It is HOT in Phoenix

I've had trouble not thinking about the weather since the days started getting up into the 110s here in Phoenix.  For instance, driving to Joann Fabrics today (the first time I've been to the one near me...and I've lived here since October, so that sort of shows how reliant I am to online ordering for my jewelry shop) <---sorry about the tangent....I realized that most of my trips to the Joann Fabrics in DuBois, PA were spent in the rain.  I don't know if I just got more of an urge to make jewelry when it was rainy (you know, cause I'm stuck indoors), or if it just rained there that often (both are really good possibilities) but it just felt weird driving there today in 105+ weather with the sun shining and palm trees lining the streets.

When I got home, I decided to soak up some of that abundant and reliable sun.  Since the heat of the summer started, I've been getting less and less Vitamin D, so I figured it'd be good for me...plus, I always feel like I'm pampering myself when I put on my bathing suit and lay out.

I know I haven't mentioned it here yet, but I'm 11 weeks pregnant, so putting on that bathing suit is getting more and more depressing, especially considering it's too early for me to look obviously pregnant, so I just look generally pudgier than I did a few months ago.  I gotta figure out if I have any maternity clothes in this house.

To try and prevent death by heat stroke, I dumped out an old spritzer bottle of crappy hair straightening product and rinsed it until it was cleaned out, then replaced it with ice cold water.  I was so excited about my innovativeness until I actually laid on our fold out chair and started spraying myself.  The mist was so thin and fine that most of it just blew away in the slight (disgustingly warm) breeze.  Not the most refreshing half hour of my life, but I think it still falls into the category of 'the thought that counts'.

He insists on coming out when I'm out there.
He moved into the shade almost immediately.

When the toddler wakes up from her nap (we're going on 3 hours...woohoo), we're heading to the gym.  I'm trying to stay physically active with this pregnancy, since I've been regularly exercising since November, 2011, and I'm just now feeling myself again.  There were a few weeks there where I was nauseous all the time and feeling ridiculously exhausted.  So since I'm feeling good again, I'm trying to get back into running and exercising regularly.  Hopefully that will help prevent me from gaining 60 pounds with this pregnancy, like I did with my first.  That was no fun.

Okay...baby girl is awake :)

Exciting Response

So back in March, a few weeks after I finished my first edit on my manuscript for Earths Project: Book One, First Earth, I decided to try out my first batch of querying agents to represent my book.  I sent out five queries.  Within days, and then weeks, I received my standard rejection letters.  Each one looking similar to the next.  Sorry, try someone else (and usually nicer than that...but obviously standard emails that they just mass send out to each manuscript they don't consider at all).  One response was actually really short and sort of mean...but I am prepared not to take rejections personally (you know, unless someone takes the time to actually personalize a mean rejection...something like "This is the worst idea for a book we have EVER seen"...then I would have no choice but to cry for a little while).

Annnnnyways.......like I said, I got four out of five rejection emails.  I always assumed the fifth would just never come, but could be brushed off as another rejection.  My response came on 6/10/2013 at 2:38 pm (EST).  Don't get too excited, it's a rejection, but I'll put the letter here to show you why it still made my heart race a little faster:

Carmella Dillman,                  

 

            Your query regarding “The Earths Project: Book 1, First Earth” has been evaluated. The concept of numerous Earths, with each unaware of their origins or the existence of other Earths, is definitely a novel concept. The journey of the protagonist as she uncovers these truths and learns what must be done to save her own Earth have a lot of potential and could make a solid place for itself in the sci-fi genre. Unfortunately, ******* is not able to represent your manuscript at this time. We concentrate on high-quality fiction and non-fiction works that have the strong possibility for crossover to film and television. Additionally, as digital technology and social media has advanced, it has become a fact that it often takes more than good work for a publisher to recognize the value of a manuscript. A strong social media presence is necessary to demonstrate a guaranteed readership and assure publishers that the cost of publishing and distributing a book will result in commercial success. Should you bolster your social media presence or otherwise demonstrate a dedicated following of your work, please resubmit your query to ******@**.*** with evidence of this for re-evaluation. I wish you the best with both this and future endeavors.

