In Which This Author Receives a Shock

Sincere apologies for my silence over the past few days. It's been something of a whirlwind (as all of my weeks are -- for some reason, I haven't had a single week in months that was devoid of chaos), and the blog was deprioritized as a result. I found out last Wednesday that one of the final-round judges for the Golden Heart wanted to see my full manuscript!

The good news is that this indicates that the editor has some level of interest in acquiring my book. The bad news is that I was in the middle of doing some revisions, and I only had forty-eight hours to submit my full manuscript to the RWA office. Needless to say, this was cause for alarm; while none of my edits were dramatic, I wasn't as far along as I would have liked. Luckily, I work at one of the few places in corporate America in which my boss and all of my directors are supportive of both my writing career (and yes, they know I'm writing romance) and my "real" career, and so I was able to take Thursday afternoon off to polish up my draft. Now it's back to the grind to get caught up at work, but a request from an editor made my week :)

Walking On Broken Glass

After a variety of strange and ridiculous things today, I needed a break -- and I got it, in the form of the video for Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass." It has everything I require in a good time: Hugh Laurie, costumes, absurd lyrics, and melodramatic sentiments. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GBn-BpkNsA

I have nothing new to report, but I shall write tomorrow! In the interest of getting to the writing faster, it's time for bed.

On Business Cards and Taglines

I want to get some writing-related business cards before the RWA National Conference in Washington this summer, and I'm having trouble deciding what to put on them. My name is a critical component, obviously, as are email and phone. However, I do not think I will put on my home address, both for privacy reasons and because I move often enough that I don't want to have my card be obsolete in six months.

The trickiest part is my occupation and the description of my business. I am calling myself a writer because that's what I am, even if I haven't made any money for my labors yet. Beyond that, though, I want something on the card that hints at the type of writing I do. I can do this partially through the font, color, etc. -- if I choose pink with a flowing script font, it's clear that I write traditional romances rather than paranormals (although I do want to write paranormals someday). But I also want a tagline to describe what I write in one pithy, memorable sentence.

I spent a few minutes brainstorming tonight, and clearly I'm going to have to do more -- what I came up with is definitely memorable, but not particularly useful ("Love in the Time of Syphilis" and "Sara Ramsey: Ramming It Old-School" were my two favorite inappropriate taglines). So, it's back to the drawing board -- do you have any thoughts?

See: Quitting, Not

I'm feeling pretty happy on the motivation front right now. Rewrites for AN INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE are going both well and quickly, and I'm looking forward to getting back to Madeleine and Ferguson's story soon (in my head I'm calling it AN INCONVENIENT TITLE because a) I don't have a title, and b) Ferguson doesn't want his).

But, it never hurts to hear a little extra motivation from someone who's been through it all before. Check out this blog post about persevering through thousands (gasp) of rejections. Happily I'm nowhere near the thousand (or even hundred) rejection mark yet, but I intend to keep going even if I reach that point.

Now it's back to the writing -- enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Dehydrated but Productive

One of the problems that I have when writing is that I forget to take breaks. Another problem is that I like to write on my laptop while lying on my couch (as I am right now), and due to the unfortunate placement of all of the tables in my living room, this means that any drink in my vicinity is placed directly behind my head. So, while I have the remnants of an iced tea not two feet away from me, I'm still feeling parched because I don't want to stop typing long enough to sit up, drink the tea, return to my prone position, and adjust my laptop for optimal typing. Then again, I'm *really* thirsty, so perhaps I should reconsider...

Okay, I'm back. I was quite productive today, but almost all of it came between 6:30pm and 10:30pm. I also had a brief spurt for an hour and a half this morning, but between dropping off and picking up my car from the service station, mailing some stuff, eating lunch, reading a couple of chapters out of a creative writing textbook, and buying waaaaay too much stuff at Sephora, I had quite a lazy afternoon. I like to think it was just what I needed, though, and I'm feeling much more relaxed and ready to tackle more writing this weekend.

I wrote 3258 words today, or approximately thirteen pages. This got me through the rest of Malcolm and Amelia's wedding scene, and I'm about halfway through the subsequent breakfast. I intend to finish that scene tomorrow, then go back and revisit the first three chapters leading into the wedding to make sure they flow properly and are fast-paced enough to build reader interest. If I'm going to accomplish all of that tomorrow, sleep is imperative tonight, so I suppose I should go to bed!

