SARAH GAGNON'S GOOD NEWS

A couple of wonderful and amazing things have happened. I finished my revision. YAY!

I'm very happy with how it turned out. I did have a surprising moral dilemma with regards to the story, but I'll talk about it at another time. I need to think about what it means first.

The second exciting thing that happened is my amazing critique partner, Sarah Gagnon, has some wonderful news to share with everyone. Since it's her news and I don't want to spoil it for her, I'm going to ask everyone to pop on over to Sarah's blog so she can spill the details herself.

I will say how proud and thrilled I am for her.

Sarah, Carla Rehse, Don McFatridge, and I have been critique partners since we participated in the Agent Query Connect, Speculative Fiction annual Marathon in 2010. We posted a chapter a week of our manuscripts to get critiques for  12 weeks. After the marathon we stayed together. Fast forward two and a half years and we're still partners. (I also have to give a shout out to: Masako, Joyce Alton, Jordan, Kate Evangelista, Cheree Larkins, Michelle Hauk, Jason, and Bessie my other critique partners/beta readers. Love you guys)

Oops, sorry about the critter love. It's early in the morning and I feel wonderful today. *sips coffee*

Back to Sarah's good news.

Sarah is a talented woman with an amazing story to share. I predict you'll be hearing even more exciting news from her in the near future. I'm hoping I'll be able to convince her to come on the blog with a Sharing Our Voices post so you can learn her source of inspiration. 

Speaking of SOV's, I have one for you on Monday from the original gunslinger, Peter Burton. So I hope you stop by for that to show him some love. Only watch out. He's armed, although he seems to think it's for defensive measures.

Okay, enough of my ramblings. Please, pop over to wish Sarah congrats. Here's the link.

THANKS FOR ASKING

A friend emailed the other day asking if I'm still alive. Yes, I've survived the holidays. I'm sorry if I've worried anyone. It was a busy holiday season, full of fun, illness, and revision.

You see I mentioned fun first in my list, right? I'm not just saying that to psyche myself up. Although, at first it felt like one of those inspirational mantras or something to yell at the top of your lungs so your head doesn't explode from stress, "SERENITY, NOW!"

"Fake it until you make it." Or in my case, until it becomes reality.

The holidays were awesome. I had a lot of time off to spend with my family. The only bad part was that most of my loved ones were sick. And not with the same illness. That would make it too easy.

My son had the stomach flu (we figured out he was sick after he vomited as he ran to the bathroom, slipped, and fell in his own puke), my sis-in-law had bronchitis, father-in-law a sinus infection, and my nephew came down with pink-eye (at least he waited until after Santa dropped by with gifts).

For those of us not suffering any illness, we were extremely grateful and enjoyed not being sick even though a lot of our time involved nursing the sick ones. Everyone is now healthy. YAY!

I received a revision request a week before Christmas. Talk about "say what?"

Yeah, it took me two days of nail biting and pacing to figure out how I'd pull it off. It involved cutting 30k from my manuscript, rearranging chapters, adding a new point-of-view character, adding 30k back into the manuscript, and spicing it up (I'm talking sex, only so far I haven't written a sex scene. I'm thinking it's too early in their relationship. However, they've come damn close).

I have a hundred pages left in to revise, so the sex question isn't off the table, err bed, yet. I hope to have the draft finished and off to my critique partners by the end of the month, if not sooner.

 
So, how were your holidays. Fun times?

SAVOR COVER REVEAL- KATE EVANGELISTA

 

 

You've had a TASTE of Kate Evangelista's world. Now it's time to SAVOR it.

 

Okay, that was me being cheesy. It's too early in the morning for me to try and be clever. I am extremely thrilled for Kate, and I love this beautiful cover. I haven't read but a snippet of SAVOR, and I'm dying to get my official copy.

 

I shall forever and always be Team Luka.

 

Which makes me very happy and I'll share why. Fellow team members, if you haven't heard about FERVOR, you're in for a special treat. I'll let Kate tell you all about it so click on the book title for the full deets.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

When Kate Evangelista was told she had a knack for writing stories, she did the next best thing: entered medical school. After realizing she wasn't going to be the next Doogie Howser, M.D., Kate wandered into the Literature department of her university and never looked back. Today, she is in possession of a piece of paper that says to the world she owns a Literature degree. To make matters worse, she took Master's courses in creative writing. In the end, she realized to be a writer, none of what she had mattered. What really mattered? Writing. Plain and simple, honest to God, sitting in front of her computer, writing. Today, she two published Young Adult novels TASTE and REAPING ME SOFTLY.

