My Friday

It's my Friday to post at Indie-Debut.  Click over to see my tips for giving helpful manuscript critiques. 


And have a great weekend!

Ducks, Storms, Revisions and Mango Salad

Things I learned yesterday:

1) Our ducks are freaking terrified of umbrellas.  When I ran out during yesterday's storm to get them into their house, Kate and Deiter started flapping all over the yard, honking loudly.  Kate didn't realize the coop door was closed and crashed into the glass.  Deiter ran in circles then tried to hide under the shed.  I put the umbrella down and all was fine.  WT???

2) Revising a manuscript can make it even more of a mess than whatever you started with.  Enough said.

3) The green mango salad in Martha Stewart's FOOD magazine this month is excellent.  I recommend adding some chopped sweet onion or jicama for extra crunch.

4) After a storm, you sometimes get treated to a really amazing sunset.

SMALL CHANGES MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE IN QUERIES

When I finished my WIP back in January, I wrote a query letter and started sending it out.  I thought it was a great query for a great book so I was pretty heartsick when I started getting form rejections.  So I reread my query and decided to make a few small changes.  The results were so striking, I thought I'd share them with you.  The difference in the queries and in the submittal stats are below.  (The title of my book and key phrases are deleted for obvious reasons).

QUERY #1: 
Seven submittals. 
Received six form rejects, one request for the full.
___________________________________________
Bob McBob's life can be summed up in numbers: thirteen years, fifty eight cities, one crazy mom and zero friends. He longs for a real home and a family; what he gets are motor inns and fantastic stories about his father coming down from the mountains of the gods so he could be born. Out of money, he and his mother land in Pittsboro, NC, where Bob's life takes a happy turn. He finds an uncle, makes a friend and learns how to ride a bike. But the secrets about his past lie just under the red-clay surface, and when his mother flees the haunting memories, she leaves Bob in Pittsboro to decide for himself who he is and what he believes.


My magical-realism novel, XXX is set in 1981, a time when the South still struggled with racial issues and decades of past violence echoed in folks' minds. The book would appeal to an upper middle-grade audience and runs about 39,000 words. The southern setting and voice are based on my childhood in rural North Carolina.


QUERY #2:
Five submittals. 
Received four requests for partials, one request for the full.

_____________________________________________
Bob McBob can sum up his life in numbers: thirteen years, fifty-eight cities, one crazy mom and zero friends. He longs for a real home and a family; what he gets are motor inns and fantastic stories about reincarnated holy men and his dad being a god. Out of money, he and his mother land in Pittsboro, NC, where Bobs's life takes a happy turn. He finds an uncle, makes a friend and learns how to ride a bike. But clues about his father's identity, a fortune-telling aardvark and a do-it-yourself vampire book begin to test Bob's idea of reality. When his mother flees the painful memories Pittsboro holds for her, she leaves Bob there to decide for himself: Who am I? What do I believe?
 
My magical-realism novel, XXX, would appeal to a middle-grade audience and runs about 39,000 words. The southern setting and voice are based on my childhood in rural North Carolina and the rich character of the folks who inhabit the South.


Obviously, the second query made a much better impression.  I think the main difference was that I left out the 'racial tension' issue.  The racial issues in the book are certainly not front-and-center in the plot so leaving them out of the query was not inappropriate.  I also tried to showcase the quirky characters and situations in the book, tighten up the verbiage and create a stronger connection to the character with the switch to first-person at the end. 

If you have queries that generate form rejects, how do you approach revisions?

FRIDAY FAVORITE--this blog is carbon neutral!

I'm late to the Carbon Neutral party, but I wanted to save it for my Friday Favorite.  Lately, I've been working a lot with a green builder here in Boise and have learned (more slowly than I'd like) more and more about what it takes to make a new structure or a remodel green.  To steal a title from writer-director Nancy Meyers, it's complicated. 

What's not complicated is calculating the carbon footprint of your home.  You can do that here.  This is one of the easier calculators I've seen (because it requires less data input, though this also means it's not as accurate as some of the others).  They even offer ways to offset your footprint at the end of the calculation.

THINGS FOR THURSDAY ... even though today is friday

1.  Remember last year when I was in charge of the school carnival and almost lost my mind building international food booths?  In appreciation, the PTO gave me a $50 gift card to a really nice restaurant.  Hubby and I have been waiting for a special occasion (ie, when we don't have The Boy) to use it.  Tuesday, I found out the restaurant closed.  Lesson learned:  Sieze the day!

2.  This is The Boy doing his Living Legends piece.  Each kid was given a famous person to research.  Then they did a power point presentation, dressed up as that person, for the parents.  The Boy was Mark Twain.  He was so calm and composed in front of all those people.  That gene must have come from his dad.

