April Status Report: 2012 Goals

I can’t believe its time again to reflect on my 2012 goals already!  April slipped by so fast, I’m surprised I got anything accomplished.  This month was full of revisions and editing, which is productive and worthwhile, but very quiet.

Sadly, I have to admit a failure, but I don’t see it as a bad thing.  An unexpected development has forced me to push back a deadline, but I believe it will be for the best in the long run.  Sometimes, it’s all about keeping my eye on the big picture.

1) Submit five pieces of writing to contests, journals, literary magazines, or the newspaper.

I just finished a short story for a small contest and I’m really happy with how it turned out.  I’m letting it sit for a little while before I go in and do some final revisions, but I’ll have it submitted before the deadline, (June 10^th).  Yay!

2) Finish minor changes in my first novel.

April turned out to be great month for my first novel.  I was able to go in adjust dialogue in three sections, which will help alleviate a problem all four of my beta readers spotted.  In addition, I’m in the process of figuring out where to add a scene I took out during the last revision.  I’ve debated where it should go for a long time and I now have it narrowed down to two places.  I’m hoping to have some time today to make a final decision.

The first 30 pages of my manuscript have also been submitted for a full assessment thanks to the prize I won in the Fourth Writer’s Platform Building Campaign, (See Celebrating a Win).  I’m looking forward to some honest feedback that will help me make further improvements.

3) Work on my second novel.

I didn’t get to work on this project in the traditional sense, but I’ve done a lot of scribbling in my novel notebook. I got stuck trying to create a transition between two sections and I finally figured out what was missing thanks to some late night brainstorming.  However, I still managed to get a bit of a word count.

Starting word count: 50, 831
End word count: 51, 381
Total word count: 550

The story is always on my mind and in the last week, my characters have started to get chatty.  I’m getting snippets of conversations between them and I love what I’m hearing.

4) Send out five query letters and be ready with a synopsis.

This is going to sting a little to write.  In March, I set a deadline to have a query letter sent out by the end of April.  Unfortunately, some unforeseen circumstances have prevented that from happening. The critique I won in the Writer’s Platform Building Campaign allowed me to send my query for an assessment as well.  I haven’t received all the feedback yet, so I’m hesitant to do anything until I receive a full critique.  Based on what I’ve received so far, I believe it will be incredibly helpful and will give me a much stronger chance of landing an agent.

On the bright side, I have plenty of time to participate in Pitchapalooza via the World Literary Café.  The Book Doctors are accepting queries in a little contest all the way until May 15.  The winner’s query will be put in the hands of an agent.   Hence, my new deadline is May 15.  I won’t miss this one!

On the synopsis front, I sent it to a beta reader who gave me some great advice.  I’ve made a few changes and its already looking better!

5) Keep up with my blog.

Again, this hasn’t been a problem!  I’ve slowed down a bit this month in order to maintain my sanity and create more time for other projects, but ultimately, posts have been steady.  In April, I posted a total of 25 times and I appreciate everyone who stopped by to read and comment.  Thank you so much for continuing to follow my journey!

6) Network more with other writers.

April has been another great month in terms of networking.  The more I explore the World Literary Café, the more I love it.  They offer so much in terms of classes, forums, and links.  I’m still exploring and I’m sure I’ll find loads more!  Thanks to WLC, I’ve been able to boost my network considerably.

My Facebook Page has grown from 41 to 110 Likes

On Twitter, my followers have grown from 156 to 211.

Thank you so much to everyone who has clicked those “Like” and “Follow” buttons!  I appreciate all of you so much!

To follow me on either network, please visit my sidebar.

7) Inspire other writers to keep writing.

As always, I hope my presence is positive and inspiring.

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c.b. 2012

March Status Report: 2012 Goals

March has proven to be a busy in terms of the goals I set for 2012. This month was all about building my platform, which gave a few goals a nice jolt of progress.  However, the time and energy that went into platform building took time away from other projects on my list.  While frustrating at times, the lack of balance was a necessary evil.  The business of writing, (or in my case learning the business of writing), often asks writers to step back from the process of writing.  It’s painful to do, but I’m hoping it’ll pay off in the long run.

