Jennifer McKenzie
Romance--Boy meets girl. Romantic Suspense--Boy meets girl with dead bodies.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Thursday Thirteen--Stupid Writing Things I've Done
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1…. Believed that writing romance would be easy Yes, I really believed this. I sat down and thought "I'll spit this out in no time". *rolls eyes*. Karma got me for this one. 2. Wrote 75,000 words without a crit partner or any information on writing in general. I had no idea I was a panster. I thought you sat down and wrote a book and submitted it. That's right. I ain't sharpest tool in the shack. 3. Submitted said 75K manuscript without having anyone critique it and hoped for the best. This is hilarious. Somewhere out there is a Harlequin Intrigue editor with watering eyes from the horrible stuff I subjected her to. 4. Entered the "Best First Meeting" contest at Romance Divas. Don't get me wrong. I learned A TON from them. I did think that what I subbed was "clean" without knowing what that really looked like. The best feedback I got was from Jennifer Colgan who is brilliant. She called me on my head hopping and other little things. Her comments were invaluable. 5. Started four manuscripts at the same time......and finished NONE of them. In my WIP file of my computer are several dead stories that I started after the 75K monster. All of them were started in the same week. BAD idea for me. In this way, I am like a raven with a VERY short attention span and an attraction to "shiny things". 6. Told my mother I write erotic romance. THIS was an error in judgment that I'm still dealing with. I knew my mother well enough to get a pen name (and not tell her what it is) but not smart enough to keep the fact I write erotic romance to myself. I blame the adrenaline high I got from being accepted and getting a contract. "It was the drugs, man". LOL. 7. Holding back my own personal feelings in my writing. No snark here. I've discovered that the problems in my stories is that I hold back and distance myself from my characters. When something gets too difficult, I tend to fall into passive voice and change the point of view to make it more comfortable. I'm on the look out for it now. 8. Began my queries (several of them) with a rhetorical question. This one might go over with some agents and publishers, but Nathan Bransford is one of the agents that rants about this. "NOOOOOOOOO rhetorical questions!!!" This mistake reminded me that research is King! Knowing about the agent/publisher I'm subbing to will keep me from making glaring errors. 9. Posted on Miss Snark without reading her blog and knowing what "nitwittery" is Luckily, I don't think I said anything stupid. Right? Right? Okay. Don't answer that. 10. I waited to get involved in Instant Messaging. It took Crystal Jordan and Dayna Hart months to get me to get Trillian and start talking to people. Now, I enjoy it immensely. I've brainstormed, edited and chatted my way to better writing. 11. Put my writing in a box. I allowed myself to become a "rule follower". Technically, my writing was good, but I was so afraid to break the "rules" that I struggled. I've been working on getting out of the box and really write the stories that are in my head. Dayna and Crystal have helped me so much with this and my editor at The Wild Rose Press, Diana Carlile. They've all made reach a little deeper for more in my writing. 12. Giving a harsh opinion on a public forum. This is just plain stupid. It's one thing to give an opinion. It's another thing to rant and rave about something that might come back and bite me in the ass professionally. Luckily, I'm not a very big fish in the small epublishing pond, so I didn't even make a ripple. And no, I'm not repeating what I said or where. LOL. 13. Getting uptight about blog comments, sales and popularity. In the long run, I'm getting experience that I can't get any other way. Whether I get 0 comments or 40, I'm still going to be who I am. Believing that the amount of comments or number of sales is going to change my life is ridiculous. It took a while to get over it. I guess I "like to be liked". I swear, someday I'm going to do a workshop or something and title it after the famous Sally Field's line. "You like me. You really like me." LOL. There are tons more. Like submitting a query on a blog post at Jessica Faust because she might crit it. (Only I wrote it and didn't run it by my cps. Bad writer Jen, bad.) Or getting involved in edrama. Or reviewing a writer friend's book and getting the details WRONG. (I caught it before I submitted it). Or.....nevermind. You get the picture. Care to share? Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!) |
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Name:: Jennifer McKenzie Location:: California
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