Christine Norris's Blog: Christine Norris' blog, page 20

I made a book trailer!

 I learned to use Movie Maker in my Instructional Media class last semester. It really is pretty fun once you figure it out. I've been wanting to make a book trailer for awhile, but haven't been able to come up with a good idea. Finally I had one, and worked on it for about four hours. Here it is, tell me what you think!

The Five Stages of Submitting to an Agent

 What's this? Two posts in the same week? The world's coming to an end!! No, not really. It's just SO HOT here, and though I have good AC in my house and I'm comfy, I think the weather just seeps into my brain and I get that heat-induced lethargy where I just want to sit around and watch TV and drink iced coffee. 

So anyway... let's say you want to find a literary agent.  *waits as you all reply "you want to find a literary agent" and I roll my eyes at you*. Got that out of your system? Good. Much like grieving, there are the Five Stages of submitting your work to an agent, in the time between your submission and their reply. They are as follows:

Giddiness: you're so excited. You've finished your manuscript, edited it to pieces, and either still love it or you're sick of looking at it. You've done your homework and made a list of agents that you think are a PERFECT fit for your Magnum Opus. You've worked on that query letter for weeks, fine tuning it until it's pitch perfect. You've poured over guidelines and put together your submission packets, made sure you have the correct email addresses (you DID do that, right?), and hit the send button. There's excitement coursing through your veins as you imagine the delight on the agent's faces when they read your material. You fantasize about getting multiple phone calls and having the tough decision of which agent you'll choose. There may also be some daydreaming about your book on the NYT list and what you'll wear as you accept your Newbery/Caldecott/Stoker/Nebula/Printz award, but that's optional.  Impatience: Three days after you send your email, you start looking for a reply.  Why haven't they responded yet, it's been THREE WHOLE DAYS!!! My book is BRILLIANT and they MUST read it NOW. (In the old days, these are the people who sent materials by Express or Priority Mail. It doesn't work - you still get stuck into the pile with everyone else.)  You click onto your email so often, even the gmail server starts telling you to Get A Life. 
 Self-Doubt: "Oh my god, what have I done!!! " You look over your manuscript and suddenly all you see are mistakes. Typos, slow dialogue,  places where you could cut and tighten. A place where you dropped a comma. Suddenly you wish your submission got dropped into the deepest hole of cyberspace and you could start over. You dive into a quart of ice cream and get completely Chip-faced. Desperation: After months of waiting, you're ready to offer your first born for a reply. Then the reply shows up in your mailbox, and you re-visit the Self-Doubt phase. You can't bear to open it, because as long as you don't know, you have hope. You wrestle with the decision, but finally click the button. And... The next stage is any one of the following. Most likely the first.
 Soul-crushing despair: You got a form rejection letter, 'not right for us', 'not a good fit', whatever. The high you felt when you sent the submission is deflated like a balloon at a five-year-old's birthday party. this is often followed by Denial (aka delusional), where you come to the realization that the agent doesn't have a clue what she or he is talking about and you'll remember to send them a copy of book when it's published and at the top of the NYT list. Yeah, don't do that.  OR
Defeated but not broken: Maybe you still got a form rejection letter, but you're not going to let it get you down. Maybe you got a personalized rejection, in which case you're disappointed but you do a little happy dance because at least the agent thought enough of your work to tell you what they liked and what didn't work for them. That's REALLY REALLY good, because most writers NEVER get that far. So you let the feedback sit for awhile, decide if you should revise, and then either DO it, or you decide to leave it as is and send it out again.   OR You get an offer of representation: This is rarer than a blue moon, the phone call we ALL wait for. Then you do a really BIG happy dance and buy champagne and stand in your living room and go 'neener-neener-neener' to all those agents who rejected your work. Make sure you tell all the OTHER agents who haven't replied to you yet about your offer BEFORE you accept. Give everyone a chance at your fabulous novel! And then you go and write your next book. Which you should have been doing all along anyway. 

Once you HAVE an agent? Exchange the word 'editor' for 'agent', and repeat.

Why I don't have a critique group

 I know almost all writers have one. I SHOULD have one. I probably need one.  I'd love to meet once a month or a week at a coffee shop and chew the fat and critique work. I've had beta readers and critique partners over the years, but no one that's really hung around. It's not that I don't like to critique - and I'm pretty good at it, to be honest. I've had crit partners that went on to big, fancy MFA programs and they told me that those teachers were telling them all the same things I did. I know what I'm doing when it comes to critting.

