4 part monday

Part 1
No more Jousting Peeps-  Due to the lack of interest I'm closing down the feature.

UNLESS everyone collectively freaks out now and I get like a billion comments demanding they come back.

Part 2
The Winner of the Ghost and The Goth and the Queen of the Dead contest

Alicia

It was picked by a random number generator... I know it sounds fishy since she's one of my BFFs but it's all random. 

(I still haven't paid her from the last contest she won back on October Erinn Fail)

Part 3
I'm an author... well sort of.  I've decided to cut back on my blogging to focus on my writing over at the Patch.   wanna here the best part? I"m getting PAID.  Seriously it's so weird to get a pay check for something I love to do.  I mean I get a pay check for teaching but still, it's just weird.

If you wanted to check out some of my articles you can see them here.

Part 4
Glee-  I watched the season finale and yeah, I'm done.  Everything about the show is SO hit or miss.  It has some incredible moments but it's cover in unwatchable drek.  Quinn's sad so she cuts her hair? WHAT?  HUH?  Quinn the most UNDERRATED character on that show, her big moment was a hair cut?  Oh and Finn, really, what do you see in Rachel?  Brittany is the ONLY reason to watch that show.  Brittany: ''Did you know that dolphins are just gay sharks?... Yeah.'' <-- not even in that episode.
Glee, I"m sorry but my life is too busy and I'm going to have to break up with you for The New Girl next season, because that looks A MAZ ING.



HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!!

Five for friday- distraction

My friends over at the Paper Hangover pose the question what are the top 5 biggest disractors on the internet.

Oh ONLY FIVE?!

1) Gmail--- did someone leave a comment on my blog?  What about over on my article at the Patch?  Is amazon offering some amazing deal?  Did an agent want to offer me a deal?  MUST. CHECK. EMAIL.

2) Twitter- It updates ever few seconds... someone else has something to say. What if it's insightful or entertaining.  What if it's the one peice of information that will change my life forever.  Did someone retweet what I said?  Did someone @ me?

3) youtube- vlogs, vlogs, music videos, Charlie is so cool like, Vlog brothers, Ijustine and the muppet's movie trailer ALL IN ONE LOCATION.  I love you, youtube.

4) Querytracker-  Did another agent change his or her status? Did someone leave a comment on an agent's profile?  What if I missed an agent in my list of agents?  I should go check....

5)Modcloth-- clothes update constantly and they are so pretty.  So pretty.  Expensive but pretty. 

Oh internet I love you.

Time and it's relavtive nature

So I'm writing this up because at the moment I don't have a page 1 to review... sigh.

Time, it's a funny thing isn't it.  There's an abudance of it and yet never enough.  It changes depending on how fast your going or how far away you are in space. 

Some things seem concrete. 

A sitcom last 22 minutes.

An average pop song 3 minutes and 30 seconds.

How long it takes a pot to boiling--- NEVER if it's watched.

But then there's other ideas of time-- query time seems to take forever.  From the moment you send that query to the time you hear back, it's a lifetime in every minute. 

Then I looked back at my calendar and realized that it's been 3 months since I started to query.

I have no idea how long I will continue or what I expected to be at this point.  This post isn't about that.

Time is relative.  For a writer waiting to hear back it's outragously slow.  For an agent, I'm sure it feels insanly fast.  Check out twitter come 5 o'clock and see how many agents post, "it's 5 already?"

My school year has gone by insanely fast.  Weekend of Awesome is right around the corner and in under a month I'll be on my summer break. 


When writing time moves slow, every word like doing surgery. No wait, that's wrong.  A first draft is like firing a machine gun, throwing out a lot of bullets and maybe one will do some damage.  Revision is like a sniper fire. 

Sorry for mixing metaphors.

Anyway writing time moves different then revising time.

But screwing around on the internet, watching youtube clips and reading twitter, yeah that's the fastest time of all. 

Time, it's all relative. 

Don't forget to sign up for next week's 1st page review, you can email me at fussymonkey2 at gmail dot com
Also if you want to win a free copy of Ghost and the Goth and the Queen of the Dead, check it out here.

