Where are the tongs? And other stories.

I know I said I was going to be better, but things haven't settled down in the slightest at my house. First, the significant other got a new job with hours (for the most part) opposite of mine, so I'm spending what time we both have off with him.

Then, about two weeks ago, one of our computers died. It's technically his, but since he's been gaming way more than me lately, I told him to use my totally AWESOME computer for that, and I would just use his older one for my own business. Then one morning I turned it on, and it blue screened. Don't you just LOVE stop errors? I haven't looked too much into it, but I think we might be able to do something about it. I just haven't had the time to geek out over it.

One thing is for sure though. I am definitely glad I had all my novels/notes/other important documents backed up simultaneously on three flash drives and the other computer. I don't think I lost anything, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Then, Saturday was Vinny's cousin Suzie's wedding. Thus, his family was in town. The original plan was for his mother and brother to stay with us for the duration of their trip, but that idea was (thankfully) later tossed aside in favor of a hotel.

And I couldn't be happier.

The day of the wedding was a nightmare. I woke up to 45 degree weather with wind gusts of nearly 65MPH. Thank God it was planned as an indoor wedding. We spent almost an hour and a half on Saturday driving around looking for two small sets of metal tongs. We went to 15 different stores in the Ogden area to find them. Not. One. Pair.

Inorite?

Instead of champagne and the toasts at the wedding, Suzie and David had a candy bar.

Best. Idea. Ever.

Gummy bears, M&M's, cinnamon bears, those pastel mint thingys, swedish fish, those green and white sour apple rings, colorful sugary fruit wedges, dots...it was glorious, I tell you!

The ceremony was beautiful and the reception went well. The four different cakes were AMAZING. There was carrot cake, double chocolate raspberry...I'm making myself hungry now.

The day after the wedding, Vinny's family went back to California. Monday I spent the day NOT packing, since that morning I discovered that my driver's license had expired on May 31 (oops!) and I had to take a cross-country flight the next day. So I trudged my way over to the DMV--or whatever they call it nowadays--and got my temporary I.D. When I got home, I got changed and we went to the park for our weekly socialization. We played Ultimate Frisbee in the park with the church crew, which was a ton of fun.

Monday night I cooked an 11lb. turkey breast for Vinny to eat while I'm gone, finally packed my stuff, and went to bed around 3am. I woke up at 11 the next morning, double checked my stuff, and was transported to the SLC airport.

My first flight was fine. I arrived in Denver at 4pm and found the gate for my next flight, from Denver to Newark Liberty, which was scheduled for a 5:44 departure. I hung around, worked a bit, lugged my too-heavy bag around to the bathroom, a coffee stop, quesadilla run, another bathroom stop, and half a dozen times to check the boards for my flight status: Delayed.

That's all it said. No time, no reason, no NOTHING. So I headed up to the desk and asked the attendant what in the blazes was going on with my flight. He told me it was moved a few gates down, and that it was delayed indefinitely, and he had no idea why.

I grabbed my bags and huffed it over to the new gate and waited. And waited. Then I waited some more. Finally, I got sick of waiting and asked the attendant at the current gate what was going on.

The response?

"There was a problem with the plane. They're trying to find a new one. They're going to make a decision at 8."

This was, of course, pushed back (and, surprise! pushed back again). To a final arrival time of 9:35. OH. MY. GOD!

So there I was, sitting in the Denver airport with nothing to do. I had work I didn't want to do and a book I didn't want to read, and plenty of music that I didn't want to listen to. So I did what I knew always sucked up more time than I had, no matter how long that may be.

I called Nana.

That's right, my Nana. We talked for hours about everything and everything you could imagine. We talked about my books, we talked about her lasik surgery, we talked about my uncle's new hobby-- he's become a certified falconer and recently bought a puppy to use as a bird dog, we discussed that my sister still didn't know I was coming home for her high school graduation, and whether or not I was eating right, and much, much more.

When my flight landed in Newark at 3:15am, I dragged my luggage up and down stairs and escalators and through hallways trying to find ONE open bathroom.

