Platitudes, Schmatitudes

Unlike my darling critique partner, I don't need someone else creating annoying acronyms to keep me on track. I consider myself extremely lucky that i can announce that i just finished my WIP! Battle for Valhalla, an exciting urban fantasy about a kick-ass Valkyrie heroine, is now done. Woo hoo!

And, even better, the agent i met with in Dallas, at the RWA National Conference, emailed me and said "You have an interesting premise and some intriguing characters, and I’d love to see the complete manuscript." Pitching rocks, no matter what Sonja says.

Which means, of course, that Sonja now has to rework her priority list (I'm always throwing things out of whack) and make editing my most recent writing! And, of course, while she's doing that, I'll be relaxing in the south of France. Yep, that's right, I get to go on vacation. Lucky me!

Of course, not so lucky is the fact that as soon as I'm back, school starts. Anyone have any study tips? If you do, I'll send you a book. Yeah, that's right, I will. Not Sonja. She can't be the only one in this partnership giving away things (or paying for postage). So send me either a study tip or a horror story from school and Sonja will pick a winner and I'll send off a book. When I'm back from France, that is. :)

I'll actually have internet access in France, so you might even get a post from me. But don't hold your breath, since there is an awful lot of cheese and wine calling my name.

Should i rub it in some more? Or maybe i could create an acronym... SUCKS: Sonja Unfortunately Can't Kill Skye.

The Marvel of the Internet

Up until just recently, I was convinced that the internet was the best invention ever (thanks Al Gore!), but today, I'm beginning to rethink that statement. After returning from the RWA National Conference, I had 3 requests for partials that I needed to send in (hooray for me!). One of the agents even asked for me to email them to her, which I thought was a great idea.

"Wow," I thought, "someone who understands the interwebs! How handy for me!"

And since i was already submitting three sets of partials, I decided to query two other agents who I was very interested in. Both accepted e-queries as well, which made my day. So the night before last, I arranged all my stuff, organized the queries and sent them off into cyberspace. It was around 11pm, I think, since i do my best work at night.

"How simple that was!" I said, dreading my visit to the post office the next day to send off the two remaining partial requests.

Until the next morning. When i woke up and discovered that I had ALREADY received a rejection from one of my slush pile queries. Less than 12 hours had passed and already I was crushed. Usually, you have time to come to terms with submitting a query and the possibility of a rejection. But i was still riding high on the euphoria of actually submitting again, after a very long hiatus.

Sigh.

Still, no worries. I'm sure that the others will do better. After all, now it's been more than 24 hours and I still haven't gotten any more rejections. Hoorah for me!

Also, I'm told by Sonja that I'm supposed to post the winner of our fabulous "What Personality Type Are You? Contest" I'm pleased to announce that Becky is our wonderful winner of Bite Me If You Can, by Lindsay Sands. Please email Sonja with your address and she'll send it right off to you! Congratulations.

Back to my pain... Anyone else have any excruciating rejection stories you want to share? Post them and I'll give away... uh... some book. Maybe one of Sonja's! :)

My Psychopathic Tendencies

Well, we're back from Dallas, and both intact in our opposite corners of the country. Skye managed to survive my raving psychopathicness regarding conference with grace and aplomb. (I'm not really sure what aplomb is but it's a cool word and I'm pretty sure she has it.)

As it turns out, my raving psychopathicness actually paid off. I went to all my psychopathically planned workshops and learned a whole bunch about the topic I went to conference this year to learn about: characterization. By far the best workshop I took was Marliss Melton's workshop on using the Myers-Briggs personality test to profile and match your hero and heroine. It was a BIG lightbulb moment.

But I got curious and wondered where I myself would fall on the Myers-Briggs scale, so I went and took the test. Apparently I am an ISFJ (Introverted Sensing Feeling Judger), otherwise known as a Protector Guardian. And, lo and behold, it explains my psychopathic tendencies regarding filling every minute of conference with useful stuff. See that J at the end that makes me a Judger? That means I like to plan stuff. I like to have the decision made, and then stick to it. It's not my fault, it's my personality's fault.

Other stuff about me, according to my ISFJ status, that will make Skye laugh because it's so true:

And although they're hurt by being treated like doormats, they are often unwilling to toot their own horns about their accomplishments because they feel that although they deserve more credit than they're getting, it's somehow wrong to want any sort of reward for doing work (which is supposed to be a virtue in itself).

Poor Skye has heard me whine about my day job often enough to groan, "dear god, so true."

They are capable of forming strong loyalties, but these are personal rather than institutional loyalties; if someone they've bonded with in this way leaves the company, the ISFJ will leave with them, if given the option.

Ooh, again with doing that exact thing in my day job.

They are usually as concerned with being "nice" as with strict propriety.

This trait makes me an endless target for Skye's mockery. Luckily, I don't feel the need to be "nice" to her.

They are often unable to either hide or articulate any distress they may be feeling.

