibly can, and saying, "I won't send it to anyone else for a month," puts a lot of pressure on.

Furthermore (wow, I really have a lot to say about this), sometimes an agent (or her lovely assistant) does have a free moment in which they could read the manuscript, but they're already tired, angry, depressed, irritable -- you name it, and then ask yourself if you want someone in that mood reading your beloved manuscript. (The hard truth that your manuscript probably isn't going to bring light from Heaven, singing angels, and relieve that bad mood. Chances are, the agent will get frustrated and stop reading.)

Are you convinced yet? Miss Snark has told you not to do this thing, I have told you not to do this thing, Jenny will tell you not to do this thing, and I'm pretty sure others will, as well. (Other agents? Want to weigh in?)

--

Now, sometimes nice agents will ask for exclusives, anyway. Occasionally this is policy and they don't really mind if someone else has the manuscript, as long as they're not at the same agency. Sometimes they always ask for it and mean it, by golly. Sometimes this signals greater interest from that agent.

Exclusives used to fill me with panic. What do I do? What if someone asks for it while it's on exclusive? How is anyone supposed to handle this kind of stress??

Well, the first step is to breathe. The second is to keep all parties informed, and the no-brainer is do not lie. I say this because I know it's tempting to just send a second agent the manuscript when the first has it on exclusive. I mean, the first is probably just going to reject it, right? And what they don't know won't hurt them?

But you don't want to start off your agent/author relationship with dishonesty. (Would you want them being less than honest with you? No, I don't think so.)

Should an agent ask for an exclusive on your manuscript, and you can actually grant it, you say, "Okay, will do!" and make sure they've set a time limit. Do not get into open-ended exclusives. If they don't have a time limit set, you say, "Okay, will do! I won't send this to anyone for a month!" (A month is pretty standard for exclusives on fulls.) Then you've set a time limit and you're free after that month.

In the meantime, if another agent says, "Golly gee, I'd love to read this!", but you still have that exclusive out there, you reply, "Wowzers, I'd love to send this to you, but someone else has it exclusively until X-date. I'll send it to you then. Is that okay?" The second agent will probably agree that's peachy. Once X-date arrives, you email both agents. One gets the manuscript, and the other gets, "Just letting you know that since the period of exclusivity expired, I've sent this manuscript to another agent who requested it. This isn't to rush you, I just want to keep you in the loop!"

This may not end up with a happily ever after, but all parties involved will appreciate the honesty.

Questions, comments? Did I miss anything?

Today I have:

0. Slushed
1. Read a full ms for work
2. Written roughly 600 words on MUNDANE MAGIC
3. Swept and mopped the kitchen
4. Dishes
5. Vacuumed (and then cut the hair out of the roller and vacuumed yet again)
6. Chatted with my sister about babies (her fave topic) and books (my fave topic)

I still have more dishes (there are only two of us! How does this happen??) and I should get the laundry off the couch, since people are coming over tomorrow, but this is a good start. Not giving up on MUNDANE MAGIC for the night, either. I just...got to the end of the stuff I had and realized that simply knowing what happens next doesn't make the right words appear. So I wandered off to clean until the characters offered enough stuff to continue.

I'm not worried about perfect prose in this draft -- half will change, anyway, in the revision -- but there are some basic things that need to be right before I can move forward. Structure, plot, and character development have to be right in the first draft. For me, anyway. I have revised those things in later drafts before, and let me tell you, that's not something I want to do again. When the story's already imprinted on my brain, changing it is downright painful.

So I'll find my footing and march into the rest of this scene, draw out themes and details later (when I can recognize which ones are important enough to live), and worry about prose when there's actual prose to worry about.

--

( Darling )

I read more today. Strange how nice it is to read a published and printed story, bound and surrounded by a cover. (I read WELCOME TO TEMPTATION by Jennifer Crusie. It was cute and funny and I liked it. Not what I'd normally pick up, but Jenny sent it to me and it was one of the least intimidating things on the shelf.)

Then I asked amberdine what I should do, and she told me to write, so I pulled out MUNDANE MAGIC and commenced ignoring it like a cat. In fact, I sat on the floor faced away from it for twenty minutes and gave all my attention to the ferrets. This is because the first thing the story and I did was delete words. Yes, for a long time, my session wordcount was -17. You have no idea how happy I was to get to -2.

But this is probably what I get for looking at the beginning, rather than facing that giant blank space in chapter two.

And that's what I get for not taking notes on where to go from there. Though I have vague memories of not actually being sure what happens next. We'll say I was making sure the first chapter set up conflicts and plot, rather than desperately hoping I left myself a clue somewhere.

I am so cruel to ferrets. I make them sleep in bags of (clean) litter.

I don't know how I live with myself.

