Yoikes!!!

Yes, the 'o' in 'yoikes' is meant to be there, it's not a typo. It's just how I say 'yikes'. And why am I saying 'yoikes'? Well, because I did it. I actually got off my butt, thoroughly tidied up my manuscript to the best of my ability (which probably means it isn't as tidy as it should be), and entered it into this year's ABNA.

Yoikes indeed.

The good thing about this is that I finally did something with my manuscript (rather than let it continue to gather digital dust on my laptop). I had a good go at fixing it up before, and it was a fairly legible piece of work. But it was in no way ready to be seen by a publisher. To be fair, it probably isn't now, either. I mean, apart from tidying up the punctuation and spelling errors, and an odd word change here and there, I haven't actually added to it, so it is still my first draft.

But let's be realistic here. I am under no illusions that my modern little fairy tale will be able to stand up to the drama and suspense giants that I am competing against. I've had a good nose around the various ABNA discussion boards, and I haven't actually come across anything remotely similar to the chick-litty genre that my book mostly belongs to. This could be a good thing because, as one friend pointed out to me, it may stick out from the crowd. But I tend to look on the flip side, and I figure that my story may be considered too lightweight to be a contender for the incredibly distinguished sounding 'Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award'.

Let's break that down a little. Amazon is just the name, so nothing to break down there really. And 'Novel' and 'Award' tend to explain themselves. But 'Breakthrough'? This is where I may struggle. Plots filled with suspense, thrills, drama, and all kinds of other epic-type elements, lend themselves well to being contenders for a 'breakthrough' kind of story. Me? I've loosely - and I DO mean loosely - based my plot upon Cinderella, which, I might add, is something that's been done many a time before now, and doesn't seem to me to have anything breakthrough-y at all about it.

OK, so I have a talking cat, which, while not unheard of in literature, is probably not so common in the real world. And despite a talkative tabby, my story is very definitely set in the real world.

Anyway, the book is definitely not 'breakthrough' in general terms. I suppose I could go with the definition of 'breathrough'  as being that of an unknown author making a splash with her fantastical tale of nude nosedives, cussing heroines, and magical pussycats. Yeah, I could go with that.

Of course, the odds seem pretty stacked against me. In my category, there are a potential 5,000 entries, and only a 1,000 maximum will go on to the next stage. Less, if the judges don't rate the pitches that high. So in reality, I have to have a pitch so good that it will beat 4,000 other pitches. Erk.

But if I flip that coin to the other side, and at least try to be optimistic, I could also say that I have a one in five chance of getting to the next round., and you know, one in five isn't all that bad. Sounds much better than saying I have to beat 4,000 people to the post, anyway.

Much as I would love it, I really don't envision myself at the beginning of June anxiously waiting to see if I have won. I don't envision myself making the semi-finals either. Reaching the quarter finals is probably as far am my doubting self will let me dream about, if only to be able to get real feedback from real publishers. Honestly though, I'm just hoping to get past the pitch. Unfortunately, there is a month to wait before we get to find out.

It's going to be a long month. And not a talking cat in sight to distract me.

Sneaking Back In...

So, after nine months of nothingness (my bad, very bad), I am returning with some actual news. Those who know me well know that I dither and put things off for as long as I possibly can. I don't know why I do this, as it's not exactly conductive to getting a book published, but there we are. Anyway, the new year brought with it a new determination to push my debut novel out into the general public.

I think a lot of the dithering is down to the fear that nothing will ever come of it, but that kind of attitude will definitely never get anyone anywhere, so once again I am going to give it a go. This time, hopefully, I will be able to keep going despite the Fear Of Getting Nowhere cloud hanging over my head.

The first big news is that off and on subtle pestering from my good friend Hart Johnson (Confessions Of A Watery Tart), has pushed me into entering this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition. It's been mentioned more than a few times over the last two years, but I've always backed away from the idea. That fear again, I suppose. Anyway, this year I thought why the heck not? I mean, I've got nothing to lose, right?

With this in mind, I wanted to spruce up my cover art. My good friend Ana Karina Padilla Preston drew my original cover, but I wanted to make it all shiny and new to go with my fresh start. I have no talent at all with graphics - drawn or computer generated - so after a few abysmal attempts, another friend stepped in to help.

Joris Ammerlaan is a genius. *nods* He's already designed cover arts for several of my writer friends, and he offered to 'do something pretty with it'. Using Ana's drawing as a base, he enhanced the colours, created a new background, added some text, and just generally did some techy stuff which goes right over my head. This is the result:

Isn't it great?