Jousting Peeps- Doctor Who part 4

So there's the guy and he's a writer.  He wrote two episodes in Series 1 of Doctor Who and they were without a doubt the best episodes, The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances.  Both episodes freaked you out, nothing scarier then a kid with no face asking "are you my mummy?" and cracked you up: take this little bit of dialogue from the episode The Doctor Dances.

Captain Jack Harkness: [stands after ceiling is repaired] Who has a sonic screwdriver?
The Doctor: I do!
Rose Tyler: [ignores them] Lights.
[starts to move around the room, looking for a switch]
Captain Jack Harkness: Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks, "Ooh, this could be a little more sonic"?
The Doctor: What, you've never been bored?
Rose Tyler: [still searching the room] There's got to be a light switch.
The Doctor: Never had a long night? Never had a lot of cabinets to put up?


Series 2 had the Girl in the Fireplace... brain explodingly awesome.   The only redemable episode in Series 3 was Blink, which stands alone as the single greatest epsiode of all time.  Series 4 had Slience in the Library.   And Series 5 Steven Moffit took over as the lead writer and producer of the show.

What Steven Moffit shines at, is not only perfect story telling but scary ass monsters.

Take The Weeping Angels...  If you blink-- your dead. 

Yep just about every person who watch that episode lost a little bit of bladder control.

And how about the newest edition to the gallery of rogues?   The Silence, as soon as you look away from them, you forget all about them.  An enemy you can't fight because you can't remember them.

Yep, you just peed yourself didn't you?

I don't blame you one bit.

So who's the baddest of the bad?   TO THE PEEPS!!!!!

It's a TIE!!!! Yep... these jerks are equally scary....  good luck sleeping tonight.

Don't forget to sign up for next week's 1st page review, you can email me at fussymonkey2 at gmail dot com
Also if you want to win a free copy of Ghost and the Goth and the Queen of the Dead, check it out here.

Five for Fridays- Revisions

REPOST FROM LAST WEEK BECAUSE BLOGGER WAS BEING A BRAT!

So my good friends over at the Paper Hangover are doing a weekly segment called, Five for Fridays, and this week it's the Top Five Item you need to revise.

1) A reality check-  Make sure you haven't looked at your work for at least a month-- the longer the better. Remember you're not perfect and you will probably need more than one revision before you're ready to query.

2) Time away from the internet- Gosh the internet is SO SHINY.  Between cyberstalking agents on twitter or youtube or catching up on blogs, it's easy to get lost in the net, and let's face it, it's a lot more fun the revising.

3) Paper-  Print out your manuscript--- write all over it.  Scratch it out, slice out whole chapters, the more marks the better.  Seeing it out on paper really does help.  Honest.

4) An extra Word document- Make the changes, listen to your beta's BUT if you cut anything,  copy it to a different work document.  Who knows you might need it later.

5) A great playlist- Get music that helps you relate to your characters, your setting and most importantly get's you ready to dive.  Get Pumped.

Good news if you still love it after your revisions.. then chances are so will someone else.

Book Review- Queen of the Dead

The Queen of the Dead.

One word review: AWESOME.

Three word review: Brain explodingly awesome.

Real review:

If you’re a reader of this blog then you know by now that one of my favorite books of 2010 was The Ghost and the Goth.  Queen B Alona dies and Goth Will, a ghost talker, helps her out.  It was funny, smart, excellently crafted and best of all FUN.  

In a market place filled with dystopias and more doom and gloom than can fill an emo kid’s live journal account, The Ghost and the Goth series is a refreshing breeze through a bakery, sweet and leaves you craving more.

The Queen of the Dead is even better then the first book.  Seriously.  And how often does that happen?  It picks up about a month after where the first book leaves off.  Will and Alona are trying to help a ghost to over to the light, when they hit a snag.  Will’s not the only ghost talker in town.  Mina is hardcore, with weapons and “boxes” to get rid of any ghost that’s a threat.  Think Faith for Buffy but slaying Ghosts instead of Edward Cullan.