Another day spent reading. I read a couple partials this morning -- the last of them, at last! -- and found KITTY AND THE MIDNIGHT HOUR on my TBR shelf. So that was cute. I wasn't expecting to like it, but darn if it wasn't just what I needed today. Something light and fun, with parts that made me laugh out loud, and just enough crunch to make me consider buying the next one.

I've got a couple fulls I need to get to this week, or else I will melt into a puddle of guilt, but it sure was nice to have a day mostly off.

I think I was also going to mention eventually finishing THE COLOR OF MAGIC, but, honestly, I didn't finish it. I brought it with me to WisCon and everything, but I didn't have time to read there, and it had been days before that since I read it, and... Well, when I looked at it last night and thought maybe I'd read the last half, I really wasn't curious what happened next. I appreciated the humor, and I hear it does eventually all hang together in a slightly meaningful way, but I couldn't see it where I was sitting, and there was pretty much no urgency in it for me.

That's probably it. I've practiced my flute -- it still sounds great, I still sound like a dork -- and knitting, and spinning. I'm still amazed at how fast the wheel is. There'll be more pictures soon. Ferrets are still cute. Kippy rolls on my keyboard.

Yep.

While she was visiting, amberdine got me playing Mafia Wars on Facebook. You do jobs (rob electronic stores, run biker gangs out of town, loot the police impound lot), and fight other people's mafias while building your criminal empire. Fun times!

So I logged in just a few minutes ago and noticed this:

"You were attacked by Bella Swan."
"You were attacked by Don Rosaline." x3 -- she's vicious!
"You were attacked by God."
"You were attacked by Prince666."

It's like an epic apocalyptic battle on Mafia Wars. The end is nigh!

--

Right. Time to read partials and stuff.

Queries: 121
Requests: 7 partials, 1 full
In my inbox: 1 query, 4 partials, 2 fulls

This week was kind of the opposite of last week. Hurrah, but omc I'm drowning in requested materials.

--

I got an email in reply to my regular form rejection this week. Not unusual, but this person claimed I owe more than a AAR* approved form rejection. (FWIW, Jenny isn't AAR yet. We go by the codes and everything, but she's too new to be a member. So AAR hasn't approved our form rejection. And I don't think they do that sort of thing, anyway.)

The writer went on to say I should word my rejection differently and include what Jenny is looking for, as far as new projects to take on. And I should make sure the writer knows their query was welcome.

I'm not sure what part of "Thank you for submitting your query to The Rappaport Agency." implies "Bug off, we don't want your stinkin' query."

Raise your hand if you remember last year during my temporary madness when I replied individually to every query we received. During that time, I spent up to nine hours a day responding to slush.

Now raise your hand if you know why I have embraced the form letter.

The Rappaport Agency promises a response in a timely manner. Beyond that, we owe the writers of unsolicited submissions nothing.

Furthermore, if one was interested in finding out what Jenny likes, one might go to the website. The guidelines page specifies what Jenny represents. And if that isn't enough, there's also a link that directs to a blog entry of Jenny's, in which she says very clearly what she's currently looking for.

It's hard to imagine, with all that information so easily accessible, someone could still be upset about not receiving the extra hand-holding they desired in a rejection. (That, and in this case, the writer's manuscript wasn't in a genre Jenny represents.)

*Association of Authors' Representatives.

--

To make this week even more special, I received yet another angry reply to my form rejection, this one upset that the website says Jenny represents horror, but I rejected him, so clearly we are lying. Or we're trying to stifle creativity and we won't take chances. (Actually, his plot has been seen around a novel written by a certain Mr. Stephen King. That's not creative. That's copying.) And we're not into giving new writers chances.

Maybe someone hasn't looked at our client list. Or bothered to ask around. But, while I'm sure Jenny'd love to represent a ton of well-established writers who make a million dollars a year so she can give her assistant a giant raise, we're kind of all about giving new writers chances.

--

But it's not all disgruntled writers.

I read someone's partial the other day, wrote back what I'm pretty sure was crazed babbling about stories and legs and balance, and the writer got it.

And this whole thing is worth it.

So that's what happened today. (Or yesterday. I have no idea what day it is anymore.)

There was also a few minutes where, if I didn't know there were ferrets in it, I'd have sworn the Yesterday's News bag was having a seizure. Diego was really playful. Um. Wow... *shuffle shuffle*

Thank goodness tomorrow is slush stats and I'll actually have something to talk about.

Spent today reading. Got through a few partials, read the beginning of a new manuscript for a friend...

Now my head is really full of other people's stories. :P

I still have lots to get through. Did I mention already this has been a pretty good query week? Last week was pretty tragic, but they're making up for it this week.

I really am super boring today. The ferrets are behaving, the weather is behaving (here, anyway, but I hear Austin is getting it tonight), and earlier a disgruntled writer was kind enough to give me a rant topic for Saturday's Slush Stats.

Boring, but productive. Maybe tomorrow I'll just make up something interesting and claim I did it. Got bitten by a radioactive spider and became a superhero...