New website announcement!

I realize I haven't posted here about my new website!

Briarbook Lane is home to authors Mary W. Jensen and Elizabeth Wilcox, sisters in life and story. An enchanted escape, with book reviews, writer tools, and a fairy tale book club.

This is a new blog start for me. The website hosts three blogs: my new blog "Mary's Expression", Liz's blog "Elizabeth's Musings", and "Enchanted Garden" which is our fairy tale book club. We will be posting our thoughts on our first book club title, "Mirror Mirror" by Gregory Maguire, on June 2 and invite you to read along!

I'd love it if you came over and followed us there.

Tuesday Tally and NaNoWriMo

EotF Status

# of queries out: 7

# of fulls out: 0

status: additional querying on hold until after Muse Conf

 

T.C. Status

word count: 9,634

status: first draft in progress

 

FwM Status

word count: 5,751

status: first draft in progress, taking backseat for TC

 

Color Poems

complete: 15

min needed for chapbook: 20

 

Previous goals:

• edit another five chapters
• submit some poetry – revised a poem, but didn’t actually submit

 

Goals for this week:

• edit six chapters
• submit aforementioned poem

 

NaNoWriMo, here I come! I signed up. *gulp* My username is Feywriter. I’ll have to explore the site more. One month to prepare!

 

I really don’t know if I should NaNo with two books already in progress, but it’s only one month, right? Then the NaNo book can sit while I write the others. A big part of this is simply seeing if I can do it. Like the 10k day for Writers. I don’t know what I’m capable of if I don’t push myself. And I need deadlines to do so. I really don’t have an excuse not to go for it this year.

 

Plot ideas at various stages:

 

1. Race to 100 Deaths – I found this phrase in my notes. Sounds like an awesome title. No idea what it meant.
2. Contemporary Fantasy – A woman divorces her husband because he believed in magic. Their teenage daughter gets kidnapped by something obviously out of this world, and the woman has to turn to her ex-husband for help.
3. Rumpelstiltskin is leprechaun gone bad. Beware the rainbow trap.
4. Traditional Fantasy about Tilara Scarlet, an Elven diplomat with a little assassination on the side. Her symbol is the leaf of a Scarlet Oak. I have a character sketch on her already.

 

I’ll take a vote: Which story should I write?

Submission Update

Well, I no longer need advice on my question yesterday. I got my reply from Drollerie Press. They have passed on my story, but the response was very encouraging and personal - said what she liked about it and the specific reason it was rejected. I'll give the story another read through, and send it out elsewhere.

=)

To Inquire? Or to wait a few days?

The Drollerie Press website now states: "If you have not yet received a response for your submission sent prior to January 1, 2008, please inquire." I sent them The Blazing Princess on Dec. 31. So, it's definitely before Jan. 1... but just barely. I got a response same day noting they had received my submission, so I know they got it. Thus, the question. Should I inquire, or wait a week before doing so?

Mermaids

 

This is absolutely beautiful. If mermaids danced, this is what it would look like. I'd never heard of underwater dance until I saw this on Endicott Studio's Blog. Such mystical elegance.

 

Here is a poem I wrote a long time ago about mermaids. It seems fitting to post it here with this video.

 

Sleek, Wet, Beautiful

Children of Neptune

They have a love for trinkets

And only fear the fishers

They feel the constant pull of the tide

Inhabiting our dreams

Mermaids

Tuesday Tally and Many Thanks

Status of my novel

total words to date: 86,050

pages: 376

completed chapters: 18

Last week's goals:

• finish chapter 18 - yay! one step closer to The End!
• clean up email inbox of 2nd hotmail account - was fairly uncluttered. 3 more emails to go through

Goals for this week:

• finish first draft 
• clean up excite email inbox
• send out another wave of invites to join my website mailing list

Extra thanks today because I didn't write down my thoughts over the last few days.

 

I am grateful for entertainment. We saw Stardust on Saturday. So glad we did. I could find no flaws - a perfect five star film. Humor, adventure, romance, fantasy. Truly enchanting. It ranks up on the classics with Princess Bride. My type of movie. We will definitely be picking it up on DVD. Yay for movies, books, and games that free us from life's stresses. We finally grew tired of LOTRO and have returned to EverQuest2 after an absence of a year and a half. New expansions have come out, and a lot of other changes have been made - definitely for the better. We did enjoy Lord of the Rings, and stayed there longer after maxing out our characters than we have any other MMO, but we reached a point where we could no longer progress and are tired of running the same instances every week. EQ2 is familiar yet new. When I wasn't writing this last weekend, I was reacquainting myself with the game.

 

I am grateful for pants that fit. Before seeing the movie, I used the early birthday money from my in-laws to go shopping for new pants. I was lucky to actually find two different styles that fit well. It's hard to find pants that work with my big bony hips and long legs, and aren't low-riders (hate those - feel like they are going to fall off). Love the new Wrangler Aura. Would have bought more of those, but only had one pair the right style and size.