1) Submit five pieces of writing to contests, journal, literary magazines, or the newspaper.

When I wrote The Last Page I thought it might be something interesting to submit to some of the literary journals and magazines I have on my list.  It received good feedback and I’m encouraged to take it a step further after doing a tad more revising and editing. Thanks so much to everyone who left comments!

2) Finish minor changes in my first novel.

This is one of the projects that went untouched.  It’s going to get much more of my attention in April, mainly because of the progress made on Goal #4.

3) Work on my second novel.

Novel #2 kept me up at night with brainstorming and writing due to an almost constant stream of inspiration!  The story is moving forward with incredible speed, (I’ve never written anything this large so fast!) and I love how the plot line is coming together.  In addition,  the characters continue to evolve in amazing ways and I am so excited to be their chosen writer.

• Starting word count: 49,651
• End word count: 50,831
• Total for March: 1,180

4) Send out five query letters and be ready with a synopsis.

The big news on this front is the fact that I finished writing a synopsis draft.  At the end of February I set a deadline of March 15 and that seemed to do the trick.  I was actually done well before that date and have already begun revisions.  In early April, I plan on sending a revised version to several beta readers.

As a result of completing the synopsis, my query letter got a total makeover.  Once sentence continues to bother me, but that will be resolved soon enough.

Seeing as deadlines seem to agree with me, I am setting a deadline of sending out my first query before the end of April.  Hold me to it!

5) Keep up with my blog.

Yet again, this goal has not been a problem.  I find so much inspiration and encouragement in the blogosphere!  I wrote and posted 25 blog entries this month and I appreciate everyone who stopped by to read and comment on them.

6) Network more with other writers.

Thanks to the Fourth Writers’ Platform Building Campaign, March was another banner month for my networking goals.  I’ve continued to meet and connect with so many wonderful people in the writing community.

In the campaign, my second entry (See Fatespeak), was shortlisted, but I have yet to hear anything more.  As soon as the site of the campaign is updated, I’ll have more information.  Regardless, I’m pretty excited to make it on the short list.  It’s the first time my writing has ever been recognized beyond the first round of judging in any competition.

UPDATE:  I found out this morning (thank you mywithershins and Melissa Maygrove for telling me!), that I won the Second Campaign Challenge!! I wish a had a better word than “excited,” but at the moment I’m too busy doing a happy dance to think of one!

As for social networking, my circle continues to grow as I follow writers, agents, and publishers.  I’m so honored to see my numbers grow on both Facebook and Twitter.  Thanks so much to everyone who follows me.

• Facebook – I’m thrilled to report my Facebook page has experience another jump in followers, from 32 to 41.  My page was recently given a make-over to the timeline layout.  It looks amazing!  You can see it by clicking on the link: http://www.facebook.com/C.B.Wentworth. I appreciate all Likes so much. Thank you to those who have already clicked that button!
• Twitter – 81 to 156 followers.  This was a huge a jump and I’m so excited to reach triple digits! While, I’m still learning Twitter lingo and etiquette, I’ve really enjoyed connecting to so many fellow writers.
• If you are on Facebook or Twitter, follow along and I’ll follow back as long as you’re not a spambot. Shortcut buttons for both are on my sidebar.

Recently, I joined the World Literary Cafe, (see the button on my sidebar), and I plan on exploring this network over the next couple of weeks.  It looks like another golden opportunity to network with readers and writers.

7) Inspire other writers to keep writing.

As always, I can only hope I inspire those around me!

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c.b. 2012

Decoding the Novel Synopsis

After finally completing a rough draft of a synopsis for my novel, I’ve emerged from the haze of confusion (hopefully) a little wiser to the process.  While I’m still a few drafts away from a polished agent-ready synopsis, I can’t help but reflect on everything I learned from just sitting down and writing the first draft.