Yes, my oblivious baby sister was surprised that I was there when they pulled up to the airport. She had actually believed my dad when he told her he was going on a business trip for a few days. I can give her that one, because he does travel a lot. But what I can't get over is the fact that when she drove there with him, he told her to follow the sign that said "ARRIVALS" because, "That's for people arriving at the airport. Departures are for people leaving the airport." And she totally bought it.

We got home at 4:45am, I plopped my things down and was asleep before I hit the mattress. Unfortunately, I woke up again when I landed on the 17 pound family cat, Tigger. And let me tell you, Tigger is not a friendly feline.

My dad thought it would be nice to make me breakfast this morning. And yes, it was nice to wake up and have breakfast and coffee waiting for me. But he woke me up at 1pm. I had to explain to him that New Jersey is on fake time, and the time was actually 11am, which is way to early to be up on a day off after spending 15 hours between going to the airport, being at the airport, flying, and going home from the airport.

I think I'm done narking for now. Night.

The good, the bad, and the stupid

Project: TFI

Looked at: Chapter 1-30

Starting word count: 79,352

Ending word count: 81,732

Gain/Loss: +2,380

Biggest Problem: Chapter 28 needed to be completely rewritten.

Favorite line:
Must I really choose just one?

Daily WTF: How did I manage to write an entire chapter that didn't really advance the plot? And how did I not wrap up the biggest subplot in the novel? Beats me.

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I'd like to announce that TFI is D.O.N.E! I'm still waiting to hear back from Vic and one other person, but J.M. has the rewrite in her inbox. After six years, I'm ready to wash my hands of this. I'll be sad to see it go, but I plan on moving on to other things very, very shortly. Besides, it's time for TFI to get out and see the world…or at least an agent's inbox.

On the other side of that, J.M. recently agreed to critique an erotica novel. This novel was 133,163 words long. Bugger and blast! 562 pages of bloomin' erotica! J.M. spent two full days straight critting this novel for this chick. The whole time, she was telling me how drawn out it was, but that she wanted to finish it for this person, because that's just how J.M. is. After being tortured by redundant shagging scenes and slogging through a manuscript that's 4/5 dialogue, she reaches the end. Which, she's happy to say, was kinda cool. Overall, it was a dog's dinner.

She sent the crit to the writer, and gets this response. "Don't mind the bluntness in the least, but I'm going to take the "It's too loooong! with a huge grain of salt. It probably IS too long, but I figure if it's accepted my publisher will take a knife to it."

Seriously? You stupid wanker! You really think any agent is going to take a 133k erotica seriously? What agent is going to look at that query and say, "Hmm. A hundred and thirty-three thousand word erotica. Of course I'll take a look at it! I didn't have anything else planned for the next month, so I'll sit here and do the writer's job for them." She's daft, that one.

Sorry sweetheart, but you need to get a grip. You're bloody barmy! It makes me so mad that I'm going British all over the place. Someone was nice enough to slug through your doorstop of a manuscript, and you have the bleedin' audacity to throw all of their time out the window by saying you're not going to change it, because that's the agent/publisher's job? Editing your manuscript is a DIY kind of thing. Don't try to pawn it off on someone who has better things to do with their time.

Agents have clients. Clients are their lifeblood. Successful clients are the ones who pay the agent's rent at the end of the month. You are just some silly bird who wastes three minutes of the agent's time while they read your query, get to the length, laugh, and form reject your stupid arse. At least they might get a kick out of the attempt. If you get anything other than a form rejection, I'll eat my shorts.

I'm definitely in one hell of a nark right now.

Anatomy of a bad critique

I've given myself a deadline for editing. If I'm not done by March 31, I'm not allowed to go Frisbee Golfing this year. If that doesn't get my ass into gear, nothing will.

Since I'm being so strict about this deadline, I've asked some fellow writers over at Forward Motion to take a look. Got the first one back today, and after reading through the six pages of critique, it was obvious that they just didn't get it. Last time, I talked about the importance of a critique partner. Now, I want to talk about the anatomy of a bad critique.

I'll start off by admitting that reading the critique in question made me mad.

