And who the hell are you?
Good question. In addition to being a blog lurker and occasional poster (generating aforementioned question). I'm a fledgling writer (and by that I mean I've been writing since I was about 12, so half my life and then some, okay it is almost 2/3 of my life - in the immortal words of Napoleon Dynamite- gosh.) I have only recently taken it seriously, as in joined RWA and local (Oklahoma City- Outlaws rock!) gone to RT convention and learned what synopsis should include and all the other nuts and bolts things that I had the "hear no evil/see no evil" approach to. Since I'm severely grammatically challenged, these revelations are frightening. I envision some bookish sort reading my manuscript and tsk-tsking like a June bug in August.
The first thing I learned upon joining RWA is that you need to know what you write, because the stock question for any newbie is "So, what do you write." Well, books. *irate buzzer sound* Wrong. Apparently I need to have genre, which, I'm sorry, is pretty darn stifling for me. As for what I write well, lots of stuff- my WIPS (which, again, wasn't what I had hoped it was): I have a murder mystery series that I like to believe is something of a Leonard Elmore/Quintin Terrantino cross (not very romantic, but would probably fall into the "with Romantic Elements" category if you shoved it real hard off a cliff). I have a brothers trilogy that is not quite romantic suspense, but you could call it that (of course, it's a free country so you could call it anything, couldn't you?). I have several YA ideas, they are probably a little on the "realistic" side, one is a paranormal series (which I'll blog about soon- I'm very excited about this one). On the completed side: a Montana Family legacy which- yikes! How did I channel Tolstoy?- ended up being 900+ pages.
Which brings us to lesson #2: Formatting is important. Don't finish the book and then figure it out later. Don't format it in a way that you want to read it or see it on the page. Removing extra spaces between every paragraph or dialog is a bitch and not the righteous kind. Trust me.
The first thing I learned upon joining RWA is that you need to know what you write, because the stock question for any newbie is "So, what do you write." Well, books. *irate buzzer sound* Wrong. Apparently I need to have genre, which, I'm sorry, is pretty darn stifling for me. As for what I write well, lots of stuff- my WIPS (which, again, wasn't what I had hoped it was): I have a murder mystery series that I like to believe is something of a Leonard Elmore/Quintin Terrantino cross (not very romantic, but would probably fall into the "with Romantic Elements" category if you shoved it real hard off a cliff). I have a brothers trilogy that is not quite romantic suspense, but you could call it that (of course, it's a free country so you could call it anything, couldn't you?). I have several YA ideas, they are probably a little on the "realistic" side, one is a paranormal series (which I'll blog about soon- I'm very excited about this one). On the completed side: a Montana Family legacy which- yikes! How did I channel Tolstoy?- ended up being 900+ pages.
Which brings us to lesson #2: Formatting is important. Don't finish the book and then figure it out later. Don't format it in a way that you want to read it or see it on the page. Removing extra spaces between every paragraph or dialog is a bitch and not the righteous kind. Trust me.
posted by wilddunz at 7:24 AM
1 Comments:
Hi Liz!
Maybe I should say I aspire to the Elmore/Tarrantino style- haha.
Can't wait for Card Sharks!!
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