Oh, whoops. The Award Also Goes to...

Oh, and because I'm an idiot, I forgot to list the six people I should pass it on to. Luckily, I have six of you!

So, without further ado, I bestow this prestigious award on:

Emily at http://steppingintofantasy.blogspot.com/

Tiffany at http://tiffanyneal.blogspot.com/

Pauline at http://anallegedauthor.blogspot.com/

Terry at http://awriterofwrongs.blogspot.com/

Dan at http://danradke.blogspot.com/

Charity at http://charitywrites.blogspot.com/

And since you'll all get this update, consider yourselves tagged :-)

I Won an Award

I won an award. Go me. Now the painful part ensues: listing ten things about myself that are unusual or odd (which a limit of ten is so restricting, btw).

1. I played the Fairy Godmother in a play and had to sing 'Bibbity Bobbity Boo' in a scary yellow dress and smack 'mice' on the head with my wand. I was 11, so I greatly enjoyed beating on my classmates without getting in trouble.

2. My first and second cars were 70s Volkswagens in the 90s. I miss them so much. I now have an HHR.

3. I am possibly the only female who has not read, nor will ever read, any book about vampires in Oregon. My 13 year old tried to get me to. I made it to page 8. Every other female relation (mother and sisters) is in love with Edward. I know this makes me the freak.

4. I started writing novel length work by writing Harry Potter fanfic. Snape is hawt.

5. My first concert was Cinderella/Bon Jovi. I was 13. My last concert was Red/Seether/Breaking Benjamin/Three Days Grace. I have tickets for my favorite band, Blue October, in April. Maybe this isn't 'odd' but I prefer their albums from ten years ago, and that's sort of odd.

6. I've never read J.D. Salinger. This seems to be an issue lately with the recent passing of this literary idol.

7. My ex-husband named our daughter after "Holli Wood" from Cool World. I am ashamed of this.

8. I've never found George Clooney or Brad Pitt sexy. I'd snog Alan Rickman in a heartbeat.

9. I attend Ren Faires. Lots of them. I have many costumes. I'm a dork.

10. In the last five years, I've never bought my father a birthday or Christmas present that was not Pink Floyd related in some way. It's a 'thing' we have.

Okay, there we are. 10 things about me that are weird without being TMI or disgusting.

Self Doubt

Self doubt. We all have it, right? I want to have faith in my book, but there are so many writers out there that I'm competing against. I'm afraid of that narrow line between arrogance and confidence. I've never been particularly arrogant about myself, but when it comes to reading other people's ideas and writing...I feel myself being judgmental, and I hate that. And I know other people are judging my work and I want to know what they think...but I fear it, too. What if I just THINK I'm good? It's all a matter of opinion.

Things That Amuse

Do you ever get tickled by something, then there's no one around at that moment to share how funny it is?

Example: I was reading reviews for the book NEED on a site, and it had this one:

"If you asked Stephen King and Stephanie Myers to co-author a book, they would come up with NEED." -Justine Magazine

This amuses me for several reasons. Firstly, they spelled the second author's name wrong, as it should be 'Meyer' and secondly, which was truly the source of my infinite amusement, King would never work with Meyer. Okay, he didn't come out and say it, but he said enough for me to know that he thinks what I do - the writing is not that great. I won't say more in case I offend others who like the story.

Another amusing thing that I saw was a new writer at a blog I go to has a clear knock-off of a popular movie, and repeated attempts to get her to highlight the differences have failed. This in and of itself is not amusing (okay, maybe a little bit), but the transparent scheme to create a new account and address the blog owner who is an agent and tell them that the 'other' author has 'what looks like a best seller' and they should go look at it to tell her how to write it better. *Headdesk-but laughing. A lot.* My point is that I had NO ONE to IM, call, or otherwise harrass into seeing this fabulousness because none of my friends care about that sort of thing. *SIGH*

So, I'm sharing it with the void. I'm highly amused this morning.

So, I Think it's Time to Re-Think YA

I've always been pretty sure what I thought was YA, but now I'm starting to think my novel is not that. The more I read about what teenagers expect from a book (as I always just read them and had my own expectations), the more I see that my book won't fill that need. I feel that there's plenty of kids that will like it, but it has a dark plot and doesn't end all puppies and rainbows. As much as I don't want to, I think I'm going to have to bump it up to just Fantasy instead of YA Fantasy, especially since (if the series gets to continue) my main character ages twenty years by the end of the story. My thinking at the time (which now is so amateur and idiotic) was that, as a teenager, I greatly enjoyed books like Dune and Mists of Avalon which were about young kids who eventually became adults and had children, so why wouldn't kids enjoy my book that will do the same? Geez, Christi, maybe because those books weren't YA. *slaps self on forehead*

Stuck in My Own Personal Query Hell

Do you ever get that incredible sinking feeling? I've had it all day since I realized that the query I sent to ten potential agents was crap. C-R-A-P *capital period.* My story is pretty interesting, I think. I've got kids from 12-19 that love it, and adults from 30-55 years old that love it and wonder why on earth I am not published yet. No, I don't mean relatives and friends. The problem is clearly my shitty query letter that is boring. How do I know it's boring? Because I posted it on a forum board AND (gods help me) Query Shark, and the vote was unanimous: boring boring boring. Maybe I should feel at least a little special that Janet picked my query to review and didn't really rip me to shreds; just said I don't have any specifics which made it boring. So, on I plod, trying to formulate that shining, radiant query that will make an agent spit their coffee out and shriek "MATSUTAKE!" ....or something to that effect.