Wednesday, January 21, 2009

What’s doing around the blog-o-sphere?

Contests, and page critiques, oh my!!!

First, WOW-Women On Writing is hosting another open prompt flash fiction contest. The deadline for this one is February 28th and it’s hosted by the most awesome agent - Janet Reid!!!

I had decided to forego any and all submissions on short pieces until my current wip is complete, until I saw that Ms. Reid was judging. So I threw something together, because I loooove her, and as I don’t write anything in her genre, this is one of the few opportunities I’ll have to submit to her. And before you all think I’m a terrible brown nose – it’s a blind judging. Even if my submission makes it through the preliminary judging and into the queue for the guest judge, Janet will have no idea which one is mine, as my information will be redacted.

If you’re a fan of the blog, into crime fiction, or just looking for a place to submit some short work, check out the WOW link above. They’re cutting submissions for this one at 300 entries, so don’t delay too much.

Another new thing you might notice is the stunning and beauteous new badge in my sidebar. If you click on that little coat of arms, it’ll take you straight to the Anonymati.

What are the Anonymati? They are Editorial Anonymous’ own Minions!!! For those of you who haven’t found her yet, EA is an anonymous children’s book editor. I know, some of you don’t write children’s, but her blog is exceptionally informative in general, and you can always skip the posts that pertain specifically to certain aspects of children’s publishing... then again, it never hurts to be up to speed on different facets of the business.

Anyway, if you click on over to the Anonymati site, you’ll notice that EA’s doing a critique on the first few pages of manuscripts!!! How much do we love her? Well, she might not love me much if she notices I’ve published this... maybe I should take it down... nah.

I think I’ve mentioned before, but I pulled Raskin’s Wings from submissions in the fall. I was getting some requests for pages and even fulls, and it’s possible that it wasn’t hitting the right set of eyes, but I really felt like there might be something missing in the work itself. So I’m letting it simmer while I’m embroiled in From the Neighborhood, and the goal is to go back to it with completely fresh eyes later and see if a) it really is a good story and b) if I need to revise and restart submissions or if, in fact, it is another of the fabled ‘under the bed’ books.

Anyway, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass by to get a critique from EA on the opening pages. I did revise a hell of a lot before even submitting to agents, and quite a bit after my first round of submissions... as my lovely beta readers can attest. But I only skimmed it before copy pasting it in the email to EA and did not fiddle with it the way I normally would before submitting anything... so wish it well and hopefully, good or bad, it’ll give me ideas for a direction on that one when I’m ready.

I hope you all are doing well and being productive... How are those New Year’s resolutions panning out? Or if you didn’t make any, how is your writing progress in general?

6 comments:

Chris Eldin said...

Lots of news around the blogs! Thanks for sharing!

It's good to step back from your work, but also it's helpful if you have someone to read it and give you honest feedback.

I pulled Chipping Camden from submissions last week because two very informed people, an agent and an author, told me the voice of a prominent secondary character was too old. So I've deleted that character and reworking. It's a lot of fun though---I know exactly what I want this story to be.

Good luck with yours!!!
:-)

Merry Monteleone said...

Hi Chris,

No problem at all.

I did have a number of great crit partners and beta readers on Raskin's, and I worked it and reworked it... I still just have this nagging feeling it's not quite there. My betas thought I should keep sending it out, and they might be right, but if they are they'll still be right in a few months after I've had some time away from it.

Good luck with Chipping Camden, too!!! Is that the mouse one? I loved the bit I read of that one. I am looking forward to seeing you published and I know it'll be one day very soon.

Stephen Parrish said...

Funny, I just pulled a manuscript too. I think it's normal: we get some feedback, we say "hmm," we put the thing aside for a bit, we drink wine, we rewrite. Normal.

Mary Witzl said...

Ooh -- I want to try that contest, but I wonder if I'll have the time...

I've got plenty of things simmering just now; I'm forever seasoning and stirring. And once in a while I take a sip to see if they're ready, but it's not always easy to tell. I think I've got one that I'm going to serve up, though, and have I exhausted that metaphor to bits or what?

Merry Monteleone said...

Hi Stephen,

And sometimes we go straight for the hard stuff :-) Though my neighbor makes a homemade wine that'll knock you right on your keister.

Jeeze, Mary,

I just used your exact analogy in my next post... I knew I should check my comments first!

I shall cross my fingers and toes for you, in case you enter.

Anonymous said...

Hey babe! I awarded you one of those fun, kind of pointless but still pretty blogger awards:

http://www.insearchofgiants.com/2009/02/catching-up-part-1.html#comments