Only now I had a wee problem. I needed a name. Who had written this book? Should I go with my real name, or pick a pseudonym? Once again, I turned to my friends for suggestions, then I put up a poll on my facebook page. I also asked for ideas on my Princess of Procrastination blog. Finally, today, I decided. After looking at the poll results and discussing it with family and friends, I went for 'Amber T. Smith', and I'm really happy with it. It's a pseudonym, but it also contains my real name. Most importantly (for me, at any rate), it has my daughter's name, whom I lost just over twelve years ago. Amber was actually a sort of lucky charm for me when I was writing Cardiffella back in 2009, as I'd used her name as my NaNoWriMo profile name, and it was the first time I'd ever completed a challenge like that. It seemed fitting.

So there we have it. I have a book (almost completely edited, by the way *faints*), a cover art, a pen name, and a competition to enter. Ooh, and Amber T. Smith also has a shiny new author page on Facebook. I'd say that qualified as news. wouldn't you?

Query Tweaking

I entered a Query Blog Fest yesterday on my main blog, and got some fabulous feedback from several people. I thought I'd post the original query, and then my revised version on here, just to see how they compare, and what your thoughts are. So here goes...

Original Query:

Name

Address

Contact numbers

Email

Dear Ms Agent,

Take one damsel unknowingly in distress, add a fairy-godmother, a spattering of nudity, and a Prince-in-the-making. Mix thoroughly and let simmer for a while.

Ella, a twenty-something woman from Cardiff, loves her job, her little house, her two best friends, and her cat. She enjoys nights out on the town, drinking a little too much vodka, and swearing more than she should. She's happy with her life, and it doesn't need changing, right?


But what will she do when her cat starts talking and insists she is Ella's fairy godmother? And what will happen when a new man arrives to take over as boss at Cardiff Mode, the modeling agency where Ella works? Will Max Charming change her mind about needing a man?


Cue plenty of laughs, cursing, accidental nudity, and several trips to the local hospital, as Ella flies from one disaster to the next in her quest to capture her very own Prince Charming.

A modern fairytale, Cardiffella is complete at 60,000 words. It is the first novel in a mini-series that is set in my home city of Cardiff. I have enclosed a SAE for your convenience, and a full synopsis and/or sample chapters are available on request. Thank you very much for your time and consideration, I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Tara Smith.

General feedback was much the same - keep the first and last paragraphs of the pitch, but condense the middle two and make them less 'list-y' and 'question -y'. Bearing this in mind, here is my first revision:

Name

Address

Contact numbers

Email

Dear Ms Agent,

Take one damsel unknowingly in distress, add a fairy-godmother, a spattering of nudity, and a Prince-in-the-making. Mix thoroughly and let simmer for a while.

Ella Gibson loves her life as a typical twenty-something Cardiffian. With great friends, a job she enjoys thoroughly, and a loving father, everything is pretty much perfect. Then one day things suddenly change. Ella's cat begins to talk, causing Ella to think she is insane (and quite possibly the cat too). Then the feline insists she's a Fairy Godmother, and hatches a plan to set Ella up with her new boss, Max Charming. Throw in an evil ex-stepmother, and a new tendency for clumsiness, and Ella starts to think that maybe her life could do with a little perfecting after all.

Cue plenty of laughs, cursing, accidental nudity, and several trips to the local hospital, as Ella flies from one disaster to the next in her quest to capture her very own Prince Charming.

A modern fairytale, Cardiffella is complete at 60,000 words. It is the first novel in a mini-series that is set in my home city of Cardiff. I have enclosed a SAE for your convenience, and a full synopsis and/or sample chapters are available on request. Thank you very much for your time and consideration, I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Tara Smith.

So, does this sound any better? It's nowhere near 'done', but hopefully it's an improvement at the very least.

Image borrowed from here.

Query Hell

So I'm around a month into my editing schedule (more or less), and I'm not quite on target, but further along than I thought I'd be. Editing is a Nightmare. *nods* Anyway, in between adding a few hundred words here and there (and cutting some of the dead weight), I have also been worrying about the big 'Q'.


Yes, The Dreaded Query. *cue theme from Jaws*

Whether you are submitting to a literary agent or a publishing house, the first obstacle you have to overcome is the querying hurdle. One little page is all you need to prepare, but this one page is more important than any of the 300+ pages of your manuscript.

A hook. A short synopsis. A brief bio. That's it. Three little paragraphs. And they terrify me.

I've been doing a lot of online research lately, both on publishers and independent agents. I believe my best course of action would be to submit direct to a publisher, and I have a small but steadily growing list of prospectives. Of course, that's the easy part.

The Dreaded Query itself is the next monster I have to face, and he's pretty scary. Not only do I have to make it brief - itself a daunting prospect for a committed rambler - but it has to 'pop'. It has to have something that will immediately grab the attention of whoever is reading it. With legitimate publishing houses probably receiving 100+ queries on any given day, if you don't stand out right away, you are sunk. The ratio of unpublished authors to publishers seeking new clients is probably so high that it's far too depressing to even contemplate.

So... hook; synopsis; bio. Gah... maybe editing isn't such a nightmare after all.

Image borrowed from picasawebdotgoogledotcom. 