So Saturday night I was wandering aimlessly around our hotel room going, "I don't want to pack. I don't want to go home. I don't want a day job. Life sucks. I feel like crap." Wisely, she saw through my inability to ACCURATELY articulate my distress and recommended rum and sleep, which in fact cured most of the yuckies.

This childlike Ne is the likely source (coupled with fun-loving Extraverted Feeling) of the practical joking, punning and (usually harmless) impishness of some ISFJs.

Impish is such a good word.

So what are you? Go take the test. Come on, don't pretend like you don't have an hour or two to kill gazing at your naval.

Skye says we're supposed to give away books as prizes since we both brought home a buttload of books from conference, so if you go take the test and tell me what type you are, you're in the running for a copy of Bite Me If You Can by Lindsay Sands.

Dallas, Baby, Dallas!

Okay, so it doesn't have quite the same ring to it as Vegas, but whatever. I'm headed there. So is Sonja, but this post is about me. All me. Yeah, baby.

I so thoroughly enjoyed Dallas on my way through the last time that this time I'm going to stay. On purpose, that is. Still, my previous layover not withstanding, this should be a fun trip. Assuming of course, that I don't kill Sonja.

For those of you who don't know Sonja, let me just tell you. She's a great girl. And wonderful. And my bestest buddy. Who else would I share a room with at the RWA National Conference? However, is, in a word, a bit... enthusiastic, is how i shall put it.

For those you who don't know me, I'm laid back. Relaxed. Don't get worked up about much. Very calm. (Sometimes in a hyperactive way). But I'm not a raving psychopath about planning out every minute of my day.

Not that Sonja is, either. At least, not normally. But she is showing raving tendencies when discussing the conference. When you see her list of things she hasn't done, that doesn't include the 12 million that she HAS done. :) I'm more of the "Oh, right, I'm going to conference. Cool." type than "Oh my god, I must plan and pack and prepare ahead of time! Eeek. More p words. Pitch!!" Pitching doesn't scare me. Because, frankly, if i can't get excited about my book and tell someone all about how wonderful it is, then they probably aren't going to want to read it in the first place. But I digress. Since I love her dearly I'm willing to sacrifice my peace and quiet in a hotel room for a roommate that is constantly pestering me to get out and hang out at the bar and network.

And people think I'm the extrovert of the two of us.

Still, dragging me out of my shell is probably for the best. I mean, after all, that enthusiasm and drive is probably why Sonja is PUBLISHED and I'm not. So i guess you'll see me at the bar. And maybe in rehab later. Even so, darn it all, it's going to be a good conference! See you in Dallas!

8 Billion Things I Need to Do Before Conference

1. Edit Lying Eyes into some semblance of a decent novel. I'm told it needs more Bad Guy and less fainting. The heroine tends to get light-headed with her new found psychic powers, and the literal fade to black-- or passing out-- is one of my favorite cliff-hanger endings. I may have gone a little overboard with it. (Do you hear that noise? That's the sound of Skye violently rolling her eyes. Or it might be the sound of her wailing, "God! She fainted again! Check her blood pressure or something."

2. Edit the Lying Eyes pitch for more power. I may need to make it longer. Editors tend to let you get through your whole spiel before interrupting to ask you questions about motivation and stuff (unlike agents, grr), and right now my spiel is only about 30 seconds long. That leaves a lot of time for the editor to come up with awkward are-we-done-yet questions for me, or answer her cell phone and then request my manuscript out of guilt for answering her cell phone during my pitch. The latter I'm kind of ok with, but I don't like awkward are-we-done-yet questions.

3. Track down the "Love In Shadow" cards that are supposed to be coming from Vista Print. They are stupendously cool and I got an excellent deal on them and I really want them in time to take them with me. The order supposedly shipped on June 27 but I don't have it yet. Eek!

4. Finish my Wild Rose corsage for the welcome reception. We dorky Wild Rose authors decided that we shall find each other by the corsages we'll wear to the welcome reception, in the colors of our lines. Since I'm published at Faery Rose and almost published at Black Rose, my corsage has a black rose (shut up, I'm tacky and proud of it) and two little lavender roses. I still need ribbon though. Must have ribbon.

5. Make an itinerary. Yes I know that the workshop schedule has the potential to change and that I should wait until I get there, but I live in mortal fear that when I get there I'll be too busy and then I'll forget and then it will be like the first day of school my freshman year of high school and I won't have my schedule and I won't know where to go and the bell will ring and I'll be standing all alone in the deserted hallway, just spinning in forlorn circles, wondering which direction to go.

6. Do something with my hair. I haven't decided what yet. On the one hand, I could cough up some cash and get a nice haircut. On the other hand, I could cough up some cash and get a nice dye job. I refuse to cough up for both. But I did buy a box of black hair dye. I'm debating whether being remembered as the goth girl is actually better than not being remembered at all. The jury is still out.

