Saturday, December 3, 2011

I'm Lovely!

Laura Barnes gave me this award yesterday:

Pretty!
I'm extra-thrilled about this one because she's a marketing guru, who blogs about building an online platform as an author. I'm choosing to believe she thinks I'm doing something right. :) Thanks, Laura!

So what's everyone doing on this, the first Saturday after the madness of NaNo? Still diligently writing away, trying to finish that project by the New Year?

Yeah, me neither.

I haven't cleaned my house in a month, I have to do the stats for my writer's group, and I have to make a dessert for a church Christmas Party tonight. Might play some Angry Birds, too. Take a shower, start reading a new book. Make sure the boys don't kill each other (harder than it sounds).

Two words of advice:
One: Head on over to my Thursday post and sign up to win a copy of NIGHTINGALE.
Two: Don't query your NaNo project until it is thoroughly edited. Like, six months worth of editing, alphas, betas, line edits, etc. Unless you're a professional author who's used to writing that fast (and, really most of them edit for months, too), it's probably horrific. You know it's true.

Oh, one more thing. It starts about 5 minutes in, but the lead-up is fun, too.

10 comments:

  1. You are lovely...and totally doing a ton of things right. Showering, playing angry birds, giving essential writing advice...the works! Originally I wanted to be done with revisions in 1-2 months. Yeah, so naive on that one!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jessie--awww. Thanks! Also, 1-2 months is a great time frame for the first round of revisions, so keep that as a goal. Then give it to alpha readers and ignore it for at least 3 weeks (3 months is better). Write something else, then ignore THAT for 3 months while you do the next round of edits for NaNo. ;) Wouldn't it be cool to have two new, completely polished books by the end of 2012?

    Hmmm....

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's good advice. Agents are really grumpy in the months after nano (as well) and probably rightfully so as thousands of writers who don't take your advice, immediately query.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Indeed you are lovely. Congrats on your award!

    This Saturday involves getting caught up on work-work and trying to relax, plus a trip to see the Nutcracker tonight. I'm pretty excited :)

    Oh my gosh, yes, my NaNo project is pretty crummy right about now. There will be querying on this puppy for a while (or at all, considering my concerns about the content not being YA enough). Sound words of advice!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Michael--what's sad is that I'm almost ready to re-start my own querying (after performing major surgery on my query)--and I'm worried they'll think it's a 2011 NaNo project! :(

    Rosie--I'm going to assume you meant "there will be NO querying...." :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Congrats on the award, Robin!

    I took a break from writing but now I've got two chapters to submit to the critique group and then I have to get back to ACoP edit and query. I feel like I'm going in circles with that thing. I'm sure you don't understand that at all! lol

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks, Donna! :) And, no, I have no idea what it feels like to edit something to death (mine or the book's). Sounds awful--but I'm sure querying is nothing but good times! I mean, how hard can it really be? :P

    ReplyDelete
  8. Congratulations, Robin. Funny, I am running a little behind in letting nominees know, but I also nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award a few days ago. It's a doubly good week for you. Congrats!

    http://jennifermeaton.com/2011/12/03/versatile-blogger-award/

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ah Robin, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum...

    I saw that lead actor play one of the funniest Pirate Kings (Pirates of Penzance) I have ever seen. He was incredible.

    And yeah, my NaNo is not even close.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Jennifer--Thanks! Now I'm lovely AND versatile! :D

    Shelly--isn't that the BEST musical? Wonder why BYU never produced it.... ;)

    ReplyDelete