A Long Time Coming

Wow! It's been a long time since I posted. Not a lot of news on the novel front. I'm getting some very valuable feedback on it. That's been a real help. I've been thinking about it and I'm ready to start reworking it today. It should be good!

I'm also really excited to write my next novel. I'm two chapters in. And honestly I'm torn between the two books so much. I want to finish up my Isis book, but I really, really want to write this next one. I'm afraid that I'll mess things up if I work on more than one book at a time. It's a different novel cast of characters, different setting, different voice, and different perspective. It is in third person instead of first. But it still has a lot of action or well it will have a lot of action. Can you write more than one novel at a time? Should I even try? Part of me really wants to attempt to.

My conference was good. I learned a lot. I'm excited to go to my next conference in September. This one is very close to home, (less than half an hour a way), which will be good. I missed my kids by day four of the conference. I'd been away for six days at that point. I think everyone was kind of worn out by Thursday. I know I was. And my little four year old told me that I would come home if I missed him and cried on the phone. So I was sad.

The things that stuck out to me from the conference were motivation for the characters being on, having a good idea of where the plot is going, and staying true to the young adult perspective. There were three editors there and one agent. I went to some group discussions with them, but the thing that amazed me was how impressed I was with their knowledge of the book world. Seriously I'd love to sit down and just talk favorite novels with them. (A lot of their favorites as kids were my favorites too.)

It was nice to be around people who get it, and not just writing in general but writing for young adults. I was in a fantasy workshop and I learned a lot about world building and novel structure. It was great to be in a fantasy only group. I love fantasy, and I'm glad that I write fantasy (or my new novel is a dystopian one--which is actually close).

Well that's about it. How is your work/submitting/revising coming?

And also I was fortunate to win that copy of Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins I wanted as well as Liar by Justine Larbalestier, and Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater from Presenting Lenore. I really like her blog, it is full of reviews, contests and other great tidbits. It's awesome so you should check it out!