7. Lose 40 pounds. Ha, just kidding. Lose 20 pounds. Well, I'm not kidding about that, but it's not going to happen anyway, so I'd best forget that one.

8. Decide what I'm wearing. I can't just pack the same stuff I packed last year because, um, you know that 20 pounds I was supposed to lose? That would have been so I could fit into the clothes I wore last year. So I'm going with fewer suits this year (since, um, they're kind of not fitting) and more stretchy Size-12-Is-Not-Fat (yay Meg Cabot!) pants and some nice tops. I might need to purchase a few more tops. Darn, I just hate having an excuse to buy pretty tops... and matching pumps... and earrings... and hair clips...

See you in Dallas!

Technicalities

So, as Sonja is already well aware, I may be a techno geek, but I'm totally anti-social-networking, which both she and my boyfriend despair of, since I spend quite a bit of time making fun of their MySpace pages. Anyways, I don't actually READ blogs online, per se. Not even the ones I write on, including this one. They are emailed to me, but they don't get here until a day later. Which means that by the time I get this blog in my email, I only have a day left to post. So, all this time, I've gone of the (probably wrong) assumption that I will post 2 days after I read it. Therefore, I usually wind up posting 3 days after Sonja.

Which is what I'm trying to clarify. Is this bad and wrong? Should I be adhering firmly to the 2 day limit we set out way back when? Or am I okay with letting it slide? Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

Anyways, in other news, I'm back in North Carolina, which means I get to see my bestest buddy, at some point. Hopefully. Sonja? Are you out there? It only took me and JB a mere 30 hours to make it across the country. We practically could have driven faster. And we spent a wonderful night at the Dallas airport. So I'm one up on Sonja- to prepare for the RWA National Conference, I stuck it out in Dallas, just to see what the weather was going to be like. Which, i'm not pleased to report, is sucky. But maybe it'll be better by the time we get there.

For other preparations, however, I'm also lacking. Since my eyeball was out of comission, I was unable to stick to my writing schedule and finish my WIP before the conference. Which means I'll be pitching an unfinished book again. Oh well.

I'm also trying to find the motivation to get to working on the book again. I've had 4 or 5 weeks off of it now and I'm struggling to get back. Need inspiration... Any help for those of you out there in readerland?

And one final note to Sonja... Quit yer bitching about being compared to your sister. You're IDENTICAL TWINS!!! And while you and I may not think the two of you actually look that much alike, most of the rest of the universe only sees the similarities. Also, on her wedding day, she probably looked fabulous. So being compared to her is a compliment. Suck it up.

Muy Sleepy

I was about to go to bed, but I just realized I am late posting... but technically, Skye gets three extra hours to post than I do, and in that case, I still made it by the deadline. So there.

Also, I have nothing writerly to say. I should have been frantically preparing for Nationals this weekend, but instead, I, you know, went to my sister's wedding. I guess that was pretty important, and I should possibly NOT feel guilty for not looking over the conference schedule and making an itinerary of workshops and meet-ups and appointments... yet I do. Me and Guilt, we're tight like that.

Guilt is pretty much my live-in boyfriend for the next little while, because I also bought an iPhone I really couldn't afford this weekend. However, I will invite Guilt to sleep in my bed and eat all my food as long as I am allowed to keep the slickness that is my iPhone. It slices, dices, AND makes Julian fries. It is pretty much the coolest thing I have EVER seen.

Other highlights of my weekend include getting 20 dozen roses for the price of 10 dozen (and I didn't even have to bat my eyelashes), spilling a large bucket of water in the back seat of my car, finding a raisin and a dime while cleaning out said back seat, being told, "You look JUST LIKE your sister," about a bazillion times, eating muy delicious Thai food (which is puntacular because it's my-sister's-husband-Ty's favorite restaurant and he chose it for the rehearsal dinner), and being told my boobs looked hot in my bridesmaid dress. Um, by my husband, in case you were wondering.

That is all.

Even worse...

Not only is it super tragic that Sonja and I are going to be ripped asunder (good word, right?) but something else has happened to make our separation even more depressing. I have this super lame eyeball problem (for the details, see my blog) that means that after June 8, I'm not allowed to read or use my computer for 3 WEEKS! Eeek!

How do people deal without email? More importantly, how am i supposed to keep in touch with my now long distance bestest buddy if i can't even use the computer. We briefly considered using the phone but discarded that quickly enough.

I'm paraphrasing:

me: I can't email or read for 3 weeks
Sonja: haha cuz your eyeball would pop
me: thanks, you're so supportive
Sonja: Well how the hell am I supposed to keep in touch with you until RWA if you can't read? God, I guess I'm going to have to CALL you.

silence falls upon both keyboards for almost 10 seconds

both of us: Never mind
me: I'll just see you at the conference then.
Sonja: Good idea.

See? We may be bestest buddies, but we're not crazy or anything.

The reality is that Sonja's just jealous that i get to be a pirate and live the dream. I mean, who doesn't want to wear an eyepatch?

Gar!