 

THE KING OF DRAMAS

Source

This television series began airing in November 2012, on Mondays and Tuesdays on SBS. Also available on Dramafever, HULU, and Viki.com with subtitles.

 

So, you know how much I love South Korean dramas, well, I found the one which now ranks as my favorite.

Why? Well, let’s start with an awesome lead actor, Kim Myung-min who plays Anthony Kim, a shrewd, commanding, businessman who turns every drama he touches into a #1 rated series. Anthony’s all about the dollars and he won’t let anything or anyone stand in his way. When a tragic accident takes the life of one of his employees, he is cast down from his throne. Unfortunately, he destroys the career of an idealistic, rookie writer, Lee Go-eun, played by Jung Ryeo-won, in the process.

Fast forward a few years … we find Anthony struggling to survive. He wants to regain the pride he lost. To prove he is the King of Dramas to those who cast him. To do so, he must gain the help of the writer he burned, Lee Go-eun, by convincing her to trust him with her screenplay Kyungsung Morning.

It's an unholy alliance. The angel and the devil join forces. What results is a hilarious dramedy that leaves me breathless on the edge of my seat every freaking episode. Like Monday nights episode, oh, my gosh, I almost died. Died! The writers have the ability raise the conflict level to nerve-wracking heights. And as soon as one critical situation is resolved, they bring in another.

Also stars, Choi Siwon as Kang Hyun-min, who plays a self-absorbed lead actor in Kyungung Morning. His expressions and mannerisms are so hilarious. Oh Ji-eun plays Sung Min-ah, the lead actress in Kyungung Morning, who shares a romantic past with Anthony Kim. Added into the mix are evil villains in the form of gangsters and CEO's.

 

This is a delightful show. I highly recommend it.

 

 

NaNo- THE EDITING AFTERMATH

My vacation from NaNo lasted a day. A single day in which I didn't write, but instead read through the manuscript. Even after the brain numbing exhaustion of writing 50k in a month, I couldn't break away.

I'm pretty happy the story is flowing well. However, upon reading FIXED from the beginning, I saw all the areas that need to be fixed. I want to get those dangling plot threads and foreshadowing events, fleshed out before heading into the climax of the story. 

I mentioned in the last post that I had a date with a wizard, well, before that I stumbled upon his creator, Jim Butcher's Livejournal via my friend/critique partner, jallen327.  

According to Mr. Butcher, "I'm mostly going to use this livejournal to share what I know about writing with any interested parties. My approach to writing fiction is grounded in the notion that a methodical, structured use of learned story craft skills gives a writer an excellent basis on which to approach writing fiction."

His journal rocked my world. Literally.

Rather than read Mr. Butcher's book, COLD DAYS, I spent the night reading about the mechanics of crafting a story. He breaks it down in easily digestible chunks for the aspiring author to understand. I had a blast.

Then, I read his book (which is awesome) where I saw how he used the techniques he wrote about. I admit to being inspired. *insert fangirl squeal*

With this in mind, I outlined my story so far. I broke the chapters into scenes, then highlighted certain plot elements within my story arcs with colored font: romance, mystery, supernatural. This is the result.



Fixed- novel outline, by Angie Sandro

I've never been an outliner, but this worked well. With it minimized, I can see where I'm lacking in certain plot elements, like Chapter 6 and 7 are almost all geared toward the mystery. Now, I can seed in elements which are lacking to make the story more balanced. Notes are put in the comment boxes for each scene or highlighted.

Ex: Note to self, switch around Chapter 2 and 3 for better flow.

I've even added chapters and scenes that are unwritten. I know exactly where the plot is going as I wade through what Mr. Butcher calls the "Great Swampy Middle" of the story and dive into the climax.

All the preceding elements should come together in an explosion of mayhem (with a firm resolution at the end, promise :-) It's gonna be huge. Not everyone is going to make it out alive.

Boo-yah!

P.S. I'd like to get Sharing Our Voices going again, so if you're interested in sharing what inspires your creativity, please leave me contact information so I can schedule your very own guest post.

Thanks,

Angie Sandro