Instantly Alona and Mina loathe each other.

But Mina’s arrival on the scene isn’t Alona’s only problem.  Only two months after her death, her parents are moving on.  Her mom is throwing out Alona’s homecoming sash and her evil step Mothra is preggers.  

Meanwhile, Will is hit with the news, that not only are there other Ghost Talkers but they’re a well organized and funded group, and they want him.

The whole series takes a drastic change about half way through the book, and not to spoil it  but it’s awesome.  

Where Stacey Kade shines is in her character development.  The reader should HATE Alona, and yet doesn’t.  In any other set of hands, Will could be extremely annoying but he isn’t.  He’s far from perfect but he’s not a stupid boy either, (a welcome change of pace).   Kade places so much emotion on the page that you feel Alona’s heartbreak, and later on in the book you feel Will’s rage.   

Am I a fan girl for this series, yep.  Do I want the final book to be in my hand right now? YEP.  I know it’s done, Kade tweeted about it.  

The Queen of the Dead is a fast paced, fun, and a perfect beach read.   I loved every page.  

In fact, I loved it SO much... I’m feeling a give away coming!!!!

Win a copy of The Ghost and the Goth paper back and The Queen of the Dead pre-order...

Contest ends next Friday!

Page 1 Review -- Tripp Parker Vs. The World

ERINN FAIL!!!! Blogger didn't post this when it was supposed to. LAME. SORRY.

A very special thank you to Jessica for being the first person to subject herself to the Page 1 Review.  Thank  you!


Title: Tripp Parker Vs. The World (apt to change because of that dang Scott Pilgrim movie :))
Genre: MG Adventure
Pitch: 12-year-old Tripp trades prep school for an African adventure and must save his parents from being sacrificed to an idol of ancient legend.


Critique Level 2

You've done one revision on your own. You want a beta to read it. You know it's not perfect, but it's a lot stronger then it used to be. You know the words still feel like words on a paper, not it's own world the reader sinks into it. You're ok with that, for this draft.
My comments are in red


First 250:

Each tooth was enough to make me pee my pants right there in the coffee house. I really like the first half of this sentence but “in the coffee house”  through me off.  It pulls me out of the story.   I’m not sure if the beast is IN the coffee house attacking.  The beast’s raw gums glistened with saliva and three ropes of drool tangled in the air while it charged. The whip cream on my double tall Socrates latte had long since melted, but I couldn’t stop staring at the photograph. This sentence is also a little jarring, because  the idea the MC is starting at the photograph comes at the end of the sentence. Maybe if it was clear from the beginning that he was looking at a photograph it would clear up any confusion.  I wondered if the creature would smell fear and attack it, like bees and dogs. If so, I’d be a goner within the week.  These sentences aren’t working for me.  I feel like your writing is stronger than these sentences.  


“You drink a lot of coffee for an eleven-year-old boy,” said a sweet voice. “Don’t your people like tea?”  Is he British?  


“You know it’s decaf. And you know I’m twelve.”   repeating the term, “you know”. Oh beautiful, beautiful Angela of the coffee shop, I thought. How I’ll miss you, especially if I die. These two ideas don’t seem to match. his words seem a little harsh for him to follow up with beautiful Angela of the coffee shop... his language is too formal for a twelve year old too.  I teach SMART 12 year olds and only one speaks like this.   



She was my favorite barista not sure if a 12 year old would know the term, at The Forum, one of my hang-outs  and if he does know the term barista,  he wouldn’t use the term “hang outs” on Yale University’s campus. There had been nothing so pleasant back at Cambridge. We left England when I was nine, and the British made a stink about little boys hanging around university students, even if they had large vocabularies and professor parents.  

As a general rule, I’m not a fan of the super smart kid.  There seems to be TOO many of them in middle grade. I think Artemis Fowl is the best example of a smart kid because it’s a very fresh take on the whole cliche.   But at least you’ve explained very early on why he speaks the way he does, which is great!  And it doesn’t feel like an info dump, also great.  But it’s a little off putting to an average middle school reader.


