Capturing the Captcha

So, as I was commenting on a blog today, I typed in the captcha to post it, and once again... it was ALMOST a word. Maybe I'm the only one amused by this, but let me share a true story. My current manuscript is fantasy. I have created a world with all new creatures and people to name with... yanno... standard funky names. In order to avoid stepping on anyone's toes, I would go to Google and randomly type in letters until NOTHING came up. I wanted all new, never before seen words.

Following my train of thought yet regarding captchas? I now realize that THESE are what I should have used all along. I should have just gone and commented all over the place and jotted down the captchas. I think I might do that for my next book. Or MAYBE write a book ABOUT captchas and how they hide in the ethernet and randomly yell out their own names, and when someone types it, they're FREE! Sort of the bells and fairies thing.

Right. Lame.

Anyway, it seems like a silly little idea, so I'll probably do it. I'm all about the silly.

Love Link

I was quite surprised today to get a special Valentine from a co-blogger, Mr Writer of Wrongs himself, Terry Towery. True, he's a swell fella and always ready with a kind word, but I was honestly shocked to see I rated as one of his favorite blogs. Truly, I'm just rambling to myself with the occasional fleeting thought of 'oh, people might see this *EDIT EDIT EDIT*' I find Terry to be highly intelligent and destined for success. If you haven't seen his blog, go check him out at: Terry Towery http://awriterofwrongs.blogspot.com/

Now I pass this on to five people. This is really hard for me, so don't take it like the Dodge Ball picking nightmare that junior high inflicted on us. This is by no means a popularity contest and I LOVE YOU ALL. (yanno, if you take these sorts of things to heart, the blatant COLD dismissal of your peers) KIDDING KIDDING!

I could have done this alphabetically or who is the sexiest or even who has perdy perdy colors on their blogs, but I went with eenie meenie miney moe. Because I'm democratic like that.

First up: Justine Dell. Like me, she's an aspiring writer. She's always been a sweet sweet SWEET lady (need I repeat?) and makes me smile all the time. Especially when my f*ups are just as bad as hers. There's camaraderie there, I tell ya. Always supportive and keeping me from downing the Southern Comfort, I'd like to thank her for keeping me sane. Okay, I can't even TYPE that with a straight face. She's at http://justine-dell.blogspot.com/

Next we have: Tiffany Neal. She's a Texan so automatically good people. Okay, that's not true. She's a teacher and the world needs more of those. Plus she's a writer, she's sweet, and can talk herself out of speeding tickets. That's the kind of person you want on your team. She's at http://tiffanyneal.blogspot.com/

Next down the catwalk is: Emily White. I read her blog, but I'm a crappy commenter. She's also a writer, is incredibly supportive, always informative, and hey, those neon flowers and butterflies in the background rock. Don't ever change them. She's at http://steppingintofantasy.blogspot.com/

Coming into sight now is: Shelley Sly. Also a writer (see a trend here?), Shelley always helps me smile when I start to freak out over something stupid. She sent me my very first award ever and helped me feel like I was part of the blogging community. Yes, folks. Just a few short weeks ago, I had no idea how this thing worked. She's at http://storiesintheordinary.blogspot.com/

Last but not least, especially since she was the first: Pauline Thomas. She was my first stalker. I mean follower. I'm a bad, bad person because I read her posts and smile then say NOTHING. What kind of monster am I??? She's charming and funny, and it's a shame she doesn't have more followers to see how special she is. Go there. I demand it. Then again, I demand a lot of things. She's at http://anallegedauthor.blogspot.com/

And Terry, I clicked on that website for the lovelink thing, but there's not a place for 'look at me, I did it!' so I'm leaving it off this post. I actually read the fine print. That doesn't happen every day people! *sits in smug pride*

PS Blogger sucks. I had to recode this crap to prevent wall o'text.

Valentine's Day

Okay, I named my post that, but it has little to do with the greeting card day. I'm sure a lot of people are having romantic times with their loved ones, but today that's not me. It's cold and windy outside so I have no desire to go anywhere, even if we could agree on a restaurant. Instead, I am editing my story, which is a romantic pastime if you consider writing to be my first love. What better way to pass a day than to spend it with a manuscript?