 

Additionally, a Time Magazine article featuring one of our clients, Sir Ken Robinson, is enclosed regarding his book, “Finding Your Element,” which will be on the New York Times bestseller list June 16th.

 

Regards,

*******

They even took the time to take a photo of the Time Magazine article and attach it as a jpg.  So, I'm super psyched that from such a small batch of queries, I got one real personal response (granted, it's a rejection, but it's still something they took the time to consider).

As you can see in the response, it might be helpful to start focusing more on the whole social networking world.  I certainly have the tools and knowledge to be more active through those avenues, but I'm just unsure of how to go about getting more followers.  I don't even have enough followers on this blog to ask for advice.  But if you happen to be reading this and you're an expert at building a large amount of followers by blogging and/or tweeting, please comment!!

In the meantime, I'll try and decide the best way to approach that suggestion.  I also have to finish doing a second round of good editing on the manuscript, but with the job I have now and the jewelry shop doing really well lately, I've had a really limited amount of time to focus on the book.  I'll have to come up with a better system...

So, hopefully I didn't put too many readers to sleep through this long-winded blog post.  Everytime I think about that query response I get excited and feel more motivated, so I couldn't help but share :)

Have a great weekend!!

David Baldacci

I absolutely love how inspirational moments can happen completely unexpectedly, in any place, at any moment (I guess I was a little redundant there but I'm currently in the car, driving up to Lake Pleasant with the family, so that's how random this moment was). I started listening to the audiobook of Absolute Power, by David Baldacci, and was treated to a short letter from the author about how he went from being a lawyer to being a full time successful novelist. It was one of those 'this is what I was meant to do' type stories...where he would almost give up but then persevere. Stories like that rejuvenate every creative desire I have. Anyway, more about this and why I am in love with libraries and books and technology later when I have a more appropriate moment to write a proper blog post. For right now, family time and gorgeous views deserve my full attention.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:W Glendale Ave,Glendale,United States

Today

I'm so glad I cleaned my house yesterday.  I've been keeping it tidy since and whenever everything around me is tidy I feel so much more optimistic about the day.  This morning, after I'm done injecting caffeine into my veins, I'll be taking the toddler for a run in her jogging stroller.  We've been semi-regularly going for runs over the past few weeks, which I have been loving.  I wish I had the time and self-motivation to become a real distance runner.  When I do 3+ miles I get this rush and the whole day I delude myself to thinking I'll do 4+ miles the next day, then I always end up not running at all the next day.  In DuBois, through Treasure Lake, that wasn't the case.  I was tracking how many miles I would run per month and I did really good at going longer and longer distances (about 5 miles was my furthest).  I did that with my dog though, for the most part, and I haven't put the time toward finding good routes around here that I can go longer distances on and it's harder to map them out when I know I'll have a jogging stroller that I'd rather not take on roads without sidewalks (or busy roads).  We didn't have sidewalks in Treasure Lake, but the roads were never busy with traffic like they are here.

Anyway...I didn't mean to take such a tangent there.  After the jog, I'll take the kiddo to the park for a while, try and let her burn off some of that energy so she goes down for the nap on time and not as late as 3:30 like yesterday.  She'll take a bath, while I take a shower (the bathtub in our masterbath is separate from the shower, which is super handy for killing two birds with one stone while also keeping an eye on her).  Lunch, then nap.  Then at 4:15, I have a haircut scheduled at the LifeSpa in our gym (Lifetime...I'll have her play in the daycare area while I get my hair done).

I like days like this.  Lots of things on the to-do list and none of them unpleasant in any way.  Most of them involve getting to spend time with my daughter but in a way I know she'll enjoy, which is tough with a 2.5 year old.

So maybe I should postpone scheduling this blogpost since reviewing it made me realize that if anyone wanted to stalk me today, they wouldn't even have to make a real effort to figure out where I'll be at any particular time.

I hope to edit during the playtime at the park and/or during naptime.