“And this fellow,” I pointed to the photo, “is about to become my closest acquaintance.”


Angela offered a sad smile. “Still leaving tomorrow?”


“Yes.”


Tomorrow I would leave behind four-hundred and fifty-three days of perfect attendance at Winston Prep, one undefeated debate club record, nineteen stuffed animals and action figures, and zero friends to possibly be torn apart by the jaws of the most vicious, terrifying, murderous animal on the continent of Africa.   This is EXCELLENT!!! It gives insight to the character without and states the conflict of the story.  I think this should be your opening paragraph.    But it does make for nice conclusion to your first page.

Over all I think it’s a great start, there’s just a few word choice issues.  I love the idea of the fish out of water, with a smart Brit running around Africa fighting anchient gods.   YES YES YES GIVE ME MORE!!!!  

Possible revision could be:  My changes are in purple


Tomorrow I would leave behind four-hundred and fifty-three days of perfect attendance at Winston Prep, one undefeated debate club record, nineteen stuffed animals and action figures, and zero friends to possibly be torn apart by the jaws of the most vicious, terrifying, murderous animal on the continent of Africa.


Today, I studied the photograph,the beast’s raw gums glistened with saliva and three ropes of drool tangled in the air while it charged it was enough to make me pee my pants right there in the coffee house. The whip cream on my double tall Socrates latte had long since melted, but I couldn’t stop staring at the photograph. I’d be a goner within the week.

“You drink a lot of coffee for an eleven-year-old boy,” said a sweet voice. “Don’t your people like tea?”

“It’s decaf. And I’m twelve.”  But you knew that, oh beautiful, beautiful Angela of the coffee shop, I thought. How I’ll miss you, especially if I die.

She was my favorite barista at The Forum, one of my hang-outs on Yale University’s campus. There had been nothing so pleasant back at Cambridge. We left England when I was nine, and the British made a stink about little boys hanging around university students, even if they were smarter than half the professors.

“And this fellow,” I pointed to the photo, “is about to become my closest acquaintance.”

Angela offered a sad smile. “Still leaving tomorrow?”

“Yes.”




Yeah I did something weird with the tenses so you can ignore everything I just suggested. 

 Do you have any suggestions for Jessica?    Leave them below. 


If you want to do a first page critique email me at  fussymonkey2 at gmail dot come

Blog News

I will no longer be doing Stupid Toy Tuesday, I'm going to be dropping my blogging schedule down to 3 days a week so I can focus on writing. 

If you would like me to critique your first page of ANY WIP... please email me.
THANKS

fussymonkey2 @ gmail dot com


So far I don't have ANY entries... so yeah, it can't work unless people submit. 

Tomorrow's post will most likely be a book review because I got a shiny new ARC in the mail on Friday.....

WOOT

Jousting Peeps- Doctor Who part 3

 A hero isn't interesting unless he or she has truly scary villian.

In his 900 years, the Doctor has collected a wide assortment of baddies.  The two who have been recurring and down right scary as all get out are The Daleks and the Cybermen.

The Daleks hate everything, they want to exterminate all non dalek life.  Yes they look like trashcans with a toilet plunger on their heads, but they scare the crap out of me.  The first time I saw one, I was like this thing is totally lame.  Now ANY TIME I see on one scene I freak the frak out.

The Cyberman are equally awful, mostly because they think they're doing the right thing.  They want to "Upgrade" everyone and make the as perfect as a Cyberman.  They're pushy but devoid of any feelings.   They're like that nosy neighbor who comes over all the time and thrusts awful food at you.  Even though you've told her your allegelic to peanuts and sleather a layer of peanut butter on everything and stands there until you've eaten it.  But refuses to give you a shot of your epipen. 

I listened to by hubby and that's why the Dalek is spelled wrong.

 BATTLE ARENA!

The winner and wow is it an upset.....  CYBERMEN!!!  

Yep, I have to say this is the first time I've totally disagreed with the peeps.  Because as the Daleks said in series 2, "Cyberman are superior in only one way, dying."