1) My biggest roadblock was figuring out how to condense 80,000 words down to one page.  I went into panic mode – How am I supposed to do that?!  This is where blogging most likely saved me from total failure.  I started writing book reviews about some of my favorite books with the logic that if I can learn to write snapshot overviews of other novels, I’ll eventually be able to do it for my own.  It worked like a charm.  When I started writing my synopsis, I put away all my notes, outlines, and the novel draft itself.  I simply asked myself, “Okay, what is this book about?” and started writing a summary just like I’d done a dozen times before.

2) The layout of a synopsis is essentially that of a basic 5-paragraph essay, which is the same format I use to teach my students how to write.  I have a teaching tool called the Essay Hamburger and I realized all the parts of my novel could be filed into the various parts of the hamburger.  All I did was modify it to match the requirements of a synopsis. This is by no means a perfect format, but it does provide a nice place to start.

Each layer of the burger represents a paragraph and can easily be modified for any genre or special requirements.

3) There are a number of outlets with information about writing a synopsis, but it’s crucial to find resources that relate to the genre of the novel in question.  My novel falls into the mainstream/literary category, which means synopsis formats that work for sci-fi, mystery, or romance will not totally jive with my character driven story.  This little epiphany came courtesy of Writer Unboxed.  Click on the link for a great article that offers common sense advice about writing the perfect synopsis for your book.

4) If I had it to do all over again, I would write the synopsis first and the query letter second.  The query letter requires an even shorter summary of the novel and it has to pack a  punch to get an agent’s attention.  Why I decided to start with the more difficult query, I will never know.  Shortly after starting my synopsis, I ended up re-writing my entire query letter.  Something clicked and I finally understood what goes in a synopsis and what goes in a query.

5) It’s not as hard as I thought.  Fear, apprehension and panic made this waaaaay more difficult than it needed to be.  The most important part of the process was learning to relax and trust my abilities.

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p.s. I feel compelled to note that I finished the rough draft 11 days before the deadline I set in my February Status Report.  So, I can also say I learned the value of setting a deadline!

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c.b. 2012

February Status Report: 2012 Goals

The second month of 2012 has gone by so fast, I can hardly believe its time again to check in on my 2012 goals. February is typically one of the busiest for my day job, so I didn’t get quite as far on some of my goals as I would have liked, but I’m still very happy at the progress I’ve made this month.

1) Submit five pieces of writing.

I’ve done a bit more research on literary magazines both in print and online that might fit my writing style.  It’s a slow process and I have to keep telling myself that I am accomplishing something by doing painstaking research, even though I haven’t sent anything in just yet.

Research aside, I’ve written a new short story that might have some potential for submission.  I’m in the final stages of revision and should have a final draft in the next two weeks or so. I may post it to see if its working, so stay tuned!

2) Finish minor changes in my first novel.

I got as far as yanking out a previous hard copy draft and opening it up to the section I need to reinsert into the current draft.  After reading through it, I’m contemplating whether it should go back into the same place or if moving it somewhere else would better serve the story. It’ll work either way, but I remain in a quandary. The perfectionist in me is hesitant to do anything until that little knot in my stomach unties itself.  Believe me, I know I need to bite the bullet and just do it.

3) Work on my second novel.

The word count for this month stands at 857. While the word count isn’t nearly as high as it was for January, progress behind the scenes has been monumental.  Much of the work took place in my novel notebook, where I created two new characters and constructed a new development in the plot line.  For a while, I found myself battling between the original plan and a new idea that came to me during the writing process.  The word count should actually be around 1600, but I deleted the other half once I made the decision to work with the new scene. I’m really excited about this turn of events and I can’t wait to see where it takes the rest of the story.

Currently, the total word count for Novel #2 stands at 49,561.  The goal of reaching 60,000 by the end of the year is well within reach!

4) Send out five query letters and be ready with a synopsis.

