Writing World Wednesday: The Art of Patience

Most of know how it is.

We’ve brushed up our manuscript as best as we feel we possibly could have for the present moment. Our query letter is ready to send. We’ve done everything to gain attention (without resorting to bribery and violence...kidding!). We linger on our e-mail window, holding the mouse over the send button of a few agents.

The temptation, the hesitation...

Click.

Then you realize it.

You have just submitted yourself to the waiting process. You are going to be waiting for at least a week, if not two, if not three, for any reply. There is the random, amazing agent who will get a reply to you within the next day—alas, more times than one—a rejection. But you’ve still got hope, right? You have more submissions out.

You wait day by day, wilting away under the anticipation. You delve into your newest WIP in hopes of distractions, but before you know it, you’re bringing up your e-mail...

This waiting process, I say, is terribly unhealthy for us writers! We understand these agents. We sympathize with these agents. We hope. We understand all of the submissions they get, how many projects they have to sit and sift through in the slush pile; hoping to find that diamond in the rough. It can’t be easy. But as writers, only dealing with a few agents at a time rather than the agent deal with thousands at a time, we’re bound to be more impatient.

Human nature is, generally, impatient. We despise waiting. If someone’s smartphone freezes up, some would be tempted to curse and throw it away. I know that when my internet takes more than a few seconds to load up a webpage, I get agitated beyond belief. With the advent of superior technology, we have become much more vulnerable to the art of patience.

I don’t mean to chastise anyone—just saying! There are people out there who can wait without a problem. I envy these people. In the past when I sent out submissions, I would nearly hop around in excitement when I received a rejection. Just because I had heard back.

The biggest problem for me is the no-repliers. Even thinking about past no-repliers makes me grind my teeth, haha. It’s something we all must face one day, some time. As many of my friends say, it is a wonderful chance for character-building—the rejections and the waiting.

With that I’ll leave you to it. I don’t imply that agents make me angry by making me wait. This is just a little rant! My opinion is my opinion. That’s something everyone has to remember. There is no such thing as fact. Fact is opinion. And waiting...in my OPINION...really sucks. (:

Random Monday: Garage Sales

This was meant for yesterday.... -_-

I don’t really know how others feel about this...but I love garage sales. Each year my little town has a town-wide garage sale in which we all prepare our year’s junk and sell it for another to find treasure. This year I sought out many things, things of which I didn’t know I would venture upon. Others crossed my path, having very much the same dilemma. I see garage sales as not only an opportunity for our little town to get rid of their junk, but also a day of great socialization.

Most of the time when I go out to garage sales, I go out with a minimal idea of what I want to find. I don’t ever really look for anything of worth. I seek out little, unique doohickeys for decoration. I examine them thoroughly before I buy them, and then I hope to garner ideas from them for a book project that might have been lackluster lately. For example, I happened upon a ship in a bottle that I hope to use for a design in one story. I found an amazing encyclopedia of mythology from Greece, the Celtic world, China... This is going to help me for ages to come.

Those aren’t the only things I look for. If I get lucky I seek out music, my music. I didn’t get lucky this year. I did last year, when I found the Titanic soundtrack. I also search for new books to read. There was a sale of nothing but free books that I came upon for this sale, so I was fortunate there.

Another odd thing I think about garage sales is that whenever you go out and look through a person’s things, you’re looking through a piece of their life that they’re willing to give away. When I bought the mythology encyclopedia, it was from a woman I realized was Wiccan when I found a number of books on writing spells and writing Books of Shadows. This did, admittedly, make me somewhat uneasy. I do know more about Wicca than I used to, so it wasn’t that bad. At another sale I could tell these people loved music and exercise. Why? There were three tables worth of CDs and CD holders; and about four pieces of exercise equipment there.

Garage saling is a seriously fun thing to do. One thing I did not expect to find was a sword. I love swords. There’s a reason they’re the most prominent weapon in my main series, the Flame Cycle! It was found at a friend’s house, so they didn’t worry about my age or whether I would be going insane and mass-murdering with it—they knew I liked swords. So now I own my second blade!

My conclusion: I enjoy the town-wide garage sale. It’s an opportunity to socialize, take a peek into someone’s life, to get some new items, to just spend money. (Admit it, you love to do it. We all do. It’s just that our wallets don’t.) But in this way you can see that everything I do will, in some way, relate back to my writing. I buy things in hopes that it will inspire something—maybe that sword will belong to a character someday. The ship will more than likely appear in a story. The dream catcher I bought might belong to another person as well.

Take every opportunity you have to do something like this. It’s an easy, cheap way to get countless ideas. And most of the time you get cheap snow cones too. (:

Music, Writing, and Emotions

Happy Friday!

Anyone who's looked at my blog knows that my love for [READ:STRANGE] music is amaranthine. I am stealing this idea for a blog post from SC_AUTHOR's blog so I can post something!

Emotions are your greatest ally in the world of writing. Whether you feel despair, happiness, anger... Even if you're shaking with so much rage that you don't want to write at all, if you sit down and get to it, your writing will echo with the intensity of your ire.

One of the best motivators for your emotions is music. They say that your heart will often begin to beat with the beat of the song you're listening to. Whether that's true or not, it's the feeling the music shoves into you that makes it worth it. We all have our interests and tastes, and whatever they are,  it's a writer's job to take advantage of them to weave together a heartfelt story.

So with that, I shall present to you...

Flame Writer's Musical Chart - Based on Emotion!

