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Sunday, June 26, 2011

Shelley Watters Agent Critique contest!

That Shelley Watters is at it again!  She's got another agent judged contest going on and I thought, what the heck, I'll give it a shot.  I've majorly rewritten my first page.  Well, it feels major to me anyway.  This is 356 words, rather than 250, but heck, this is my blog so I figured I'd post what a saw fit.  Here it is, see what you think. 

Title: Dream Girl
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Word Count: 74,171

Chapter 1.


    I’d imagined it forever but when the time came, I wasn’t prepared for my gothic fantasies to become real. For most of my eighteen years, things were as normal as the Cheerios I’d eaten for breakfast.  The day I met Gabriel started out no different.  My alarm had gone off. I’d gone through the same old morning routine.  Checked my phone for new texts from my best friend, Tiffany.  Listened to a voice mail from my mom and left my apartment the same way I always did: wondering WWJE do? (What would Jane Eyre do?) 
    That particular morning, I drove to work wondering how Jane Eyre would spend the summer after graduating high school. Summer stretched out before me like a lazy cat. I really hoped I could figure out what to major in at college. I didn’t have to decide until next year, but it would be nice to have it squared away and know where my life was heading. I always like a concrete goal to work toward.   
My thoughts had to wait when, ten minutes late, as usual, I hustled into the public library, my workplace for the past three years.  Ditching my purse in my locker, I strode into the workroom, an open space populated by cubicles for the librarians and long tables for the support staff.  I held my breath as I scurried past the row of supervisor offices on my right.  The last thing I wanted was one of them to notice I wasn’t manning the circulation desk already.
Escaping detection in supervisor alley, I made it to the staff copy room, where our mailboxes resided.  Hoping to duck in to retrieve my nametag, I discovered my boss, Laura Faust, talking to a guy who wore his brown tee shirt and rumpled jeans really well.  At least, he looked good from behind, which was all I could see of him.
            I tried to inconspicuously snake my arm around them to access my mailbox but Laura stopped me. 
            “Christine,” she said.  “I’d like you to meet Gabriel, our new page.”
            “Nice to meet you,” Gabriel said as he turned toward me.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Flops, failures and inspiration

     Ok, so the contest was a colossal failure!  Not completely unexpected but whatever.  I see that MeeGenius has now listed Pajama Girl at $2.99, so maybe you'll wish you got your free app from me, but that's the end of that.  On to more interesting things...the sophomore slump.
Do you have any idea how much I've been agonizing over the next book?  Trust me.  You do not. 
I've got a few attempts at Pajama Girl 2...the continuing saga but it just doesn't feel like the first one.  (and the first one felt 100% cosmically aligned) So I've put that on hold.  An ABC book idea I've been carrying around in my brain for years felt pretty flat when I finally put it on that blank Word document, so back to the drawing board on that.  But the interesting thing, is that I started writing out picture book ideas this afternoon and wrote down one I'd thought of before.  Wouldn't you know it, that particular one, which had seemed like a good idea at the time, but with no spark of inspiration, winked at me this time and gave me the voice of the main character.  Aha!  That's the sort of thing I need to see more of!  So I wrote a couple lines from this character and liked what I saw.  Then I realized I needed a conflict so I unloaded the dishwasher and BOOM!  Another character popped into my head and told me she needed the first one to help her with a big problem.  There you have it.  The full arc of inspiration.  Now I just need to write the thing.  You'll notice that I'm writing a blog post instead.  Don't you worry.  While I seemingly do other things, my brain keeps percolating my stories and making them better before I have to put in any real effort.  Nice, huh?  So now, I just need this story to turn out really really good by July 16, at which time, I'll be attending an event that will introduce me to the Associate Publisher for TigerTales books.  This could be good.  It better be good.  I have to follow up the contest debacle with something outstanding. 

Sunday, June 5, 2011

It's Contest time!

This weekend, Pajama Girl became a standalone app available from Itunes or the Apple App store.  To celebrate, I'm holding a contest, right here, with this post.  I can tell you've never been so excited so lets cut to the chase here, shall we? 

The Prizes:

A 10 page crit. of a novel (done by me)
A full picture book crit.  (done by me)
A free copy of the Pajama Girl app!  (courtesy of me!)

To enter leave a comment on this blog post, listing which prize(s) you want, and your email address.  You don't have to be a follower of this blog, but if you are (or become one) you'll get an extra entry.  You will also get an extra entry for each of the following: tweeting this contest, mentioning it on Facebook, mentioning it on your own blog or website.  (so mention that in your comment too) I will randomly select the winner on June 17. 

Sound fun?  Enter away!