3.  Tuesday was pretty crappy.  In addition to finding out the restaurant closed (see #1) I received a rejection on my latest ms -- one I've been waiting on and hopful about for three months.  Then my computer crashed.  I almost ran out of gas and was late for tennis.  The Boy and I went to the movies and were caught in a terrible downpour.  Then lightning hit the movie theater and stopped the movie.  #goaway,tuesday!

4. But Wednesday was good.  I got my computer back, all fixed up, with more RAM, less malware and no evil virus.  I also received a request for a partial on the same ms I got the rejection for on Tuesday.  The rejection actually had some great feedback, so I wondered what to do about the partial request.  Should I send in the ms as it was and hope for the best?  Or make the revisions first, which could take months.  I contacted the agent, gave her the situation and she was wonderfully understanding.  She's happy to wait for the revised edition.  Lesson learned:  Communication is best, whatever the situation. 

5.  This weekend:  measuring a house, dinner with friends and starting work on a new chair.  What's on your agenda?

Change of Plans

I was going to do a post on how much difference a query letter can make, but the universe decided against it.  My computer crashed yesterday and is now in rehab.  My guy...er, the doctor said he'd have it back to me today so ... fingers crossed! 

Until then, I'll be revising ...

Chairs

Before  ....  After

Chair one is done.

Just three more left.

Here are some detail shots...

Bare Bones

The tricky inside corner

Neatly tucked sides.

I realized after I ordered the leather for these chairs that the originals were NOT leather.  They're heavy canvas, painted to look like leather.  And the upholstery studs aren't studs at all, but nails with a tiny round canvas head, also painted to look like leather.  I really wanted to upholster these in a funky fabric but thought I should stay truer to the originals.  Guess I should have completed my research before starting the first draft, huh?

Monday Funny

http://www.djroger.com/oregano.JPG

Me to The Boy:  Can you make a sign for this oregano plant that says "Free Plant to Good Home"?  I want to put it out on the sidewalk so someone can take it home and plant it.
The Boy: Sure.
(He works with his crayons for a while.  Goes outside & puts the plant on the sidewalk.)

The Boy: Mommy, I did a cool sign and I put a little circle at the bottom and wrote 'Tips'.
Me:  Oh, no.  The plant is supposed to be free. 
The Boy:  But...
Me:  No, honey.  You need to take the 'tips' part off.

(The Boy goes out to the sidewalk with a pencil, comes back in smiling.)
The Boy:  I added the word "optional".

FACTS & FIGURES

FACTS:
The Bowker Report for 2009 is out.  Some of you may have seen bits and pieces posted around the networld.  The link above will take you to the article.  The highlights are...

Number of books published in 2009: 1,052,803 (up 87% over 2008)
Number of those books SELF or POD* published:  764,448  (72.6%)

Here's the scary part:    
The number of traditionally published books (ie, not self or POD published) DROPPED 0.5%, from 289,729 in 2008 to 288,355 in 2009. 
The number of traditionally published fiction books was down 15%.

On the plus side for Children's Writers:
Traditionally published kid's books (picture books thru YA) were up 8.4%.
AND
Kid's books are very close to becoming the majority of all books published!  For years, fiction (adult) has been the category with the most books published.  But in 2009, the gap closed with 45,181 fiction books published to 32,348 children's books published (including only books put out by traditional publishers). 
Kid's books:
2008:   29,825 books   
2009:   32,348 books
Adult Fiction:
2008:   53,058 books
2009:   45,181 books
If those trends continue, Children's Literature could claim the top spot in just a couple years.

FIGURES:

I already gained back all the weight I lost being sick.  Stupid frosted animal cookies.
__________________________________________________
*POD Books include books put out by small presses that use publish-on-demand technology.  Even though these presses may have similar submission guidelines and editing processes, they are lumped into the same group with self-published books.  Bowker does not break out a percentage of books printed on demand through small presses.

TUESDAY AT MY HOUSE

This came in the mail yesteday.  It's the leather off half a cow, finely finished in a nice dark brown for my antique chairs project.

These are the chairs.  I found them in my mom-in-law's basement.  They're very old and rickety, and two of the four are missing the leather seat and back rest.  Thus, the ordering of half a cow worth of leather.

And this is my accomplishment for yesterday.  I cut the leather for the back rest (front and back), padded it and nailed it into place.  I think it looks pretty good!

In other news...

Alice Pope is leaving CWIM after eighteen years.  You can get more info here. 

The Invisible Sister is currently in its' second round of edits, reviewing chapters 3-6. 

My friend and critique partner Sarah Tregay just signed a book with Harper!!  Yay Sarah!  I know our critique group loved this manuscript, so I wasn't at all surprised it got snapped up.  We plan to have brownies at our next critique group meeting to celebrate.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday.  My gift to myself is a blog break.  