New Blog Idea

Ok I'm sort of stealing this idea from great bloggers like Susan and Abby who are focusing on queries.  But I like critiquing stuff.    I figured once a week one of my friends or followers would send me their first page and I'd critiquic it. 

Now I figured I'm come up with a crit scale as the level of depth the writer wants me to go through.

Level 1

For example it's a crappy first draft and you know it.  Your whole thought process was just to get it down on paper.  As long as there is at least one complete sentence then it's considered a success.  You just want to know if the hook is good.  Does it make the reader want to read more.  Is it "good"?   


Level 2

You've done one revision on your own.  You want a beta to read it. You know it's not perfect, but it's a lot stronger then it used to be.   You know the words still feel like words on a paper, not it's own world the reader sinks into it.  You're ok with that, for this draft.

Level 3

You've had a few beta's read it, they've made a lot of good points and you've fixed what you think are the major mistakes.  You think it might be ready to query but you want ONE more set of eyes to give you the OK.  

Level 4
You've got your query, it's perfect. But all these agents keep asking for the first ten pages of the book.  So that's got to be perfect too. (news flash the whole book should be that perfect, but we're not going to get all picky about it).  You don't want a fine tooth comb--- you want a microscope.   


The writer will tell me what level they want from their critique.  I'll post it on my blog.  

Are you interested?

If I get any takers I can start this next week. 

Let me know: email me at fussymonkey2 at gmail dot com.

Stupid Toy Tuesday- Moon Dough Bunnies

I wasn't a fan of moon sand, so I had low expectations for Moon Dough.  Apparently not low enough. 

It's allergy safe, wheat free, and never dries out, which means it has sort of a weird texture, it's like slimy but not at the same time.  It defies all logic.

And it crumbles and it's a pain to clean up.  Playdoh is SUPER easy to clean up, one piece can clean up everyone every piece just by pressing them together.  It's like magic.  Moon Dough does not have that same magically quality.

But it does come with a mold.

If you squish the right amount of Moon Dough into the top, a bunny pops out.  Repeat the process until you run out of Moon Dough or you want to swish the bunnies.

Never would I have believed my daughter had psychopathic tendiences until I saw the insane joy she got when killing these bunnies.  Well first she made like 15 of them and lined them up like an army and the squished the crap out of them. 

And if you didn't put enough of Moon Dough in the mold you got some creepy mutant deformed bunny spawned from Gund's worst nightmares. 

Moon Products-- I am not impressed.

Jousting Peeps- Doctor Who part 2

The single greatest TV Show of all time is Doctor Who, with The Simpsons as a close second.  Not only because if it's amazing writing but for it's cultural impact as well.   And what makes it so special 11 different actors have played The Doctor.  Everyone has his or her favorite.  Mine are David Tennant  or Matt Smith.

 Doctor Ten - David Tennant, I loved,  he had that sexy nerdy thing going and he could break my heart and make me laugh in the same second.
Doctor Eleven -Matt Smith, I loved in the first ten minutes of the new season, "that's must be some scary crack in your wall" I was hooked.

Time to battle out the Doctors....

Into the battle arena:

It's a heated battle--- no really it was, they started to burn and smoke.

THE WINNER--- David Tennant!!

Should I stick with the Doctor Who theme?  Or should I change it? Let me know in the comments below.

Five for Friday best advice

My good friends at the Paper Hangover suggested the topic what are your top five BEST pieces of advice you've received about writing or life.

1) Write the book you want to read.  Scott Trimell. Yep, if you don't want to read your book then who will?

2) No one will care as much about your work as you do- Will from Cartel--  I love and care deeply about my characters and novel, and I'm the only one who wants to hear about it.  My boss, my students, my husband, none of them care about it as much as I do.  On the flip side, if I don't care, why SHOULD they?

3) Be kind to your characters- Meghan Hunt.  Just because you're in a crap mood doesn't mean you should throw your characters down a mine shaft.  The best bad guys still have a trace of good.  And your best hero's are still a little naughty. 