Horror --- Hyoui [Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]
Anger ---- Anything from the Epic Score: Distorted album
Thinking -- L's Theme/Near's Theme [Death Note] / For the Reunion [Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children] / Ezio's Family [Assassin's Creed II] / Kai [Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai]
Sadness -- Breathlessly/Moment of Decisions/Painful History/Shadow of the Truth [Katawa Shoujo] / Procession/Lily's Theme [Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2] / Musique pour la Tristesse de Xion [Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days]
Disbelief -- Cold Iron [Katawa Shoujo]
Big fights - Dismiss [Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep] / Invisible Depths [Final Fantasy XIII-2] / World End Dominator, Mirage Coordinator, The Executioner [Umineko no Naku Koro ni] / U.N. Owen Was Her [Touhou: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil]
Happiness - The Departed [Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep] / Prelude [Final Fantasy XIII] / Life is Beautiful [FLOW]
Bittersweet - Dust to Dust/Those for the Purge [Final Fantasy XIII]

Hehe... I DO like SOME normal music, but you won't find any on this list. (: The songs I continually come back to are the tracks off of Final Fantasy XIII and the tracks from Umineko. It's a beautiful world out there full of wonderful music for everyone... (: Music is a wondrous thing with incredible power. Not just notes on a sheet or the sounds playing into your ears. Imagine a world without music. Can't do it? Thought so! (:

With that I shall leave you. Any music of your own suggestion? Any songs you come to regularly? What genres do you enjoy? Does your book have a soundtrack of its own?

CREDIT FOR THE IDEA OF THIS POST TO SC WRITE.

A Confession, and Some Awesome People

Why did I let my blog die?

Perhaps everyone asked, perhaps everyone didn’t. But I think it’s time to reach a hand down into the black abyss it resides in and pull it out, and I’ll start the process with a confession:

I quit posting because I got too irritated. School was hectic, ACTs were coming up, prom was throttling forth with the force of a train, and my writing was begging for attention. I was reading too fast to keep my reviews up with, and finally I just dropped it altogether. I could have kept up with Friday Fives, but even those grew tiresome. Another easy explanation: I'm lazy.

My blog wasn’t meant to be a reader’s blog. It was meant to be, in all meanings of the term, a writer’s blog. The amount of times I’ve posted my writing on my blog? Maybe once or twice. The amount of times I’ve talked about other writers, what I’ve thought of them? None. The amount of posts about writing I’ve wrote? Maybe two.

I’m being a little rude. I’m sorry. It’s more anger at myself than anything. That is my confession, and this is how I’m going to repair it:

I’m going to follow the lead of a new friend I’ve met, and try to schedule my posts. Write them before I post them. I’m not going to review EVERY book I read. I will list books as I read them, but I will only review the ones that have seemed exceptional to me. I’ll finish reviewing them if they’re a series I’ve begun to review (i.e. Paranormalcy, I Am Number Four).

With that, I would like to give everyone who still has faith and looks at my blog some links to look to. I recently found a forum called AGENTQUERYCONNECT. It’s an amazing place with amazing people, and within the week I’ve joined this forum, I’ve met many people who gave me the fuel to start posting on my blog again. So, if you would, give these people the credit they are due and follow them on Twitter, blogs, etcetera! They deserve it!

KELA MCCLELLAND: This amazing woman loves social networking! You can follow her on her BLOG and her TWITTER. She writes about vampires running blood banks!

UTSAV MUKHERJEE: This guy is a lawyer on another CONTINENT! Isn't that awesome!? He writes about an amazingly average kid getting sucked into the legacies of other planets. You can follow him on his TWITTER and his BLOG, which he shares with the infamous BRIGHTON.

CATERINA TORRES: This zombie-loving girl is the one I posted an advertisement for. Her first book, ZOMBIE WHISPERER, is still waiting for more entries! You can follow her on her TWITTER and her BLOG.

STEPHANIE ADELE: I don't know what she writes about! Regardless, she's a writer with some really cool ideas and an awesome person to hang with. You can follow her on her TWITTER and her BLOG.

SC_WRITER: This anonymous guy is just AWESOME. He loves Harry Potter and he writes the story of an underwater civilization (NOT mermaids) and deals with some issues of bigotry. He's also new to the blogging and twitter-ing market, so give him a shoutout! Follow him on his TWITTER and his BLOG.

KRYSTEN HILL: This awesome girl writes about a half-dragon girl on a journey throughout her fantastical world! She's follow-able on her TWITTER and her BLOG.

With that, I'll take my leave. Here's to resurrecting this blog! (: MAKE SURE you at least give these people a look! ...By the way, see if you can count how many times I used the word AWESOME or AMAZING in here. XD No prize, but it might be amusing!

Contest! ZOMBIE WHISPERER by CATERINA TORRES

 Book Blurb:

"She can speak to the dead. Only problem is, they’re still walking around.

After enduring a week-long flu, Jane Smith wakes to find out a terrorist organization has spread a deadly virus over the nation, changing anyone who’s infected into the walking dead. With no choice but to flee her home, Jane teams up with her boyfriend, Josh Williams, as they venture to find something better than the desolate land that was once called the home of the brave and the land of the free.

Driving across the country, Jane encounters some of the newly turned and finds she can hear their thoughts inside her head. Before she can understand her link to the undead, Jane and Josh are captured by the terrorists responsible for the virus because of one special reason: they know she can communicate with the infected and they want her to be a part of their fight to take down the rest of the world.

Afraid for their lives, Jane must decide if she should join the terrorists or use her new found powers to stop them."

ZOMBIE WHISPERER Contest here!

Caterina Torres, an aspiring author, is releasing her book via e-publishing and having a giveaway! She's giving away her book, ZOMBIE WHISPERER, to twenty lucky contestants! The rules are:

1. The deadline is June 30th.

2. Enter as often as you can! The top 20 with the most points get a free copy!

3. You MUST have a Kindle device or Kindle app to open this ebook.

I hope this catches your interest, and it definitely will if you're a fan of the undead—so, good luck!! Make sure you have your zombie apocalypse team ready!