Blogger Awards

I've recently received two fabulous Blogger Awards!

The Versatile Blogger Award from Carol Riggs
The Stylish Blogger Award from Elizabeth Varadan and Donna Weaver

Thanks all!

Now, I believe I have to give up some info about me (7 things). So I've decided to go with the 7 things that make me so happy and create an instantaneous smile upon my face. I'm combining the 7 things for both awards so I don't bore you.

1. When I have my favorite coffee in the house (General Foods, Suisse Mocha Cafe)
2. When my dog rolls around on his back, twists and growls happily.
3. When the owl outside my window (where I write) hoots.
4. When my teen daughter says "I love you" back to me - out loud. :)
5. When my teen son asks me if I need anything.
6. When my husband does housework. (Yes! but it isn't very often.)
7. When I can take a nap.

I'd like to pass these wonderful awards on to the following bloggers. A copy of each award photo is in my sidebar at the bottom, feel free to copy it and add it to your blog.

Stylish Blogger Award

1. Lola Sharp at Sharp Pen Dull Sword
2. Beth at Of Muses and Meringues
3. Amy Kaufman (from down under)
4. Donea Lee Queen of Procrastination
5. AKOSS Fantasy Pen
6. MSHatch Maine Words
7. Michelle Brown Brownie Points

Versatile Blogger Award

1. Donna Weaver at Weaving a Tale or Two
2. Becky Taylor
3. Jess at Falling Leaflets
4. Erin Schneider A Little of This & That
5. M.J.A. Ware The Missing Word
6. Kenda Words and Such
7. Suzie F. My Not So Secret Writing Life

Congrats, I've enjoyed all the blogs I've followed and look forward to following many more!

Kimberly

Winner of WD Gift Certificate

The winner's name was randomly pulled from a halloween costume pirate hat. (There was no peaking involved!) There were three of you who blogged about it and so had double entries and I believe it panned out because one of those was the winner.

I wish I could give you all a gift certificate because the session was so great! By the way, I got my critique back from Sara and I was dancing and leaping and making all my family members read it because she said she loved my world, said my writing was 95% of the way there and told me I could say in my query to her she was 'impressed with my opening pages' - so I say, take a Webinar where there's a critique so you can see what the agent thinks about your writing and what you might be missing. She also gave me a couple of things to change and something to look out for (too many sci/fi elements too soon). I've never gotten feedback like that from anyone on my first pages, let alone an agent. As I mentioned in a previous post, I always struggle with those first pages. I feel like I am finally on the write (pun intended) track. :)

Okay, now let's do a drumroll......and the winner is...



Jess

Jess, is the email in your blogger profile a good email address to use? I will be using the email feature to send the Gift Certificate and their customer support assured me it can be used for Webinars!

Congratulations!
Kimberly

CONTEST! Would Attending a Webinar w/Mary Kole Interest You?

I enjoyed the Writer's Digest Webinar so much a couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd have a contest to pass on the love and give away a $100 Writer's Digest gift certificate so that YOU can attend a Webinar if you win! Or, you can use it on a multitude of other items on their site such as books, classes, etc.

Here are a couple of the Webinars coming up soon:

Feb. 3rd - 1 pm Eastern - Publish Your Children's or Teen Fiction in Today's Market
Speaker is Mary Kole AND there is a 1-2 page critique if you attend! (I know the kidlit writer's will love this one!)

Feb. 10th - 1 pm Eastern - Sell Freelance Articles
Speaker is Chuck Sambuchino, Editor for Writer's Digest Books

For more details about these Live Webinars, check out this link.
http://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/webinars/upcoming-live-webinars/

If you want to enter, just be a follower and post a comment. If you Blog about it, I'll add another entry for you, just let me know in the comments that you've done so.

The contest ends at 9 pm Eastern on Friday, January 28th!

Good luck and Happy Writing!

Win an ARC of Delirium over at Becky Taylor's Blog!

Becky is having her first contest and she's giving away an ARC of Delirium by Lauren Oliver, author of Before I Fall, which was a fabulous book by the way! I loved it.

