M. K. Theodoratus, Fantasy Writer, blogs about the books she reads--mostly fantasy and mystery authors whose books catch her eye and keep her interest. Nothing so formal as a book review, just chats about what she liked. Theodoratus also mutters about her own writing progress or ... lack of it.

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Monday, August 2, 2010

Spinning My Wheels

The Reads ...
How do you pretend you are accomplishing something instead of spinning your wheels in the sand?  I decided to please myself and spend the weekend finishing Tamora Pierce's The Immortals series, again set in the world of Tortall during a series of medevial style magico-political wars.  

Really don't have any criticism.  Time is long gone for that.  The series was published in the 90s.  It was quite startling to see mention of CompuServ in the acknowledgments.  Pierce researched on the internet as well as the library.  A good reminder to hermit-me that even fantasy is based in the real world.

Must confess, I took some comfort in other pieces of writing (from The Realm of the Gods).  First, it had a prologue which gave me the courage to put the prologue back on Demons.  More important, Piece opened by setting the scene.

""The Stormwing sat on a low wooden perch like a king on his throne.  All around him torches flickered; men spoke quietly as they prepared the evening meal.  He was a creature of bad dreams, a giant bird with the head and chest of a man."  Did you guess this is the villain? 

Web Buzz ...
You shouldn't be surprised that I follow Tamora Pierce's blog.  Her latest discussed the eternal question of boys vs girls in YA fiction.   The title:  Dare to be Stupid.  It's worth reading by writers in all genres, I think.

Progress ...
For all my head spinning, I am making progress.  I think I've gotten all the loose ends of There Be Demons tied ... and put the prologue back on.  Why since so many dislike them?  Well, if I didn't, the arch-villain of the book doesn't appear until the second to the last chapter except as the addressee of various demonic letters.

Got my first rejection from my Demon queries.  Sent the query out last night.  The rejection was waiting in my inbox this morning.  No.  My feelings weren't hurt.  I expect this manuscript to get rejected often because the subject matter/story telling is unconventional.

Dark Solstice.  Have the revised query almost done ... and even found a few agents who haven't rejected it.  Of course, it's been so long since most of the agents have seen it and the thing have been extensively revised -- that I might just requery.  Again the story is off center.  Anyone know off hand someone interested in the grandmother rescuing a granddaughter from the villain who's plotting to usurp the ruler?

Trivia ...
I've been so wrapped up in doing websites, I haven't been doing much besides yakking at my kids on the phone.  

2 comments:

Patricia Stoltey said...

As long as I've written a blog post, I feel as though I've accomplished something...although from there it's often a fast downhill slide as I check email over and over (even though I'm expecting nothing of significance).

As for rejections, the faster the better. At least that way I don't get my hopes up. :)

Unknown said...

When I query drags on for weeks, I image a long line of queries doing the Conga into the distance -- while they drop out of line waiting for the agent to open da email.

Guess it's time to send a status query to the agent who has had Emma since end of May.