A Three-Day Weekend Awaits

I'm taking tomorrow off, and not a moment too soon -- while I did manage to work on the rewrites for MARRIAGE on Monday and Tuesday, I failed in my efforts yesterday and today. I can't let my progress stall; the Golden Heart nomination is a huge opportunity, but I'm not comfortable querying with what I have because I'm convinced that I need to rewrite a couple of chapters. Since my day-job boss is in town next week, my evenings are going to be booked up, and so progress this weekend is critical.

Meanwhile, I keep watching the video of Susan Boyle's performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" on "Britain's Got Talent." I'm a total sucker for underdogs, and her appearance and general demeanor made her the ultimate underdog; everyone in the audience was sure that this was going to be one of those cringe-worthy trainwrecks that happen in the early rounds of talent competitions. Instead, she performed "I Dreamed a Dream" so well that it's gotten over fifteen *million* views on YouTube in less than a week, and pushed the original Broadway recording of the song back onto the Top 40 charts. How incredible is that? If I never sell my books, perhaps I'll go on a variety show in twenty years and attempt to do a dramatized reading of one of my scenes, although I doubt that's the best way to break into publishing.

It's bedtime; tomorrow, I have to drop my car off to get serviced, and then I'm going to seek out a cafe and write the rest of the day. What are your plans for the weekend?

I Dreamed a Dream

Watch this chick from "Britain's Got Talent" -- absolutely amazing performance, and it sends tingles up my spine to watch her dream coming true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

(sorry, they disabled embedding)

Silver Bells and Cockle Shells

Wedding bells are tolling for Malcolm and Amelia -- for about the fourth time. After rereading AN INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE on Saturday, I identified a couple of areas that I want to change, and their wedding and subsequent wedding breakfast are at the top of the list. While the rest of the book is snappy and dialogue-driven, the wedding and breakfast are throwbacks to my first draft; I loved the concept and so kept the scenes virtually intact, but now they don't fit in with the rest of the book, and the heavy usage of narrative instead of dialogue makes the pace come to a screeching (albeit brief -- but not brief enough to maintain agent interest) halt.

So the concept is staying the same, but I'm rewriting that section from scratch. I wrote four or five pages tonight while sitting in a cafe after work, and was intrigued to discover that, while I changed everything and kept only a couple of original lines, I told the same exact story, with totally different details, without deviating from the original word count by more than 100 words. This surprised me; clearly I have a strong sense of how long the scene should last, even if my version of the scene has changed.

Overall, I'm happy with the progress I made tonight and am feeling much better about the rest of the edits on my plate. It was really hard to jump in at first; I "finished" AN INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE in December, and all of my creative focus has been on Ferguson and Madeleine instead. But once I started writing, Malcolm and Amelia came back to me -- and I think they're happy that their wedding is going to reflect the rest of their ridiculous romance.

Now, though, it's bedtime; I need to carve out some writing time tomorrow, which will be difficult due to an early-morning dentist appointment and a dinner engagement with some friends. Wish me (and Malcolm and Amelia) luck!

Rereading AN INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE

I procrastinated as long as I could this morning (albeit with useful distractions, such as changing the sheets on my bed and cleaning my kitchen), but I spent the rest of the day rereading the entire manuscript of AN INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE. I had not read it all in its entirety since I submitted it for the Golden Heart contest in December; after the deadline, I spent a couple of months relaxing/seeing friends/working on my query letter, and then submitted to a few agents in February. I was hearing back from them at the same time that I heard back from the Golden Heart -- and while I'm thrilled to be a finalist in the Regency category, I haven't had the same luck with agents.

The verdict after a reread? I'm really happy with it overall, particularly with the last two-thirds of the book. But, with the space and distance of a few months spent doing other things, there are a few pieces that leap out to me and begged to be changed. In particular, there are a couple of scenes that I love -- but that I should have rewritten when I did second-draft rewrites of everything else, because while I love the idea of the scene, the style no longer fits the stronger, faster style of the rest of the book.

So, I'm not in despair mode; I'm actually pretty satisfied with what I have, and I'm confident in my ability to fix the pieces I'm not satisfied with. It will require a couple of cuts, a couple of new scenes, and a couple of rewrites of existing scenes -- but I'm setting a goal of being done by mid-May so that I can start querying again before the madness of summer hits in earnest.

