Posts Tagged ‘OSMB’
Based on the contest feedback I got on “Operation Snag Mike Brad” today, there’s no way in hell it’s going to final in the Golden Heart.
Guess that means I don’t have to worry about coming up with $425 to pay for Nationals, eh?
I got scores back from a contest I entered right before I sent everything off for the GH. One judge gave me an 80 out of 100. The other two? 60 and 57.
I can buy 60’s assertion that there may not be enough conflict to sustain the story. (She should have seen it BEFORE I beefed up the conflict in one of my rewrites!)
However, I find 57’s comment that I don’t know how to use punctuation insulting. It reminds me of my freshman year of college when my World Cultures prof (who taught art history) tried to tell me I couldn’t write an essay.
I know punctuation, darn it. I’m a freakin’ copy editor for God’s sake. I may not do old-school punctuation, but what I do is perfectly acceptable in journalism. And I should think that if my punctuation was that darn bad, someone else would have pointed it out to me when they were proofing my GH entry for me.
Nary a peep, though. So I’m inclined to write that one off as ravings.
Guess I should be thankful that all my scores were at least a 2 (shows promise but needs improvement).
I’m sure I’ll be able to look back at the scores with more detachment later, so I can get more out of them. Next week … maybe next month … Right now, however, I’m still smarting.
E-mail was not my friend this morning.
Remember the agent who requested more of my MS a couple of weeks ago? Rejected. After careful consideration, they decided it wasn’t right for their agency.
Sounds like a pretty standard rejection, I suppose.
However, there was also an encouraging note.
A very cute concept but this didn’t feel big enough to be single-title for me. Good luck with this project.
So it would seem (though I don’t recall seeing this in their submission info) that they only represent single-title manuscripts. I’ll definitely submit the query on “Blind Date Bride” once I work it up.
Guess I’d better get busy on that, eh?
Last Saturday, we had our NARWA meeting and I was inspired to launch “Operation Treat Writing Like a Day Job.”
Today I capped off my operation, which admittedly isn’t as amusing as “Operation Snag Mike Brad,” with another good day. I wrote 1,421 words on Meg & Matt’s story (still untitled) in two writing sessions — one at Starbucks and one at the house.
That brings the week’s total word count to 6,209. I’m 6 percent finished with NARWA’s 100K word count challenge. Can I get a woo-hoo?
I’d have stayed at Starbucks longer, but I was falling asleep in my chair. I left because I kept thinking about how embarrassed I’d be to wake up drooling. Well, that and the fact that I couldn’t stay awake long enough to concentrate … I really like my writing time at the Bucks, and I don’t want to do anything to embarrass myself so I can’t show my face there again.
Once I got home — and helped shovel off our deck (again!) — I was awake enough to start writing again. Now, about 400 words later, I’m ready to nod off again.
So even though it’s very early for me (only 10 p.m.), I think I’m heading off to bed. The operation continues tomorrow with the start of Week 2 … perhaps it’s time to do a little more editing on “Blind Date Bride.” And Monday, I’ll ship off a couple more query letters.
I’d call Day 1 of “Operation Treat Writing Like a Day Job” an unqualified success.
I spent about 2 1/2 hours finishing the read-through on my rough draft of “Blind Date Bride” and revised my query for “Operation Snag Mike Brad.”
So even though I didn’t get many actual words written, I did accomplish quite a bit. Lucky me, I’m done with work early … so it’s time to head home for more computer time. I may actually even write a few words so I can say I have a word count for the day.
I think I’ll try to write a couple of pages on Meg & Matt’s story tonight. Hmm. Maybe I need a title for that one. Can’t keep calling it “Meg & Matt’s Story” for the rest of my life! 😀
But first, I need some dinner. I started work at 3:45, and by the time I hit a breaking point, we were so close to finished with the Monday paper that I didn’t want to leave for an hour. That means now, I’m starved!
* * *
I’m back. Had a surprisingly filling baked potato topped with cheese, veggies, bacon bits and reduced-fat sour cream for dinner, then wrote some more.
Added a Word Count Countdown ticker from writertopia.com to my sidebar. That’s right: 307 down, 99,693 to go! (I’m stepping up for the NARWA Word Count Club challenge — 100K words in 2010.)
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