Some of the points brought up were valid, and I plan on addressing.

Example 1 : There are times on each of the missions where both the first and last name of a character are used independently, thus causing confusion. This is a legitimate point.

Example 2 : There is a point where Jana takes off her uniform and bathes in the lagoon. For some reason, I have her unzipping her uniform, doing something, zipping it back up, and then getting in the water and unzipping it to take it off and bathe. Redundant. This is a legitimate point.

Some of the points made it clear that they had no idea what was going on.

Example 3: "Why couldn't they use the drug to stop them?" (This is the actual question she asked, pertaining to a situation in the novel about the terrorists unleashing a biochemical toxin). Seriously? She really asked that? Maybe because it was concentrated stuff, and it was a SURPRISE ATTACK! The medicine she's talking about must be injected, but the toxin's kill rate is a matter of minutes. Not to mention, it's an experimental treatment that when used on Jana made her extremely sick.

Example 4: "Characters are not military enough." This is another example of blatant misunderstanding of the text. There is a very real reason why the characters, military, and government are the way they are. It tells you why.

So what's the difference? A helpful critique will touch on both the positive and negative aspects. Gushing over the good parts shouldn't be so much for the author's ego than to show them what it is they're doing right, what's working for them. The bad comments should be paid attention to if and only if the reviewer's remarks make it clear that they get what's going on, or if it is like the first two Examples.

To compare, I'll use one of J.M.'s comments.

Good Critique: If I were a little girl, and I saw someone holding a gun at my daddy, I'd be scared. The child shows too much indifference. Sure, it helps the plot, but you're missing another chance for more conflict. Kids aren't stupid. They sense tension, it makes them uneasy, and they cry. Even if she didn't know that Jana wanted to hurt her daddy, she would still squirm in her arms, cry, grabby-hand at her daddy, etc. She'd be nervous because her daddy was unnerved and anxious. (This is a legitimate point.)

Bad Critique: "At some point, the sun set and they turned on the artificial lights" Odd for some reason I thought they weren't on a planet. (Note: It is clear they're not on a planet, because it says so in the sentence before it. The station is orbiting the planet like a satellite, so they have night and day to a degree, even if it is only through the windows of the station.)

Reasons why Heroes makes me angry

Tonight, I had a conversation with some fellow writers about Heroes. We got onto the topic because the Star Trek movie came up, and I mentioned that every time I saw younger Spock, I kept picturing him sawing the tops of people's heads off.

Let me say this now. Heroes had SO much potential. And now…fuck.

1. Claire goes through love interests like tissues, and every time they die or something terrible happens to them. What happened to West? Apparently they "still facebook". How about underwater breathing comic book kid? And then there's Gretchen…don't get me started.
   
2. Lauren. Shove off.
   
3. WTF happened to Molly?
   
4. Parkman takes all of TWO MINUTES to get over speedster girl, and then it's back to Janice like nothing happened.
   
5. Every season they try and reinvent the show, but it just doesn't work. Stop it.
   
6. Scaly, angry Mohinder. See also: Pissed off Gregor Samson Mohinder.
   
7. "I want to join the Company" Mohinder.
   
8. "I don't want to continue my father's work. Oh wait, J/K!" Mohinder.
   
9. Right about the time I started liking Nathan, he gets killed, which leads me to:
   
10. The Nathan-Sylar mindfuck.
    
11. Hiro's childhood regression.
    
12. EVERYONE CAN PAINT THE FUTURE! First it's Isaac, then Peter absorbed the power. Sylar gets it from killing Isaac, and Mr. Petrelli gets it from stealing Peter's powers. African man has it, and then he gives it to Hiro and Parkman. Seriously?
    
13. Nancy Drew and the case of the murdered co-ed.
    
14. Claire's obsession with helping, when in fact she's completely USELESS.
    
15. "OMG all I want is a normal life. Wait, strike that. I'm happy being special. But all I want is a normal life! I want to go to college! But then everyone gets abducted and I can't go to college with that happening! Wait, now I want to be special so I'm going to go join a freaking CARNIVAL, because creepy greasy carnival owner man says I'm great."
    