Don't forget to pop along to my other blog, Princess of Procrastination, where I am currently plodding through the fabulous A-Z- Challenge, and having a marvelous time!

Smoking!

So I have a fabulous friend called Ana, and she drew my wonderful cover art that you can see on the left of the page. I've never actually met Ana in person - she is in Columbia and I am in Wales - but we have been talking online for over six years now. When I put out a plea for a cover design for Cardiffella, Ana was the first to offer and I happily accepted.

I gave her a brief description of my main character, and she'd read a few excerpts that I had posted on Facebook during the NaNoWriMo challenge. The cover you see was the very first design that she came up with, and I fell in love with it. She had drawn Ella almost exactly as I had pictured her, and as for Muse... well, it's uncanny how alike she is to my original 'Muse' (my cat, Belle). Needless to say, Ana is now my personal (and unpaid, by the way, that's how awesome she is) illustrator.

Anyway, I finally got around to sending her the whole draft of the novel as she had mentioned doing some more sketches for me. This is her first offering:

Ana seems to doubt her skill, but I think she perfectly captures the whole feel of the story with her drawings. The novel is predominantly a comedy. Yes, the underlying theme is a romance - it couldn't be anything else when it is loosely based on Cinderella - but if I were pushed into giving it a genre, I'd lean heavily towards comedy. This particular scene is just after Muse sets fire to the kitchen - on purpose, mind you. And you might think that a cat couldn't possibly set fire to a kitchen, but seeing as Muse is a fairy godmother and can talk, I think you'll agree that she's no ordinary cat...

Definitely one of my favourite scenes to write! And it goes to show how well Ana knows me by picking something that was one of the highlights of the story. I loves my Ana, I do, I do!

*grins*

All About Ella

Name: Eleanor Gibson

Nicknames: Ellie, Ella

Age: 24

Hair: Black, shoulder length, naturally curly, inclined to frizz.

Eyes: Two (both of them blue)

Height: 5'1

Weight: 9st 4lbs / 130 lbs

Occupation: General errand girl at Cardiff Mode, the premier modeling agency in Cardiff, Wales.

Most Likely To Say: Mine's a double; crap.

Least Likely To Say:  A lady never swears; A drink? No thank you, I'm strictly tee-total.

About Me: I swear far too often, at least, that's what Muse says, anyway. Of course, Muse is my cat, and what do cats know about swearing? Still, I guess I should probably try to curb my urge to curse. I've been called clumsy - especially lately! - but usually I'm quite steady on my feet. Unless I've had a bit too much vodka, of course, but that goes without saying. Muse says I should drink less frequently, and choose wine as the more ladylike option, but again, she's a cat, so I tend not to take too much notice. Unless she's talking about fashion, that is. Considering she's feline, she's given me some amazing tips on my wardrobe...

I really enjoy my current job, despite the fact that I'm surrounded by beautiful Amazonian Goddesses. I suppose some people would find that a bit intimidating, but not me. Of course, it helps that I'm best friends with both the head photographer and the make-up artist. The girls know that they can't be horrible to me or they run the risk of panda eyes and unflattering shots . Of course, Jake and Danny would never be so unprofessional, but the girls don't know that, do they?

Aside from my best friends, and my talking cat, I also have a great dad who lives near by, and I see him several times a week. Oh, and an ex-stepmother. Unfortunately.

Well, every girl has her problems...


More character profiles coming soon!

Yay!

For those of you that don't know me very well, I am a technical dunce. Seriously, when it comes to anything done on a computer, I am a complete ninny. I usually get there in the end, but the end can sometimes feel like it takes forever.

I have tried, over the last year or so, to format the mess that is the first draft of Cardiffella. As you can imagine, the speed that it was written meant that spelling errors, typos, and general formatting went right out of the window. Plus the fact that I only had basic Wordpad to use to begin with meant that my first draft was a complete dog's dinner (as we say here in Cardiff). Anyway, up until yesterday I was completely overwhelmed by the huge task that awaited me. Aside from adding the extra ten thousand words that I need before I can submit to a publisher, I needed to make my draft readable.

Now, I don't know what happened today, but I awoke with a renewed determination to not let Word beat into submission. I have spent the last few hours going through my manuscript with the aim of correcting all of the spelling and typos - at least, those that Word helpfully highlighted to me at any rate - and, through a great many trials and errors, doing all those pesky formatting things that have to be done in order for me to have a professional looking manuscript.

I now have a manuscript with real chapters (instead of seven chapters of ordinary length, and half of the book falling under the heading of 'Chapter Eight' *shifty*), page numbers, author name and book title on every page, and the text itself in double-spaced, 12pt Times New Roman.

*faints*

I'm inexplicably chuffed to beans with myself! All of the tedious stuff that has frustrated me for so long has been done! Now all I have to do is edit in those last ten thousand words.

Guess I'd better crack on with the writing then, eh?