 

I am grateful for major appliances: dishwasher, fridge, microwave, stove, washer & dryer. Fairly self-explanatory. Less work for me. More time for other things. Definite benefits to living in this day and age.

 

I am grateful for WRITING. It's the most incredible feeling to get immersed in writing. I love when the rocky struggle finally hits that smooth flow. It reminds me why I love to write and leaves me on a "high" for the rest of the day. I know a lot of my rough draft is just that - rough. But when I reread my work, there are certain scenes where everything shines and it makes me all excited to read more. Hopefully with enough work I can get the whole thing to shine. I need to dig through this chunk of rock to find the gem hinting from within.

Contest results and Poem

I got the judging results for my story, The Blazing Princess, in the Writers of the Future contest. I placed as a quarterfinalist, which means it was in the top 15% of all stories submitted. I don't win anything other than recognition, but I'm happy with the results for my first entry into a prestigious contest. :-) Now I'll look into places to submit my story to for publication. Any suggestions for where a retold fairy tale might find a home?

And my poem to share today:

George Experiences Pop Culture

Curious George is always striving
to be the next big thing,
the little monkey climbed on stage
and actually started to sing!

The crowd fell in love -
he was on the news!
He went on to perform
for a celebrity cruise.

But at the end of the week
he was tired of fame,
so he asked for a ride home
and the man in yellow came.

Revisiting Mirror

As some of you may recall, I've written a story (novelette length) called Mirror, a retelling of Snow White. I finished writing it in early June, and haven't looked at it since. I know it needs a lot of revision before even sending the whole thing to my sister/crit partner. Recently I've been thinking about it again, and have decided to bring the first three pages to the writing group meeting this Saturday. I reworked the first scene, essentially doubling it in length, but showing more character motivation and emotion from Lady Sophia (who becomes the "evil step-mother"). Next week I'll make a goal to go through the rest of the story, marking it up for revision. Now, if only my son would take a nap so I could print these pages... ah well, still have tonight or tomorrow.

P.S. I'm sure you'll be seeing more strikethrough text, particularly during Tuesday Tally, now that I have finally looked up the code to do so...

Tuesday Tally, books, and exercise

Status of my novel
total words to date: 57,758
pages: 250
completed chapters: 11

Last week's goals:

• keep working on 100 day challenge - did at least the minimum
  
• blog 3x/wk - unless updating my 100 day progress counts... which really it doesn't... only blogged twice
  
• three new scenes for WIP - complete
  
• find a couple good standalone scenes to share - found a few which might work
  

Goals for this week:

• keep working on 100 day challenge
• be ready for WW meeting (this Sat!)
  
• put excerpt on website
• two new scenes for WIP

Borrowed another stack of books from my family when we went down for my nephew's birthday party last Saturday. I started reading The Fairy Godmother, but Mercedes Lackey. Elena is a Cinderella whose happy ending didn't come because the prince was too young. Instead, she becomes an Apprentice Fairy Godmother. I'm a few chapters in and thoroughly enjoying it. This is the first of the Five Hundred Kingdoms books, all standalones in the same world, of Harlequin's Luna imprint. If I like this one, I also borrowed the second book, One Good Knight. Lackey wrote a third one as well, Fortune's Fool, but my sister doesn't own that one yet.

I've been exercising! Past the super painful part and starting to feel more energized after instead of exhausted. My abs were sore for three days after my first workout last week. Not muscles I'm used to having sore that long. The vacation incentive helped me resist using the muscle aches as excuses not to keep my routine. Yay for goal incentives! They really do work. :-)

Writers of the Future Contest

Today I dropped my story, The Blazing Princess, off at the Post Office. It is on its way to the Writers of the Future Contest. I don't know if it's good enough to win, but I do belief it's the best I can make it. Wish me luck!

Tuesday Tally

Status of my novel
total words to date: 37,982
pages: 164
completed chapters: 8

Goals for this week:

• keep working on 100 day challenge
• complete editing for Blazing Princess, have someone do a last read through, then mail out (Deadline June 30!)
• finish 2 scenes in Emergence
  

Did more editing to my story than I thought I would. Going to try adding another short scene, see if I like it. Didn't get much done on Emergence, but did have forward progress which is good.

This chapter seems to be getting rather long. Or that could just be that I'm taking a long time to get it done. Still, considering cutting it into two chapters.

...

Ok, I went and checked the word count. It's standing at about 3k words, with four more scenes to write. So far my average is 4k, with the longest just over 6k. I'll have to finish the scenes and then see where I stand.

Looking forward to getting feedback from a critique I won from Manuscript Mavens. I sent them the first chapter of Emergence.

Tuesday Tally - some success

I surpassed my goal for Blazing Princess, completing another edit of the entire story. I have a couple of weeks until the contest deadline. Any volunteers for giving it a thorough critique? I've had some readers already, but wouldn't mind a couple more eyes to point out room for improvement.