16. Jessica/Nikki/other personality that gets conveniently thrown in to kill DL.
    
17. Nikki/Barbara/Tracy. Uhm…what happened to Jessica being Nikki's dead sister?
    
18. The Carnival.
    
19. The amazing (sarcasm) idea that Parkman drinking causes Sylar to hurt, and eventually disappear. Uh..HELLO! Of course he's going to disappear! You've just given yourself alcohol poisoning.
    
20. Alice and her desert wonderland. Was there a point to that? I think not.
    
21. The Haitian wind chime thing. How the blazes does that work, anyway?
    
22. Peter in Ireland and the useless relationship with the pub girl.
23. Maya. You weakling, get over it! Man up and quit being a wet dishrag. Oh wait, they killed your character off because she was a crybaby moron who couldn't see that Sylar was a mass murdering lunatic. You decided to listen to him instead of your brother, even after you knew Gabriel was a murderer. Then you get involved with Mohinder, and he glues you to a wall because you're an idiot. How does that feel?
    

    There are so many more, but I think I'll limit it to these. In closing,
    

    If you were to watch Heroes backwards, it would get better over time.
    

A query nark, and other things.

Project: TFI

Looked at: Chapter Two

Starting word count: 80,014

Ending word count: 80,421

Gain/Loss: +407

Biggest Problem: Needed to flesh out some of the sections a little more. Jana wasn't quite as snarky in this chapter.

Favorite line:
"He stood behind his desk looking down at Jana, beefy face and obscene mustache giving him a look resembling a walrus. If only he had a top hat." –Page 28

Daily WTF: "The SCORPION team. That is, the S-311M Central Organization for the Removal of Potential Infectious Outbreaks and Nosopoetic anomalies," he rattled off. –Page 24

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If you're wondering what's up with the favorite line for today, it's a reference to Alice in Wonderland. As for today's WTF line, the acronym system in this book is meant to be a bit cliché. I put that one in there because when writing this for the first time, I came up with all these words for the acronyms that made me say, "Yeah! That's awesome! That sounds so darn cool!"

I refused to change the words even when the fluidity was a challenge. I have a running joke with a friend about this. "And that's the PHOENIX team. Don't ask me what it is, because the author couldn't come up with a decent X word. Bit embarrassing, so we just don't talk about it."

But gosh darn it, I was determined! Eventually I ended up making it into a mech model, and it played a rather important part later on. Thankfully, it worked out this time.

What I'm reading now: The Hellgate trilogy by Mel Odom, based off of the game by Flagship Studios. (Which, by the way, could have been amazing, but just wasn't.) It was suggested to a friend of mine who currently has a full reading list. I suspect that I'm screening the book for him, but whatever. It started off great, until the character got killed off and I found out it's his son the book is actually about.

That aside, I'm not hating it. It's good enough that I continue to read it. It keeps me entertained, and I like where he went with the technology for the Templars. So far I've gotten about ¾ through the first book, just reading en route to work. (No, not while I'm driving. That would be irresponsible. But then again, it is Utah. What could possibly happen?)


Looked at Nathan Bransford's website more in-depth today. I've followed his blog for a while, but never delved into the forums. I really like what he's done with it. I signed up and took a look at the section in there for feedback. I was both surprised and happy to see that the forum community was so helpful (in the right ways). I did a critique on one of the queries posted on there, as well as a slightly older version of one of my own queries before I revised it. I'm curious to see what will be said about it.

I noticed while looking at this site and others like it that many people like to allude to the bad guys without giving any information about them, or who they are. They think it creates suspense, but I think it's just confusing. A little mystery is good, but you need to give the reader enough to sink their teeth into. If you have your whole query talking about Mary Gretchen looking for a birthday gift for the devilish pixie living in her sock drawer and then mention at the end, "and now they must run from the watchers to keep the Purple Scarf of Flamboyancy from falling into the wrong hands…" It's only going to lead to a resounding "WTF" from me. Who are the watchers? What's their aim? Why are they so dangerous? And most importantly, what on earth would they do with the PSoF?