Hello Blogfest, Goodbye Cheese

Shelley Watters is hosting a "Twitter" pitch blogfest for completed MS's. The prize? A full manuscript request from Suzie Townsend of Fine Print Literary Management. See more here. In 140 characters, not words, characters, here's my pitch:

Title: Faux Paw

Genre: YA Urban fantasy

Word Count: 70,000

Socially inept Faux only wanted a boyfriend, until she burst into flame and initiated the apocalypse. Now all she wants is to go home.

The non-scaled down blurb goes a little something like this:

Ugly, socially inept Faux (Fox) never hoped for more than a boyfriend by the time her seventeenth birthday rolled around. Alone—abandoned by both career-parents on her special day, she lit the candle. “Make a wish!” she sighed, blew out the cake, and exploded, literally.

Seems there’s one or two things Mom and Dad hadn’t mentioned—like the freaky way she could imitate the human torch, or the reaper-like creatures on her trail, or the two opposing and steamy misfits working to psychologically win her over. Now uncovering the truth about her past is the only thing that may save her from the monsters on her trail—all of them.

AND ON TO THE CHEESE:

I keep hearing it, and so my "youthful" days of wishfully thinking I'm above the law...

are over.

What law? Oh, the law of name branding. So, (as much as it pains me,) I'm retiring the profile name of "Happily Cheesy" (*don't cry, don't cry!*) in favor of my real name.

It's not that I don't like my name. Actually, I love it! When I realized I was going to marry a Collier, I leapt for joy. I mean--besides the fact my hubby rocks, I'm now an alliteration. =)

Faux and the Inner Fire: Never Giving Up

I recently participated in a facebook discussion on an abundance of “unfinished” works. A fellow writer talked about putting away the works she doesn’t think she’ll ever finish—essentially banishing them from mind and heart.

Ouch.

It got me thinking. See, I’ve got this hang up. After an inspiring dream or a new idea hits, I’m on fire. Can’t stop thinking about the possibilities. Can’t stop planning. Can’t stop the character’s conversations in my head. The computer is my best friend, and the pillow is my outlining board. For a few weeks it’s the only thing I want to do—writing that story. For a few weeks. Eighty pages in my foot gets caught in the web of editing, and it’s all over.

 I recently read an article by David S. Goyer, the screenwriter of The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Blade, and many many other big box shows. He says anyone can write a great first act. To quote Goyer:

“The trick is moving past Act One into the inevitable, sagging Act Two. Many writers bottom out in the middle of their scripts – the point where they actually have to start weaving the various storylines together. They get depressed, they procrastinate, they flounder. I do it as well. Even now, I frequently find myself questioning the merit of any given project when I’m in the middle of it.

“But it’s important to resist the temptation to jump back to Act One and begin endlessly rewriting it. Rewriting Act One before plowing through Act Two is just an elaborate form of procrastination. More often than not, fine-tuning Act One will simply result in further demoralizing you. And honestly, how can you be revising Act One when you haven’t even finished the rest of the draft?”

 Way to go Mr. Goyer.

SO, here I go, back to a story I started in 2005. For the next couple months I’ll be writing 1,000 to 2,000 words a day until I can slam that first draft on the desk and say, “Ha!” My official WIP is:


Faux Pas

Ugly, socially inept Faux (Fox) never hoped for more than a boyfriend by the time her seventeenth birthday rolled around. Alone—abandoned by both career-parents on her special day, she lit the candle. “Make a wish!” She sighed, blew out the cake, and exploded, literally.

Seems there’s one or two things mom and dad hadn’t been telling her—like the freaky way she could imitate the human torch, or the reaper-like creatures on her trail, or the two opposingly steamy misfits working to psychologically win her over. Now uncovering the truth about her past is the only thing that may save her from the monsters on her trail—all of them.



What do you have sitting in the attic, earning dust?