Developments on this goal have only recently materialized.  I’m starting to feel the burn to get moving on this, thanks in large part to an e-mail I received from a friend.  Not only did she dream about the main character in my novel, (which is really amazing), but she had some ideas on what to include in the synopsis and how to structure it.  When I combined her ideas with mine, something finally clicked and I think I have a place to begin.  I’ve set a deadline of March 15 to have a rough draft for the synopsis completed.

5) Keep up with my blog.

Anyone who is a regular reader knows this goal has not been a problem at all!  In terms of posting, February has been my busiest month with 21 posts.  Thank you to all my readers for continuing to stop by to read and leave comments.  Your support is so encouraging and greatly appreciated!

6) Network more with other writers.

I’ve always viewed this goal as the most difficult as it pulls me the furthest out of my comfort zone, but I did make some gains this month:

• I joined the Fourth Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign via Rach Writes . . . . So far, I’ve networked with 30 new bloggers and completed the first challenge, (see The Call).  The process has been tough for me, but on the whole its been a fun experience.  I’m grateful for the chance to connect to so many wonderful new people and fantastic writers!
• I joined Pinterest as a means to network with people beyond the blogging world.  If you enjoy crafts and travel pictures, click the red Pinterest button on my sidebar and follow me!  I should warn you, however, that Pinterest is very addictive!
• My Facebook page continues to grow as I’ve gone from 20 followers to 32.  If you’re on Facebook and would like a direct line to new blog posts, musings of a writer, and cool links, click the like button on my sidebar and follow along.  Feel free to post on the wall!
• Over on Twitter, I watched my list of followers go from 65 to 81.  I’m hoping to hit 100 by the end of March.  If you’re on Twitter, you can follow me by visiting my sidebar and clicking on the Twitter button.

7) Inspire others to keep writing.

All I can do is hope that I’ve encouraged others to write by visiting and commenting on blogs whenever possible.  They say writing is a solitary act, but the longer I stay in the game, the more I realize this is a team sport!

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c.b. 2012

Too Much Information

The good thing about living the Age of Information is there’s a lot of information readily available. The bad thing is there’s a lot of information readily available. I find myself wedged between my thirst for knowledge relating to writing/publishing on one side and the overwhelming sense that my brain is about to explode on the other.  In the last week alone, I bought three writing magazines filled with helpful articles covering writing tips, reference sources for agents, publication listings, websites, submission checklists, and advice from bestselling novelists. I’m soaking it all up like a dry shammy, but I’m fairly certain all the pieces of information I highlighted in purple are going to get lost in the shuffle.

Information Overload!

I always feel like I’m on a steep learning curve because I haven’t been published (beyond a little blip in the local newspaper) and I think a lot of other unpublished writers feel the same way.  We are constantly researching the industry and trying to figure out how it all works – knowledge is power, right? However, I can’t help but question how much is too much.  There are a million books out there with a tried-and-true methods of writing a novel, magazines that come out every month with loads of do’s and don’ts, and websites that teach everything from writing query letters to crafting the perfect sentence.  When do we stop listening to what everyone else says and start relying on our own instincts?  I’m torn between wanting to follow the rules in order to be a publisher pleaser and wanting to break every single rule in the name of creativity.

Agents are looking for fresh voices and strong writing that stands out above the rest, but there is also a strict code of rules when it comes to the format of query letters, synopses, and manuscripts. The most frustrating part of it all is that some of these rules are infuriatingly vague. Each agent is looking for something different, but they all speak the same secret language.  Now, I say this as an outsider looking in and perhaps this reflects my naïveté concerning the whole process.  There’s also the fact that I’ve been staring at a blank page for months every time I sit down to write a synopsis. Even after reading multiple how-to articles and books, I still have no idea how to tackle this mountain.

As with most things in life, balance is the key.  Information gleaned from other people will help, but only to a certain level.  The rest has to come from me, which means I have to start making decisions on what pieces of advice I will follow and those I will ignore in favor of my own ideas.  In coming to this conclusion, I realize it’s not what I know that gets my foot in the publishing door, it’s the chances I’m willing to take to get my work noticed.

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c.b. 2012