4) ‘Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the internet.’ Anonymous... BEST QUOTE EVER!   If this is a problem for you, check out  Freedom- it's a program that blocks the internet from your computer for the amount of time YOU set up.  Or you can go here Victoria Marini's awesome blog post for more programs.  Fraking LIFE CHANGING.

5) Don't forget to be awesome.- John Green and Hank Green.  French the Lama no truer words were ever spoken.  When we forget to be awesome, suckage happens.  World Suck happens.  Let's be better to one another.

Have a great weekend

Show the love

Do you know what this is? 

If you are querying and using querytracker.net you do. 


Now, I should start off by saying, I love querytracker, it's a billion times easier then the google docs spreadsheet I WAS using.   Querytraker is a database of a bunch of agents, where you can see the genre's the agent reps, see the agents statistics for rejections and requests, and it also links you up to any internviews the agent has done as well.   It's easy to use and keeps you super organized.

I have only one complaint.

That's the symbol for a rejection. 

Here's the thing, I don't get angry when I get rejected.  I get sad. I'm bummed.  But not angry.  

Agents are doing their job and one of their jobs is read queries or manuscripts and think 'can I sell this?'  If the asnwer is no, then they tell you 'no'

I understand when an agent sends a form rejection.  I don't get bend out of shape. 

I don't even get too bummed for a form rejection on a requested full manuscript. 

This is how I look at it, let's look at Vikki Motter's numbers-- out of 300 queries she rejected 259 of them.  That 87%.

So odds are yep you are going to be rejected. Agents are busy so yeah, I totally understand a form rejection.  I even understand and totally agree with the no response mean no policy as long as it's a pretty short time period, like under two months.

But if you're in that lucky 13% that gets your foot in the door,  and you still get a form rejection, don't get mad about it. Getting a request is a HUGE victory in itself.  Look at it like that.  So the agent didn't think he or she could sell it, at least she or he TOLD you and didn't leave you hanging.

More so if he or she rejected you but gave you helpful feedback.  Do a happy dance. 

Recent I received a rejection that was so nice, it made my day.  Seriously.  It was nicer than a few request I had gotten.   Which is why I hate this symbol.

I'm not mad, why should I be?

I also don't think this is enough for when an agent has requested material and you've sent it out.

Seriously, that's it?

Whenever I get a request for material, my first thought is, "no $*ht, really?" Sometimes I even double check to make sure it was my query the agent was referring to.  Then I go I happy dance.  A super happy dance. 

Why? Because I beat the odds.

I won.  Even if a few weeks later, I get a form rejection.  Doesn't matter, I won.


Now, I do understand an angry face if an agent--- you didn't query but they sought you out-- requests a full manuscript and two years later you don't hear back from the agent.  Yep. I'd be grumpy about that.  But seriously, how often does that happen? Certainaly not enough to warnent it's own symbol.

So moral of the blog post,  does rejection fill you with self doubt and sadness? yeppers.   But should it make you angry?  I don't think so.   If you get angry, take a deep breath and go write another book, make it better then the first one. 

Note: Yes I am aware I might be screwing myself IF an agent reads this blog post and then sees my query in his or her inbox, because they might think, "cool I can send form reject and I won't get a dead cat shipped to my office, NICE." 

Guess what, even if that's the case, I'm not going to be angry about it.  Irony can be a bitch after all, can't she?

Jousting Peeps- The Doctor Who edition-- part 1

Today's mission is very special to me.  Because it's about one of my all time favorite things.  Doctor Who.

Namely the companions and which one is the best.

So Rose was off list because she was the doctor's most beloved companion and had two different Doctors.

Martha was off the list because she sucks.  Only two episodes of her entire season were worth watching, Gridlock and Blink.

That leaves us with Donna Noble and Amy Pond.

Donna is sassy, awesome and had a PERFECT season on the show.  Amazing. 

Amy Pond is Sassy, strong, and also had a perfect season.
















Our peeps must fight!

To the battle arena

Close battle--- SUPER CLOSE BATTLE... as it should be.

But the winner is Donna Noble.

Next week

Doctor 10 Verses Doctor 11.