There's just one problem: I don't have the time.

That sounds like a totally selfish cop-out, I know. And it's summer, so I probably COULD find the time now, but then I'd have to abandon the group in the Fall and that's not fair. But between grad school and now my full-time job, and my son's various extracurricular activities and my own writing, there's just NO time left to read other people's work and critique it. I WOULD like to find another partner, maybe two, because I might be able to handle one or two people's work, but I don't want to be that person who takes and doesn't give.  When I ask for someone to read for me, it's usually with the understanding that I will do what I can, but my time is extremely limited. And I hate doing that.  So I guess I'm just going to have to suck it up for another year.

There's only three more semesters of grad school, there's only three more semesters of grad school...

Hey, there, how you doin'?

 Hey all! Been a bit, sorry to not blog for awhile,hope you've been keeping yourselves out of trouble. I've been on summer vacation for two whole weeks now, and I'm just getting over the 'ahhh' of not working and into the 'I need to find something to do'. I have plenty to keep me busy: making Powerpoint slides for the Worldbuilding seminar I'm giving at a Teacher's workshop in August, trying to finish up the first draft of the next LoA book, which I'm pretty sure will keep the title THE SWORD OF DANU (Celtic mythology, in case you're wondering), and that's going well. Using Scrivener to work on new Steampunk book. I think I am in love with Scrivener. Their character sheets and the way they can keep everything together in one 'binder' is awesome. When my free trial is over I will pony up the money for it, I think.  Soon I will have to start thinking about two other things: next semester in grad school, and lesson plans for next year. Fortunately one of the classes I have is Materials and Services for Children, and the other is School Media Center Management, so both will fit nicely with my job, and I have hopes that I can kill multiple birds with one stone in the Fall. As far as curriculum, I have big plans for Kindergarten, teaching them about proper book care, how the library is set up, and getting them reading. Even though the library isn't ready for them to check out books, I can still get them taking books off the shelves and reading in class. Doing poetry in April for National Poetry Month. Pre-K, I'm still working on, but there will be cross over, like book care, but the thing about Pre-K is I need to do a whole group lesson and then some small group activity in every class. It's the curriculum, and I have 45 minutes, per class, which is an eternity with 3 &4  year olds. There's lots of things to do: coloring, the SMART board, felt board. The small group activity should go with the whole group activity. If anyone has any websites with lesson plans I could borrow, that'd be great.  And on the agent front... of the ten queries I sent in May, all but 2 have come back. Of those 8, 2 asked for fulls and 1 partial. One full already came back a R, which leaves 1 and 1. Plus the full that was requested if I didn't have an agent way back in March. I am following that agent on Twitter, and thank goodness because the full got lost in the internet, I found out through a DM,so I resent and she has it now. Crossing fingers. 
 Oh, and I'm on Google + now, if any of you are. My picture is up, so you'll know it's me. 

Happy weekend!

Podcast Fun

 I did a podcast BlogTalk Radio interview on the Edin Road show, with my friend Jesse Coffey. I read an excerpt from THE MIRROR OF YU-HUANG, and we had a bit of a chat.  It was awesome and fun and if you want to hear it, you can: 

Listen to internet radio with EdinRoad on Blog Talk Radio

 Enjoy!

For those Playing along at Home

I had another full request and a partial request this week. Which means out of 10 queries plus the one rejection-because-I'm-swamped-send-it-back-if-you're-still-looking-in-two-months letter, I have had three rejections, 2 full requests, and one partial, plus the resubmit. 

For a grand total today of three fulls and one partial out in the world right now.

Not too shabby. They may all be rejections in the end, but this is the most requests for material I've ever gotten. Something's clicking somewhere. I hope.

Catching my breath

*Pausing just long enough to catch my breath and wave to you all. Things are moving super fast here on the last few days of school. Things are almost ready for summer, though not anywhere near finished. I still don't have the computer with the cataloging software on it. I NEED IT. Hopefully it will be installed and I will have access to it in the fall, because my project for next year is to get the entire library up to speed and processed. It will take me all year. I will have that place humming by next summer. 