So head on over and enter for your chance to win! All you have to do is follow and make a comment. And, if you also post about it on your blog, she'll give you an extra point!

Here's the link to her blog.

http://beckytaylorbooks.blogspot.com/

Good luck to all who enter.

Kimberly

ACK! I Just Cut a Mega Amount of Words

I can't believe I just cut about 10,000 words from my manuscript. Holy Crud. But I felt I had to do it to make the story better. The reason...because of the Writer's Digest class I had about first pages last week and something called the 'inciting event.'

That's because my inciting event was around page 40 and it should be much earlier. Since I have a Sci Fi Dystopian thrillerish story, I had done a lot of world building and character building first. Most books I read have the inciting event at the end of the first chapter, sometimes chapter 2. Now mine is currently at chapter 2. (My current chapter 1 is only about 3 pages so I may be able to combine the two).

I haven't been able to stop thinking about the inciting event since last Wednesday's class. I was going to wait and get my critique from the editor at the publisher I told you about recently first before I made any more revisions on it. But the more I thought about what Sara said about the inciting event, and the more I thought about the other YA's I read, the more I knew it had to be done. Period. And believe me, it was hard to do. But now that I read through it, I think it's already way better!

I've done a lot of searching and reading the past few days on the inciting event and found a couple of links that were very helpful. I was actually trying to find something that would tell me the way I had done it (on page 40) would work. Needless to say, I didn't find anything that said that. Here are the posts on inciting events in case you're interested.

From Flogging the Quill:
http://www.floggingthequill.com/flogging_the_quill/2006/02/your_inciting_i.html

WordPlay Blog:
http://wordplay-kmweiland.blogspot.com/2010/06/maximize-your-storys-inciting-event.html

Okay, now back to work for me!

Kimberly

Writer's Digest Webinars

I attended my first Writer's Digest Webinar yesterday during my lunch hour, and wow, that was an awesome session. It was given by Sara Megibow of the Nelson Literary Agency and it was on first pages. She had a lot of great information on this topic AND specifically pointed out what she looks for in the first few pages of your manuscript when she requests a partial or a full.

If you've never attended one of these, I highly recommend it. According to the moderator, which I believe was Chuck Sambuchino, many of the presenters also offer some type of critique.

For the session with Sara, she will be critiquing our first three pages. This is fantastic, since I admit I struggle with getting those first pages right.

If you're interested, here's their website:

Writer's Digest

Happy Writing All!

Why it's so Hard to Please an Agent

Now this is just my take on it, of course. I think there are several reasons it's hard to please the agent with a manuscript you think is the perfect fit. The main one falls under a phrase we writer's don't like to hear, "it's subjective."

In the publishing world, there is no sure-fire method for writing a slam-dunk story. (Wow, cliche up the wazoo) which just might be one of the reasons the agent says, "no thanks." There's tons more.

How about the story is just not even in their realm of what they want to see. The voice isn't working for them. They don't connect with the main character. Or, the writer is obviously new based on the grammar, punctuation, and so forth...those super long sentences will get you every time as a newbie (been there and done that).

I think this is hard for new writers to grasp, and maybe even some of the ones that have been writing for awhile. They see the agent's preferences on their blogs or websites and when they send the query and sample pages they get a rejection. Now they're a little upset because they sent exactly what the agent said they wanted. What gives?

Maybe the query rocked, but the pages went in a direction the agent wasn't expecting. Can you imagine reading a query and getting all excited about it and then it's a huge let down. Think of it like this...how would you feel if you went to a fancy restaurant, ordered a gourmet meal you expect to smack your palate right over the moon -and then it tastes like something you made once back in college... in the microwave. Yeah.

Here's where I really get it. When I pick up a book in the library or bookstore (or read about it online) and it's just not for me. It might be in the genre I like to read, but it's just not appealing when I read the back or inside cover, or even the first page.

So when it comes right down to it, I'm picky about the books I choose to read...based solely on subjectivity. I expect agents would be choosy too.