Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Where are you?

I want to know where you are right now. I don't mean geographically speaking, although now that I'm thinking about it, I do want to know that too--I'm wildly curious that way. I mean, where are you in your writing right now? That magical/hellish first draft? First revision? 100th revision? First novel? 10th novel? Agented? Pre-agented? Published? If you don't write but love to read, you can just answer the geographical part.

I'll even go first to break the ice. Geographically, I'm in Colorado but you'd think I was in Kansas with all the hail and tornado warning we've had recently. 

Writing wise, I think I'm about finished revising my first YA novel. Don't ask me how many revisions I've gone through because I've lost track--either that, or my brain has blocked out the trauma. Also, this is the 3rd or 4th time I've thought I was really, really, finally finished, so I'm not placing bets. I'm about to jump head first into some hard core querying, but I want my Sisters to see my "newest really, really, finally finished draft" first. Also, I'm terrified. To ease the stress, I'm working on a new YA ms which is SO. MUCH. FUN. I love, love, love 1st drafts.

Enough about me. I want to know about you. Where are you?  

12 comments:

  1. I'm in Virginia, and I'll trade you our Crematoria heat for your hail and wind... although we have had our share of wind recently...

    In writing, I'm peddling my dystopian YA EVERNOW to agents. It's the 5th book I've written but the first that has gotten any real attention. That said I'm at that place where I want to scream and eat lots of chocolate because while I've gotten several requests for fulls and lots of good feed back and assurances that I'm going to land an agent, and a publisher with EVERNOW... I haven't gotten any offers to rep, for one reason or another. *sigh*

    I'm also 3/4ths of the way through a YA called Amarok and the Gone Missing Girl, wherein a reclusive albino Athabaskan boy finds a feral injured girl hiding in his parents' book shed and decides to help her, no matter how complicated helping her gets.

    And then I have a pet project in my retelling of Beauty and the Beast, titled Thornbriar, which I'm about halfway through writing. In my version, Beauty knows exactly how beautiful she is, the Beast isn't at all what he seems to be, and an entire kingdom is hanging in the balance, unbeknownst to Beauty, who will either save it or destroy it with her actions.

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  2. In Indiana, I'm on my first MG novel, first draft. I'm hoping I'm going to like revision better because this is hard!

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  3. i'm outside of raleighwood, nc, a location we were only supposed to stay in for a year or two before settling someplace we wanted to live. instead, life happened and twenty years later we're still here.

    after finishing the second and third story in a series i took a hard look at the twenty-page introduction to the characters story and realized it needed to be a complete story of its own. as i was doing line edits on Draft Zero of that story, i tried writing a query for it. after several drafts i realized the problem wasn't so much with the query but with the story. i wasn't able to write an engaging query because the story wasn't all that engaging.

    now, having scraped the past howevermanyweeks worth of writing, i'm back at square one. having worked on how best to present the story via a query, i've come up with a much better plot that will give my characters a much better chance to show who they are and allow the reader to better connect with them.

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  4. Well I'm currently in Washington DC but that is just for a holiday. I'm usually stuck living down under in New Zealand.

    Writing-wise I have two novels which I'm not quite working on right now but should be. A first draft and a rewrite.

    I'm now inspired to write both but I've learned that I suck at trying to work on them at the same time so I'm going to have to choose which one to get stuck into when I get back to NZ.

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  5. A.Grey- best of luck with the agent hunt. Your YA's sound very cool.

    Virginia- I'm sure there are people who love revising. I'm just not one of them. Good luck w/ finishing that draft!

    fivecats- oh, I'm from NC originally. I miss it there! Yeah, sometimes you have to start back at square one, but its always worth it. Good luck!

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  6. Outside Atlanta, GA. I wrote my first novel and then revised it 3 or 4 times, not enough to begin querying which I did anyway a little over a year ago in my ignorance.

    Have since learned a lot and am now re-writing into first person and sharing chapter by chapter with my critique group.

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  7. I'm in West Virginia originally from Philly.

    I am in my fourth or fifth revision, I too have forgotten as well. It's a YA sci fi adventure, called The Quest to Save Xanar.

    The prequel is a novella called The Visions of Koto-Ryin. www.laurenjohnson.me

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  8. I have my foot in so many worlds right now...Geographically I'm in HI visiting family (I typically hail from CA). In my writing life, I am on the verge of my publication date of my NF book, getting ready to announce exciting news on other NF things, querying my 4th YA novel and writing the first draft of my 5th YA novel. Whew...lots and lots going on.

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  9. I'll play! Even though Kristi and Lacey already know the answers.

    I'm in my hometown in Michigan right now but I was in Los Angeles for over 12 years and I'm itching to get back.

    I am starting yet another revision on my current completed WIP, plotting out the end of my half-finished WIP, and letting two very cool shiny new ideas percolate in the back of my mind as well as making notes in the notebooks I started for each. All YA of course, one paranormal, two contemporary sci-fi-ish, one dark contemporary.

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  10. A. Grey, all of those sound awesome! Good luck!

    Virginia, hang in there!

    Fivecats, good luck! it's great that you were able to find the problems within your manuscript.

    Keri, I live in NYC and I'd love to live in New Zealand!

    Matthew, seems like we all make those mistakes.

    Hi, Lauren!

    Christine, congrats on the pub date!

    Valerie, I'm excited about these new ideas of yours!

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  11. Geographically, I'm in NYC.
    Writing-wise, I'm still in my first draft xD. I'm working on the first book in a planned trilogy, and it's hard xD I'm around 55% of the way through. 52k out of around 90k, I hope. I still have to chop out a lot of scenes, which will make it even less when I finish the first draft.
    But, when I can't forcus on writing I work on my folder titled "various scenes". It's exactly what it sounds like; whenever I have an idea, I write a scene out. I currently have 30k in that folder.
    Plus, I have a folder with different records and histories and things.

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  12. Love this idea! Probably because I'm curious as well. :) I'm in Florida. I just mailed off my YA to an interested agent. Like you, way too many revisions to count.

    Good luck querying!

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