*The Goodreads giveaway went well -- over 500 entries! I wish I could do a multiple book giveaway there; tons of people put THE MIRROR OF YU-HUANG on their TBR list. Whether or not they read it... but it looks good. I shipped the book out to the winner on Monday. *My query to request ratio is .500 for this round. Two rejections, two full requests. Not too shabby. We'll see where it goes, but it proves that publishing really IS subjective. Agents read what sounds good and not everyone loves the same things.  *I think I said I had publishing news a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't want to say anything until I had everything signed and sealed. First, Zumaya Thresholds has contracted the last two books in the Library of Athena series! Now I have to, yanno, write them. One is 2/3 done and I am going to knock that sucker out this summer.   AND... Zumaya has also agreed to publish new and revised editions of the Zandria duology! I'm really happy about that, because I didn't want to see them go totally out of print. I'm kind of excited to give them new life and apply the things I've learned since first writing them. And it will be nice to see them with matching covers ;). So yay! A couple more days until summer break. When I can write, clean, update my portfolio website required for my Master's, write the workshop I'm teaching in early August... no rest for the wicked, I guess.

Goodreads giveaway!

 I think I may have mentioned this before (life is busy and the book tour last month and the new job and my age, I forget who I tell what when), but I've got a giveaway going on at Goodreads. 

There's still six days left to enter!
Goodreads Book Giveaway The Mirror of Yu-Huang by Christine Norris

Giveaway ends June 17, 2011.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

  Enter to win

So what happened at NJSCBWI?

 I'll tell you, because I can tell you just can't go on until I do.

I met a ton of amazing people. Got to see friends I haven't seen in a year, and made new friends. My Facebook friends list has grown and I'm all the better for it. The workshops were mostly helpful, and I was especially happy about the historical fiction, voice, and Steampunk panels. Turns out that Smoke & Mirrors really is a Steampunk story after all. I have a list of agents and editors to submit to, once I get the time to sit down and actually do it. My agent pitch was... well, it didn't go as well as I hoped. Let me explain. I kind of had a feeling it wasn't going to be good when I introduced myself to the agent on Friday night. Now, most of the pros that I've met at this event have been friendly and open. She seemed a little cold, all business. Which is OKAY for her to be; she's a young, junior agent and probably wants to make a good impression. No biggie. But we did not click. At all.  So when Sunday came, I sat down, and completely forgot everything I was going to say. Maybe I planned to say too much, maybe I should have just gone for the hook, whatever. I babbled for four minutes, feeling like an idiot. She looked at me and said, "It's too long. It's too long for a first-time novelist." Really? That's your only comment? I realize that it is kind of bulky, I'm not new at the rodeo, but not one thought about the concept? Probably my fault, I didn't explain it well perhaps. The fact I have written five other novels didn't seem to make an impression. I left when my time was up, and I cried. And then I got over it, because I've had agents bigger than this chippie look at it and see something worthwhile. They rejected it, but they SAW something and told me about it. Editors have asked to see it. Not ONCE has the length come up with any of them, though I', sure that there will be cutting happening when it is contracted. I'm not giving this agent's name because I think that's Terribly Bad Form. And in the end, I don't even think she'd really like S&M anyway. 

But that was the minor glitch in an otherwise fabulous weekend! I bought some books for me and my library, and came home thinking about a lot of things. I can't wait for summer vacation to start so I can spend hours writing!

In which I ask my friends for help - Please boost the signal

 So I'm slowly putting the fiction collection back in proper order. I'm putting together an order for next year, to cover supplies and more books, but my budget is tiny, as are the budgets of most school libraries. There are definite gaps in the collection - not one copy of  If You Give A Mouse a Cookie, for example, except the big book edition with the little mouse and cookies, to use for lessons. It's on my purchase list.

But then, I think, I'm in the publishing world! I have friends who write picture books, who've PUBLISHED picture books. Who are publishers! Maybe, just MAYBE, my friends out there in the world can spare a copy of their books, to be put into a library where they will be loved and read and most definitely appreciated. So I'm turning to you. My school is early childhood - 3,4, and 5 year olds. Pre-K and K. If you've written a book for that age and can spare a copy, that would be great. Likewise, if you have gently used picture books that are no longer being read that you'd like to donate, I'll take them. And if you aren't able to help with books, can you please boost this signal? Any books can be send c/o Christine Norris, Early Childhood Development Center, 1602 Pine Street, Camden, NJ 08103 I have empty shelves and crying to be filled. An empty library is a sad library.