Now I'm off -- I'm having dinner at a friend's house, which is a welcome respite from my hermitage, even if I took the unusual route of buying dessert (tiramisu cake from Whole Foods) rather than making it myself due to a) time constraints and b) a lack of ingredients already in the house. Theoretically I should buy some groceries, but the book comes first. Have a lovely weekend!

Work is the Devil

Actually, work is not the devil; I'm very fortunate to have a job in these "troubled times," as newscasters like to remind us hourly. But, my day job is rather demanding, and it's all the more difficult to stay focused when all I want to do is write. I persevered today, staying in the office for ten hours and then working at home for two hours beyond that, but I'm hopeful that I can get caught up enough that I will not need to do anything for the day job this weekend.

In other news, I read this interesting stat on Publishers Lunch, from USA Today: Stephenie Meyer accounted for sixteen percent of total sales for the books they were tracking on their bestseller list. Sixteen percent! That makes my Golden Heart nomination look like a Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes invitation. I shall never get to sixteen percent market share unless I focus on the book -- so this weekend is going to be spent in hermitville. I have a birthday party to attend tomorrow night (at a country/western bar with line dancing, which should be interesting), but beyond that, I'm going to hole up with Malcolm, Amelia, and the dozen felt-tipped pens that I bought tonight and figure out what, if anything, I want to change before submitting to agents again. It's not the most fun weekend in the world, but if it gets me a step closer to Stephenie Meyer territory, it's worth it.

Social Networking == Quicksand

With the exciting news that AN INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE finaled in the RWA Golden Heart contest, I feel like I need to be building out my web presence in anticipation of the day when I sell my novel (or the day when I realize I'm never going to sell my novel and need some e-friends to cry to). In my quest to efficiently tackle the online space, I set up a new Sara Ramsey Facebook account and decided to dedicate more time to blogging here. I've been on Facebook for around twenty-four hours, but thanks to some support from my personal friends and the addition of quite a few of my fellow finalists, I've built up a not-too-shabby friend list. I'm looking forward to branching out more into the publishing world as I start to build out content, but I feel like this is a good start.

However, social networking is such a time sink that I wonder if I would be better off spending the time writing. In addition to Facebook and the blog, I also started a Twitter account today (you can follow me @ramseyromance -- linked to in the sidebar on this page). I've stayed away from Twitter, believing it to be yet another plague in the multitude of procrastination-enabling addictions that litter the web. With my blogs, my website, my email, my Google Reader, and the fact that I work for a tech company and spend ten hours a day online there, I'm already online enough -- Twitter seemed like the last straw. But I signed up today because it's all the rage, and I need to go where the potential readers are. Whether I'll stick with Twitter remains to be seen (the pressure to come up with something witty in 140 characters is intense, particularly since I'm used to writing 140 lines), but I do feel like there's some happy medium between the amount of time I spent getting things set up today and the practically nonexistent social networking that I do in my personal life.

What do you think about Twitter? Is it the Facebook-killer, or a flash in the pan?

Madeleine's Theme Song

I don't necessarily have a fully-applicable playlist when I write (for instance, I've been listening to Nine Inch Nails' "The Hand That Feeds" recently, which has little to do with romance -- although come to think of it, perhaps it does relate to Ferguson's relationship with his father!). But, this lovely song really puts me in the mood to write about Madeleine. Regina Spektor's voice is gorgeous, the music video is captivating, and the sentiment behind "Fidelity" matches up well to Madeleine's approach to life before she met Ferguson.



What do you think? Do you associate characters in books with any particular songs?

AN INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE is a Finalist for the 2009 RWA Golden Heart!

I announced this on the website two weeks ago, but in the interest of picking up my blog again -- AN INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE is a finalist in the Romance Writers of America's Golden Heart® contest! The Golden Heart is given out every year for the best unpublished manuscripts across several romance subgenres, and I'm one of six finalists in the Regency Romance category.

This is a huge boost to my confidence, even if it's not a guarantee that I'll sell my beloved book. I won't find out whether it will win until the RWA national conference in July, but until then, I'm going to be revising (more on that another day) and submitting to agents like crazy.

I'm also going to start blogging here again -- no really, I promise this time! I've spent the last couple of weeks celebrating (and dealing with some craziness in the day job), so now it's time to get back to business.