I didn't, however, meet my other goal. Though I worked on Emergence a bit, I didn't finish a scene. I feel like I'm pulling teeth with it right now. Definitely not my smoothest writing. But no more procrastinating. I'll work on it more tonight. Robin McKinley's response to how many hours she writes is definitely one I can relate to. I still stand to the belief that writing this novel is the hardest and most wonderful thing I've ever done. Now to crank out more words until I reach the end.

Goals for this week:

• write a minimum of 700 words for Emergence (my min. for 100 Day Challenge)
  
• read Blazing Princess very carefully looking for flaws
• keep up the multiple blog posts a week

Quick Tuesday Tally

No new words on Emergence, but I finished Mirror! Yay! My hubby finally read through my other fairy tale, The Blazing Princess, and gave me some great suggestions for improvement. I am very grateful to be married to a man who is not only able to see the weak points in my writing, but brave enough to point them out to me. One of the suggestions is a revision that will work it so my title still fits! Which is very good, as current title is original and I couldn't think of any other good ones. Hopefully my muse is now recovered enough to return to Emergence.

Goals for this week:

• write a minimum of one scene for Emergence
  
• rewrite "dream scene" in Blazing Princess
  

I will blog tomorrow about the wonderful weekend I had, celebrating my hubby's birthday. =)

Tuesday Tally (sort of) and pack rat trauma

May 8'ths tally shows the following:

Status of my novel
total words to date: 36,679
pages: 160
completed chapters: 8

The sad truth - word count has gone down since then, as all I've done with it is delete a couple of paragraphs. However, since that date I have written nearly 3000 words on Mirror. And it's still not done! I won't have it ready for the deadline I wanted, but I'm sure I can find a different market for it. I only have a couple scenes left to write (truly this time).

Goals for this week:

• finish writing Mirror
  
• write anything for Emergence
  

The long weekend wasn't unproductive, however. We did some much needed deep cleaning. I am a major pack rat and horde anything even minutely sentimental. Some of the papers I threw out were encouraging notes from nearly ten years ago... And I almost cried when I threw away the stack of letters from my childhood friend. It doesn't matter that we no longer keep in touch; his letters were what kept me going when we moved to the other end of the state in my 5th grade year. Anyway, we went through the closet and the front room, throwing away anything we didn't miss in the past five years, and reorganizing what was left. Looks a lot better, but completely wore me out. Sunday we played some Wii sports and my right arm/shoulder is still sore from the baseball and tennis (I lost horribly at both - at least I have a chance when we do the bowling). One of the things boxed away for now is most of the scrapbooking supplies. I enjoy scrapbooking, but don't really have the space here, or a way to organize it all. Hopefully everything works out and we can get out of this apartment and into a house next year.

Tuesday Tally and American Idol

Status of my novel
total words to date: 36,679
pages: 160
completed chapters: 8

Goals for this week:

• 1,000 words on Emergence
  
• write at least three scenes in Mirror

Yes, that count is right. I only wrote about 400 words in Emergence this past week... Remind me never to go a week without working on it again. Makes it extremely hard to get back to, especially being in the mid-book blues. I did write my two scenes in Mirror, so I wasn't an entire slacker.

American Idol tonight! Go Blake! He did awesome last week, can't believe he was in the bottom three. Better be great tonight. Almost finale time. Though I want Blake to win, I would be fine with any of the remaining girls. Not like a few years ago, with Fantasia - don't care for her style.

Writing Projects

While waiting for the school bus on Wednesday afternoon, I compiled a list of all the stories I'm currently writing or have plans to write. Here's the list.

* in progress

Novels
Emergence of the Fey*
War of the Fey (possible Emergence sequel)
Moon Spider (second generation story, same world)
Trinity Coven (Fantasy Romance. modern day magic, with warlocks and witch coven. have characters and general plotline already written up)

"Short" Stories
Blazing Princess* (Sleeping Beauty)
Mirror* (Snow White)
untitled Cinderella story
Fatinah's story (S.W. prequel - how the girl got in the mirror)

All the short stories take place in the same world. I'd love to have them all in a collection together someday. I finished chapter seven of Emergence. I'll take a couple more days away from it and work on finishing Blazing Princess. After a small break (from novel, not writing altogether), I will focus half my weekly writing on my novel and half on other projects. I'll work more on Mirror after Princess is done. I need to start Fatinah's story as I want to submit it to Mslexia for their Mirror, Mirror theme - deadline in June. (I was writing Mirror for that theme as well, but max length is 3000 words and I think it will go over that.)

After I finish Emergence (goal to finish by my birthday, Nov. 25), I'm not sure which novel to start next. Multiple story projects is fine, but I want to focus on one novel at a time. Trinity Coven is the most planned out, but would take the most research being set in the real world. I'd love to take a trip to England before writing it as that's where the story starts. War of the Fey isn't even a for sure thing. I know publishers love trilogy's and series for fantasy, as they sell good. But I don't want to force another book if there isn't any more story to tell. I'll have a better idea after I finish the current one. Same goes for Moon Spider. Though I do want to tell a story about Marian's daughter Ranyia, I only have a vague idea on what that story is. Well, enough speculation for now. I still have eight months to brainstorm and "what if".