Thought Patterns

Did my writing early, which surprised me. A big chunk of BG4 is before BG1 so I have to make sure I am doing it right. I am almost caught up to what happens with one of the characters in BG1 so after that, it is much easier. As a reminder, BG1 is Butch Girls Can Fix Anything, which is due out in February (ack!). BG4's title is Butch Girls Have Many Talents.

I am about to get some work done on Simple Sarah. I've neglected her the past several days and heavens knows I don't want to get her mad! Sheesh!

graph from Writertopia

this mouse will play!

More'n likely I'll sit here and play games until the dogs get violent about meal times.

Lorna left for the Nawth this morning. Her sister is being inoculated as something Matron of somethinganother Star. This is her sister's second time of being whatever and it means a full year commitment to something important. It's not that I don't care what the sister is doing, its just that I can't remember. My brain has been has been a sponge lately. Not soaking everything up but letting everything out when I tilt a certain way.

I started re-reading BG1 for the first time since January. Part of me says "This shit stinks!" and another part of me says "Wow, I wrote such wonderful prose?" I've not heard from Jane (the editor assigned to me from RCE) so I don't know if she is enthralled or hurling.

I'm hoping to get some writing done while she is gone. I won't be distracted by her constant wish to, like, talk to me, share with me, and her strange desire to hold my hand.

Here's to spouses, where ever they are.

Last year, during NaNoWriMo, I participated in a research project. It was easy enough, just a minute out of each day to fill out a questionnaire.

The researcher, David McGarva, has posted his report on-line. He came up with some interesting results. He used a model I'd not heard of before (Reversal Theory) but it made sense.

David's Report
Reversal Theory Society
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

And, as a reminder, Butch Girls Can Fix Anything was written during NaNoWriMo 2004 and has been bought by Regal Crest Enterprises (RCE).

From Regal Crest Enterprises, LLC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Regal Crest Enterprises is happy to announce the acquisition of "Butch Girls Can Fix Anything", a novel by Paula Offutt.

"Butch Girls Can Fix Anything" is a lesbian romance set in the fictional town of High Pond, NC. It follows three females as they learn not only about the others, but about themselves. Kelly Walker can fix anything-except herself. Grace Owens seeks a stable community of friends for herself and her daughter. Lucy Owens wants help her with fourth-grade math. As their stories unfold, each must deal with her own version of trust, of risks, and of what makes someone strong.

"Butch Girls Can Fix Anything" will be released in the Yellow Rose line, Regal Crest Enterprise's lesbian romance imprint, with a tentative date of February 05, 2007.

About joining the RCE team, Paula says "This is just the beginning of what I hope will be a wonderful, long relationship with Regal Crest." RCE is extremely pleased to have Paula join us and we believe this will be the first of many great books from this talented author.

Regal Crest Enterprises, LLC

###

Like, wow. Isn't this freakin' great?? I'm going to be a book-published author! I've been on a high for a week now. I'd be all calm then it'd hit me again like a cattle prod.

On January 2nd, '06 I sent BG1 to a potential publisher. Their waiting time is 6 weeks to 3 months. The six week mark is February 13th (which isn't a Friday!).

So now I wait.

Will my precious little feelings get hurt? Will I have any fingernails left?

The good part is that I can't think of anything I could have done to make BG1 better. Well, yeah, there are some things, but I mean like chapter endings, style, plot line, the allegedly little stuff.

With my nonfiction articles, I tend to spot an error about one millisecond after I hit the send key. But this baby has been gone over and polished and is ready. So off it went. I am sure there are places it could be better, but I'm not worrying about that. Honest. I think.

I've decided to set the BG books aside and work on another manuscript. Each time I started working on one, my brain would drift over to BG1. I took my brain out and slapped it around some, but I think it liked it too much. Which is why I am going to work on Simple Sarah v6. I just need to get started. Get into that story and out of the others.

I believe that if when BG1 sells, I will be charged and ready to finish BG2 and BG3. (The others are not much more than glorified short stories or notes.) Until then, open them not I will.

I have set up BG1 to the specifications for Bold Strokes Books submission guidelines.

They want the first line of each paragraph indented and no blank line between paragraphs. The first was easy to do (format > paragraph) but the other was not so easy. But, it is done.

Which means that instead of being 538 pages or so, it is now 397 pages. Still double-spaced too.

That feels better now, don't it?

So, if I can ever get the synopsis down to one page, it will be ready to send out to them.

I'm going to try Bold Strokes Books first for some reason. I had a good reason at the time but now I can't remember it. Brain fart.

PS:

Bella Books likes each chapter heading to be 1/3 of the way down the page. After doing that, the page total for them will be 408.

Kinda sorta maybe perhaps have a title for BG1. I'll run it by Lorna tonight.

I've gotten some words in already today. I'm about to hit my creative start of the day so perhaps I will be inspired. BG2 is really sucky. It's like I don't know where I am going. Perhaps it is because I don't?

BG2, at that time titled UHauls, was actually the first one I started. I set it aside to do NaNo last year–which resulted in what is now BG1. After Nano, I just couldn't get back into UHauls, that flame was gone. The plot has changed since then and I'm not sure it is for the better of the worse. No one knows but my muse and since I don't have one…

Time for my late lunch. (lupper?)