Back to Work

I've finally been offered a job! I don't want to go too far into details but it'll be with the Arizona Hemophilia Association and everything about it seems amazing. I start April 22nd so since I only have a little over a week left of the unemployed life, I'm catching up on crappy TV shows and over cleaning my house so I'm ahead of the game when I'm adjusting back to the 40 hour workweek lifestyle. For the first time in my life, I only have a few extra things on my plate when I'm back to work. Used to always have graduate school on top of everything else (which was definitely a huge extra time burden), but now it's just the jewelry shop and the time I'll put toward getting the book edited and queried (until it's published). Along with spending time with the toddler and husband, I'm going to be busy, but very very fulfilled and happy. I can't wait to get this next chapter of my life started!!

As far as the jewelry and book goes...I've been busy with the jewelry and taking a longer than comfortable break with the editing. I NEED to get back into the editing and making it a major priority again. Like always, I'm the only thing standing in my way.

As for now, my baby girl is napping (for another hour probably), I'm feeling achy from a mild cold but my house is clean and I'm looking for that renewed motivation to edit, edit, edit. That's sort of what brought me here...my other neglected outlet.

Time to lay down, try and overcome the achiness, and maybe crack open the Goodreader app to do some editing.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Litchfield Park,United States

Save Trees...Use Technology.

So I'm officially going through my second round of editing...I have three points of view other than my own on my book and I've been mentally deciding what I want to change after hearing my three test-readers' advice.  I added a chapter in the beginning after hearing my sister's advice, I've changed a little bit of who I want my main character to be based on my friend Dan's advice, and I'm trying to add detail in areas where I feel it's lacking after my Aunt's advice.  Otherwise I'm working on catching minor errors and making awkward sections sound less so.  The reason for the title of my blog post...I FREAKIN LOVE TECHNOLOGY.  I was trying to decide the best way to do these edits without killing five full trees and since I already own a Mini iPad and a new inexpensive netbook type laptop, I wanted to make sure I could come up with the easiest, most pain free way of editing without having to go back and forth or use the laptop the entire time (Scrivener, please come up with an iPad version so you can solve all my problems!!).  Here's what I came up with:

1.  I compiled my manuscript from Scrivener (where I've already written the whole thing) and saved it into Dropbox in a PDF format.

2.  I opened it in Goodreader on my iPad.  It's an amazing app.  I can write edits directly on the page, like so...

3.  I uploaded what I edited into Dropbox (up to chapter 8 so far...my goal is to do edits everyday and then fix up the manuscript one day a week...it was supposed to be yesterday but I slacked..my parents are coming to visit tomorrow and I have a lot to do)

4.  Opened up Scrivener and added my edited version into the 'research' area of the program, then opened it so it was side by side with the actual manuscript and Viola (spelling?)...I can scroll each down as I go and edit my thoughts in a very user friendly and completely simplified way, all without killing a single tree.  In fact, none of my entire 80,000 words has ever seen a piece of paper.

And that's all for today :)

First Two Queries Sent, First Two Rejections Received

So I finally buckled down recently and finished my query letter.  I have no idea if it'll be good enough to catch an agent's eye, but I felt pretty good about it.  If I get any type of positive response from it I'll probably eventually post it here, but for now, I'm going to wait and see.  My sister also gave me some really great feedback on the book after she read it.  So far, I have feedback from three people, and I've been going back through the manuscript trying to fix it up and tweak it so it works.  I need to put more effort in the synopsis, which I hadn't written yet as of a couple of days ago, but writing it is making me really doubt myself, which I hate.  

I sent out the query to two agents so far and I have already received two rejections.  I really assumed it would take longer to get responses.  I saw somewhere that email queries typically don't even get responses, and I'd honestly rather not get any if they're planning on rejecting.  So far, no such luck, so I get to deal with rejections from jobs and NOW rejections from agents.  I'm really hating the number 13 right now (aka, the year 2013).  I'm gonna  get a whole lot more rejections, from jobs AND agents...so I hope it makes me better at handling it....because it has always been a major weakness of mine.  

Back to sending out the query, working on the synopsis, and sharpening up the manuscript.  I'm going to be unrelenting.  I'm determined.  This is what I want in life, above anything else ever, so now that I've finally written an entire manuscript, I'm not going to quit that easily.  Or at all.  One really great part about the entertainment industry, it's so subjective that even books like 50 Shades of Grey can make millions of dollars.