Merry Wii-mas

How have everyone's xmas celebrations been?

This year, a handful of friends and I got together to do the xmas food-and-games thing. It was brilliant!
Not only did we have the most succulent turkey with beautiful herby stuffing and two delicious salads, we also had a pavlova (masterfully assembled by three drunk people) and a lot of yummy drinks.

We started at 10 am and finished some time around 3am. We had fun, games and more fun. We had brought our Wii, aka The Most Awesome Party Console, and much fun was had by all. We also played board games, and I now know three card games that I hadn't known previously. I'm awesome! ^_^

My brilliant composer friend played me a song he wrote for our show, and it was so rousing! It ins[ired me to finally go back and write some more. I had abandoned the project some time at the start of last year because my writing skills just weren't good enough to tackle a medium I'm not very comfortable in, but now I feel like I can get somewhere with it. I'm looking forward to picking it up again.

Now that I'm back home, it's time to look for more writing work. I've in fact just sent off an application for the perfect job. I don't want to mention it, but I couldn't think of a better workplace... Stay tuned and hopefully, there'll be good news some time soon.

Next stop: new year's. how are everybody's resolutions coming along?

Miss Snark's Crapometer - go and learn

I entered Miss Snark's Crapometer.
Basically, it means you send her your hook of <250 words and she tells you how much it sucks.
Well, guess what? mine had enough potential that i get to send the opening 750 words of my YA novel!
Whee! I'm so proud.
The feedback I got out of this whole exercise (not just from my entry, but from reading everyone else's and the comments) has been immensely valuable. My query letters will definitely improve from this.
Now, if only I could also improve my pages...

Wanna see my entry? Give me a comment on what you think of it, and how to improve it.

Emerald feedback

I just got my entries back from the RWA Emerald competition. Four judges per entry, which felt like a lot.
And sheesh, talk about variety!

For comparison, my ST entry (my much-beloved YA) scored 23, 23, 20, 35 (of 35)
Category entry #1 scored 18, 11, 36, 40 (out of 40, min of 7)
And category #2 scored 27, 25, 33, 37(out of 40)

Comments for the YA ranged from the judge being drawn in and liking the 'tough guy heroine' to 'there is no romance'. One judge loved the opening sentence heaps. One judge said (keep in mind that it says 'YA' (young adult) in the 'type/market' section): "I feel this book is written for a teenage reader in what I have read so far although it may change further in the book."
See, I'm not sure whether this judge doesn't trust my ability to keep it in the teen market or whether they didn't know it was supposed to be like this.
I loved the comments of the judge who gave me a perfect score (yes, I'm vain, but also the comments were exactly what I hoped the readers would get from it).
All in all, the comments were consistent, and I got a lot out of them, mainly that the book is absolutely on the right track and that people will both get it and like it. Yay!

Let's look at Category #1, the beach book that's still with Harlequin in partial at the moment.
On the heroine, I got the following comments: "I found her prejudices regarding people's reactions to her heritage offputting, and that hang-up overshadowed what other qualities she may have had." "She was very strong-minded." "She had the world at her feet and it all came crashing down." "I liked her at first but she became a bit 'dizzy' which didn't sit well with her professional character" (this was the most useful comment to me out of the lot) to "I enjoyed her. She was authentic and original."
On chemistry, comments ranged from "I liked that the author writes from both POVs. it makes the electricity so much more realistic." to "No chemistry to speak of." Interestingly, two judges scored chemistry at a 5/5, the others gave a 1 and a 2.

And finally the (by now rejected) category #2, my chef book. Some judges liked the different profession, one judge told me cooking shows aren't sexy. Two judges got the Iron Chef reference, which pleased me immensely.
One judge liked my heroine's 'girl next door' personality, another loathed her negativity. there were a lot of comments on the secondary characters being more sexy than the two mains. I'll definitely have another look at that aspect!
Overall, the comments were fairly consistent, even if the reactions were not.

Category #1 was an interesting case. So much variety! It seems you either loved or hated it. There was very little consistency. Cata 2 needs some work, and the YA is solid and just needs to be polished to evoke a more consistently passionate response.

I'm very pleased with the comments this year. They were useful to me. And most judges actually wrote something for each segment of the score sheet, which I am very grateful for.

Some rejections sting more than others.

I didn't do well with my two entries into the RWA Emerald's category section. That didn't bother me so much. Maybe I'm not emotionally invested in their success or failure (hey, could that be the problem??). Maybe I just believe that I'll figure out how to make them awesome at some stage. maybe I really knew they weren't that polished yet (they're in second draft and slow going).
But today I got the results for the single title section back. I didn't come in last, but I almost did.
Ouch.
Maybe it's because I believe in this story. Maybe it's because I genuinely can't make the opening any better at this stage. Maybe I'm blinded by love for the character. But for wahtever reason, this low rating really, really sucked.
I was so convinced this one would do well. That this book would be the one that would finally get me out of the bottom three of contest-dom.
Nope. not even close. Just another one to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
Sheesh, I suck.

Fortunately for me, I don't have time to mope. I have to tackle the mystery aspect (gah! I can't solve riddles, much less make one!).
Once it's done, I'm going to call in every favour I can to get as many people as possible to read this baby. And then it's going to find an agent. no matter how long it takes. It's a great book. Screw the judges.

Well, I'll hold off my real rant until the score sheets and comments come back. I'm hoping at least the category ones will be useful.

Blah. I changed my mind. I think I *will* mope.

In other news, I'm going to be a Golden Heart Judge! Muhahahahaha. Now the rubber band is on the other claw!
I'll try my hardest to be the kind of judge I wish I had gotten in any of my contests. Hopefully, I can be.