Come back tomorrow for another scintillating post on whatever I happen to be worried about at 8:45 on a Tuesday morning. 

Now, go out and enjoy my birthday! 

Travel-Pack Winner!

Thanks to all my wonderful followers, new and old.  I'm happy to announce the winner of the Ecuador Travel Pack, including the scarf, Ecuadorian chocolate and Conde Nast Unforgettable Journeys book is...

63 followers names written on bits of paper

Hubby watching ball game and distractedly picking winner

The Winner!!

JANIS COOK!

Congratulations Janis and thanks again to all my followers.  I really appreciate you sticking with me, even when my blog gets cranky. 

Questions for Friday

? ? ?

When do you give up on a manuscript? 

If it's received requests for fulls and partials, do you keep trying? 

If those full and partial requests result in rejections, do you drawer it? 

How many rejections does it take before you move on to something else?


Don't forget about the Travel Pack Contest!!  Become a follower by Sunday and you could win!!

The Ecuador Photo Journal

Our Hotel in Otavalo

We had this whole bldg to ourselves, including the yard, swingset and teeter-totter.  The kids just roamed outside the whole time.  Great!

B. and I "Plaza of the Ponchos" in Otavalo.  Such cheap prices for woven alpaca goods, table cloths and ponchos.

  We took the tram to 13,000 above Quito.    From here, you can climb the volcano (in the background) but we were out of breath just walking around.

Our super posh hotel in Cuenca. 

The food we ordered seldom resembled what we expected.  This is the Ecuadorian version of vegetarian spaghetti.  It has red peppers, carrots, peas and lima beans in a clear chicken-flavored gravy.  Interesting.

In Cuenca, all the girl's schools in the city put on a parade one Saturday morning.  There were girls in school dresses, cheerleader outfits, drummers in short-shorts, dancers in leotards and, like here, native dress.  There were literally thousands.  The parade went on for hours.

Our hotel in Ballenita, at the coast, was built partly out of an old ship, complete with brig.  The kids had a great time at this place.

Sand castles, sand therapy.  Sand.  Everywhere.

An unusually sunny day on the Pacific Coast.

In Guayaquil, before flying home.  The kids are pretty much done with vacation and ready to go home.

Bye-bye Cotapaxi Volcano.

Ecuador Prize Pack

GIVEAWAY!!

While I was in Ecuador, of course I was thinking about all my great blog followers and I bought a couple things for you guys.  This week, I'm giving them away along with a great travel book. 

1.  A beautiful alpaca wool scarf

2.  Two Ecuadorian candy bars

3.  The Conde Nast Book of Unforgettable Journeys: Great Writers on Great Places.

To enter, just be a follower--that's it.  A comment below might be nice, but not necessary.  Whoever is listed in my follower list on Sunday at 5 pm eastern time will be entered.  I'll announce the winner Monday morning.

And...

If you're feeling lucky, you can head over to my friend Susan's blog.  She's giving away three Borders/Barnes & Noble gift certificates to celebrate reaching 100 followers!

Good luck!!

Back in the Land of the Safe Water

Volcano in the Clouds, Quito, Ecuador  (+13,000 ft.)

We're back.  I'll post about the trip in bits and pieces later in the week, but for now I'm nursing a very crampy stomach and trying to dig out from under the pile of work/housework etc that was waiting for me when we returned.  I'll just leave you with some interesting things I learned in the 'in-flight' magazine on the way from NY to Boise:

1. The University of Minnesota is working to prevent the children of Sudan from being kidnapped from their homes by securing birth certificates for them.  If you don't know anything about the lost children of Sudan, please google it.  You can learn more about U of M's efforts here.
2. Don't eat bluefin tuna.  It's currently being fished out faster than it can reproduce and the population is down 90% since 1970. 
3. You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide a year by recycling just half of your household waste.  I don't know about you, but cans, bottles, cardboard packaging and paper is easily half of our waste.
4. Orange roughy (a fish) can live to be 200 years old but there are hardly any that old because they're completely overfished.  Orange roughy sells for around $9 a pound.  Doesn't that seem weird?  That something could be that old...and worth only $9 a pound. 
5. The final game of the NCAA Basketball Tournie is tonight.  Tune in and pull for Butler.  Duke freaking sucks.
6. Visit Machu Picchu while you can.  Tourism is deteriorating the area so much there is talk of closing the site for its own preservation. 
7. (Wishing I had this before I got my unfortunate tummy troubles...)  The Bobble.  A reusable plastic water bottle with a carbon filter right in the cap.  It filters water with every drink.  $9.95.
8. It's snowing here.  I am.  Not happy.