I did it - I typed "The End" five minutes ago!!!
I'm WIP-ped. Sigh. Why do I always feel a bit of a let-down at the end of a first draft? I usually cry during the last few pages, but I didn't for this novel. Maybe because the phone kept ringing all day! It's hard to ignore your kids though - especially when they've got the car. Maybe it's also because I've been trying to get to the end for so long I was just too frustrated to *feel* anything. There have been so many interruptions. Like yesterday I had to stop drafting and go over the editor's notes on my story coming out in August in Cricket magazine and send it back with some rewrites so I ended up not finishing the novel like I'd hoped after all.
So The Death of Pharaoh Tutankhamun ended at 109,891 words. Time to get out the scissors. Or a hatchet. But not for a few weeks. On Monday I hit a rewrite on another book project for an interested agent.
Still, I should celebrate, right? I'm ready to kick back with a movie and some cookies. Warm, fresh chocolate chip anyone?
Thoughts, Musings, and the Writing Life of YA Author Kimberley Griffiths Little
Saturday, May 12, 2007
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MY PUBLISHED BOOKS
Winner of The Southwest Book Award!
Time travel, war, love, rattlesnakes, magic . . .
5 comments:
Woohooo - I say champagne - to heck with cookies.
I think typing The End is the greatest feeling ever. Congrats, friend!!!
Thanks so much, Barb! Please have a champagne for me. This teetotaler is scrounching the cupboards for chocolate, although my family just stuck a razzleberry pie in the oven for Mother's Day. It's a good second! And I'll probably have seconds a la mode.
I just baked chocolate chip this morning, shall I Fed ex some to you?
Kimberley, I appreciated your response to my blog last week and finally had a second to sit down and find out more about you and your writing. Wow! I'd love to have all those credits behind my name. Congratulations on finishing another novel. And I hope all else in your life is looking up as well.
Ooh, I'd love some of those cookies, Michelle! I've had a craving for awhile. :-)
What are you working on right now?
What is your novel about that's coming out this summer? Who is your publisher and have they been good to work with? I've always been curious about something - do LDS publishers give advances?
It's fun to *meet* someone new. The blogging world is amazing, isn't it?
Kimberely,
Yes, blogging is a lot of fun---though I am only about three weeks into it. Now if I could just get that website up and running . . .
For the past several (too many to mention) years, I've been writing and submitting national market romance. I've won contests and had several requests for full or partial manuscripts, but I've never been able to hook an agent. It has been a very frustrating process, and I have a few manuscripts sitting on a shelf waiting for "someday."
My wonderful critique group (several of whom write for the LDS market) kept telling me that if I would just alter my stories a bit, I could submit them to Covenant or Deseret Book. I finally cried, "uncle" and did that last year.
I never envisioned myself writing for this market, but I have actually enjoyed it quite a bit. My editor at Covenant is fabulous, and it will be nice to finally see a book in print.
The downside . . . I did have to alter the story to fit the market. While trying to write for national houses I was too tame, but I found the opposite to be true with the LDS market. Covenant worked with me as much as they dared, and it will be interesting to see what reaction to this somewhat "edgy" (translation: true-to-life) novel is.
And, no, Covenant pays no advances. Their royalties are very comparable to national publishers though.
I'm afraid those cookies I just baked yesterday are pretty much history now---with your three boys I'm sure you understand =)
Good luck finding a new agent. Your books are on the top of my summer reading list now. And we share many of the same favorite authors.
As I get closer to the release date, I'll be posting a blog that tells more about Counting Stars. I'm not good at summaries, so I won't even try here ;)
Enjoy "the end" a little longer. I have a September 1st deadline hanging over my head.
It has been great to *meet* you! Have a great day.
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