Denise Vega's Blog: Denise Vega's blog and website, page 9

Half Year Check In

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you know that in my critique group, the Wild Writers, we do resolution/goal/intention setting every year in January. We have a nice ritual of releasing writing-related thoughts, activities etc that no longer serve us, and then we do a check in, reviewing the previous year’s goals and talking about our plans for the current year.

Inevitably, I have to remind people that things change and to remember the things they accomplished that weren’t on their...

Milestones

If you’ve been with me awhile, you know how I love to mark and celebrate milestones in my writing life.

I see them as signs of progress–both in the project and myself as a writer.

And when there are milestones in myfamily life, it always gets me thinking.

Like this month.

On May 13 our oldestgraduated from college and our youngest graduatedfrom high school last Saturday. Then on Monday I attended my nephew’s “graduation” from kindergarten. Fresh off my own kids’ graduation, this kindergarten...

Sweet Progress

I’mSOhappy to report that I finally finished reading through the first half of my YA and marking it up (see pic)! I have arrows and marks and cross-outs and new stuff written in the margins, but I now have a clear picture of what scenes I need leading up to the midpoint andhow I want to pace them.

Yippee!!!

I’m now in the process of entering the changes on my laptop, which is very exciting.

Completing that task gave me such an energy and confidence boost. I finemyself longing to get back to i...

Trusting in Intuition

Last Saturday I attended a Nonfiction Summit hosted by the Rocky Mountain Chapter Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. I arrived sansideas—I was going purely to learn and be open to whatever might come myway. I have publishedsome nonfiction in the past, but it’s pretty much out of my comfort zone and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to write any nonfiction.

No ideas leapt up to grab my attention while I was there, but I was deeply inspired by the faculty and fellow writers. One wri...

Fail? or Something else

Two weeks ago I wrote aboutnot making time for my novel. I pledged to work on it every day, even if it was only for ten or fifteen minutes.

I’d like to say that I didn’t write a post last weekbecause I was deep into working on that book.

But I wasn’t.

I was finalizing the handouts for the workshop I gave for SCBWI North Texas. I was reading and commenting on nine first pages for my Picture Book Workshop at Lighthouse. I was reading for a class I was attending,packing for my TX trip, going to...

Novel? What novel? Write it!

Because I’m doing so many things I love in addition to writing, I will often go more than a few days without working on my YA. I don’t like this because when I do get back to it, I’ve lost momentum and have to get it back by re-reading previous scenes, looking at my notes, etc.

One of the things that always nudges me is Microsoft Word’s Open Recent list. I know it’s been awhile when my novel is nowhere to be found in the Top 10:

YIKES!

In the above list, I see some documents for an upcomin...

How do you know your story is finished?

To me, knowing when you’re story is finished–that is, ready to go to your critique group or an agent or editor–is the $64,000 question. How do we know?

In one of my Find a Publisher training series videos, I presenta checklist that helps me determine when a manuscript is ready to send out. And it helps. But there’s still some subjective criteria I apply sometimes, like:

Am I completely sick of it? This isn’t always the best reason to releasea manuscript into the world, but sometimes it’s a...

Being a Writer is as Hard as We Make It

Last year,during alunch break for a class I was teaching, I was chatting with a writer and friend I’ve known for many years. At one point, she said, “Being a writer is hard.” I immediately agreed, and then we were interrupted before we could finish the conversation.

And I’m glad we didn’t finish because I would have gone down that familiar road with its familiar signposts…

Being a writer is hard because:

It’s so competitive to get published It takes so long to hear from publishers So much of...

Busy Work or Writing?

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Recently I was listening to an audiobook and one questionreally struck me: “Are you telling yourself you’re working hard, but you’re mostly doing busy work, avoiding the difficult stuff?”

Eek. Yes, there are some things we need to do to keep things going: administrative/financial tasks, filing, etc. But am I doing those to avoid something a little more challenging (like my novel)? If I’m honest, sometimes the answer is yes. Because those tasks have a very clear finish...

Submission Boogie

It’s time to get my hopes up! Yes, I’m walking my talk (Get Your Hopes Up! 2/25/2016). Tuesday my agent sent out a new picture book manuscript to publishers andI’m so excited!If you read my February 25th post, you know that I’m a submission excitement junkie. I love when a manuscript goes out. All things are possible–instant interest! Bidding war (aka auction)! Bestseller down the line!–and I imagine all of them.

And if the manuscript starts to get passes? Oh, well. That’s part of what I sign...