Okay, I'm being facetious. I've made a lot of progress, though, and I'm feeling rather pleased with myself. First my story was over 150,000 words (OUCH) and I whittled away some subplot and made it 127,500 words. Then I edited it some more and got it down to 125,000 (give or take. okay, give) words and was feeling mighty proud. Now, thanks to frequenting a blog, I learned additional methods of editing so now I'm down to 123,000 words. Go me. I've shaved 27,000 words off my story.

Granted, I'm OCD, so no matter how many times I see 'a manuscript must be complete' I know I don't qualify for the simple reason that it won't ever be perfect enough for me. It's shiny and error-free (I'm fairly certain) and reads well, but I'm going to nitpick it every day. Even if I manage to get published, I'll still open the book and go 'man, I wish I could change that.'

Anyhoo, I hope you are all having a faboo day. Me, I'm gonna go find a blanket and bundle up.

The Perils of Querying

So, as a few of you know, I submitted my query to Query Shark. The experience has been invaluable and I love the suggestions (yes, even the manner they are given), but now I'm terrified that every agent that follows Janet's blog is going to see my query. Have they already judged it as something they don't want? As a fantasy writer, according to Query Tracker, there are only 107 agents that represent fantasy, so my options are more limited than other writers who write commercial fiction or romance or the like. It would be wonderful if Janet was interested in my story, but I don't expect it. She states on her Fineprint website what she represents and fantasy isn't one she prefers. I submitted my query in the hopes of having assistance (and it's been great) with writing my query, not to squeeze in a query for her to actually be interested in. It'd be wonderful if she likes it enough to send me in the direction of someone she knows that would be interested in it. I just worry I've shot myself in the foot and have already biased agents against my idea from them seeing my first query. Maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Just to Say It

Have you ever deliberately said something rather stupid? Like, you thought it over for a long while, stewed over it, agonized over it, knowing it was stupid but you just HAD to say it? Yeah, I did that today. Doing my usual agent browsing on Query Tracker, I was sending off queries to agents who list 'fantasy' as one of their topics. Ho-hum, type type type, enter into Excel to track so I don't double send... "WHOA!!!!"

That's pretty much what my eyes and heart said when I look at 'Clients' on one agent and I see that he is Dean Koontz's agent. My idol. The god upon whom my worship falls. I've been reading him since before I hit puberty, and I even wrote a nine page letter to him once and he WROTE ME BACK. It was amazing. Anyway, I'm thinking to myself 'well, this agent is WAAAAAAAAAAAAY out of my league, but what the hell...' So, I look at the submission guidelines and they're DIFFERENT than everyone else's. It said 'Write a paragraph about yourself.'

I was stumped. Totally stumped. Stared at the flashing cursor for ages with no idea where to start. Inevitably, thoughts like 'well, he's not going to represent YOU, moron, so what's it hurt to be totally honest?' start to take root. Eventually the evil voices in my head win out(after a LOOOOOONG debate of about five minutes. Which is long for ME. I've got ADHD) and I write my dazzling paragraph. With frank honesty. Go me. That man is going to open that email (or most likely his assistant) and think 1. I was on crack, or 2. It was some ploy to get noticed. It wasn't, honest. I was just...certain of my query's fate so went for the gusto.

I won't share all the grisly details. I just know that I said things (no TMI) that were less than professional when it came to what they ACTUALLY wanted to know about me.

added note after the fact: He stopped representing Koontz five years ago. I feel like a total idiot now.

Maybe I'm Just Naive

So, I had thought in this day and age of political correctness sexist behavior was poor sportsmanship (sportspersonship?). I had thought that a person's sex should have no bearing on their credentials in most every aspect of opinions and voice (save for men speaking of breastfeeding or women discussing prostate exams) and all thoughts were created equal. Au, contraire. How wrong I have been. First I read from 'the respected sources' that people are not sure about books written by women with a male protag's voice. Okay, fine. Whatever floats your boat. Doesn't seem quite fair to me, but hey, what do I know? Then things start to slant even further as time goes by. One blogger I frequent has said 'someone mentioned...' twice now in his entries, and that person was me - a woman. Other times he mentions 'male person said' and gives a name. Again, I let that slide. I'm a pretty understanding lass. I guess the last straw came when I offered a suggestion on a site, got no response, then a male said the same thing I did below me, then several people go 'oh, yeah. I love manly man's advice.' ARGH. Am I just talking to myself???

Okay, rant done.