Which sometimes can be a blow, considering it’s your tip top agent! But at the same time, I think it’s good for your character to get a no. It helps move your forward and to the final goal of publication.

So yes, I did push send on five queries this morning… and I feel pretty good about it. I am actually thinking I will get at least one partial or full out of these requests. Not holding my breath, but I am crossing my fingers. *wink*

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Ten years ago, a legend was born among the Teken Clansmen; one Lord Arthus intends to keep secret.

Each Teken is born with a mark, but tenth year Deglan Borian’s mark has been morphing again, unlike any of his peers. His sleep is plagued with danger and a pale faced girl who is calling for him to find her. When the Teken authorities catch wind of his mark, Deglan’s parents encourage him to find the girl, regardless of where it takes him.

Daydreamer Meia is a troubled foster child who moves to a new home every few months. When she’s not in the clouds, she spends her time in a make believe world, far from the cares of the schoolyard. Normal ten-year-old girls dream of tea parties and dolls, but not Meia. Her dreams come from the pages of an adventure book and stretch well into the fantasy world and beyond.

Meia can hardly contain her joy when her new foster parents decide to take her on the vacation of a lifetime. The Cook Islands have been the backdrop for her dreams since before she could remember.

When Meia meets Deglan on the Penrhyn atoll, both of their lives will change forever. Secrets of the legend come to life and haunt their every move. Only one minor problem… Meia is a human and Deglan is… a dragon.

Delgan Rising is a Midgrade Fantasy complete at 37,500 words.

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Read
Edit
Write
Repeat

It should the mantra of everyone who is attempting to ready a submission to an agent or publishing house.

I have four completed manuscripts that need to be polished and run over with a fine tooth comb. I refuse to write another novel until these are ready for complete submission. (However, must mind the voice of the muse, but muse is saying to “Read, Edit, Write, Repeat…” but I reserve the occasion that the muse might need to pen something of the new fashion).

So if you need me, I will be behind the screen someplace, buried in thousands of virtual pages (like in the picture) seeking what is best for my works.

And yes, that is me under those pages… just not my hands.

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The funniest/craziest part of this request… I didn’t query for it.

No, true story! Honest!

I did query HER… sorta, if you could call that a query I sent. It was more like a “Umm yah, here is the deal *blah* and what do you think?” #truestory, you can ask her when she is my awesome agent…! Anyhow, my email was about my non-fiction stuff. And so she emailed me back and basically said she was “fascinated” by the ideas and then proceeded to ask me for a partial of my fiction novel.

*SWEET*

Only umm, which do I give her? ROTFL… I have three completed. And she reps all three… Can you say PERFECT AGENT?! And one of my top 5… umm panic.

Yes, I have been saying “umm” a lot since reading the email.

So needless to say… I am polishing my RINGS OF TIME and sending it to her immediately. Wow, just wow.

If you need me… I will be slaving away at the spit shinning thing… or fainted on the floor. Whichever.

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Having sent a partial to an agent before I left, I knew I needed to really examine the RINGS OF TIME MS and objectively see what she saw. I love the story. REALLY… but when I looked at it, I screamed (nay aloud). Had I really just sent this snoozer to an agent?!?!?!

*headdesk*

Now… it’s not a snoozer of a story. Really, it’s quite fun and fast paced… but the beginning was freaking BORING. Well okay, not BORING BORING, just not a reach out and grab you thing. Which I knew. My beta readers (and Authonomy peeps way back when) mentioned this… some loved the bookshop description… some said SNOOZE. I sided with the first set. But now that I have written another novel that totally grabs your from the start… I re-neg and side with the latter.

Which means (but is not limited to) a whole lot of work for me… and a cease in query. Luckily, I have only queried it three times… and only one has requested a partial. So I know the premise is good… but I have decided my delivery might be off…

So, I am shifting POVs for the novel. It’s going first person, baby! And I am going to let her freak flag fly! Oh, wait… well, she is quite normal… at the beginning of the novel anyway. Just wait till novel 2, SECRETS OF MANDOR… the freak flag is florescent pink!

Anyhow, so I have some serious rewriting to do… so if you need me. I will be over there… changing all the she, her, Emma’s to Me, my, and I… not to mention rewriting quirks into it.

Fun times…

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Adopt it. Live it. Breath it. It’s on!

The band is SuperChick and the song is from the album Beauty from Pain…

IT’S ON

And now for the Lyrics…

It all comes down to this
You take your best shot, might miss
You take it anyway
You’re gonna make your move today
Got the will, you’ll find the way
To change the world someday
Grab this moment before it’s gone
Today’s today
Got the will, you’ll find the way
To change the world someday
Grab this moment before it’s gone
Today’s your day..

It’s on and on
It’s on and on
Today’s your day
So c’mon bring it on

And the view will never change
Unless you decide to change it
Don’t feel like it today
Just show up anyway
And though life will take you down
It only matters if you let it
Get up, go through, press on
Today’s your day

It’s on and on
It’s on and on
Today’s your day
So c’mon bring it on

And though life will take you down
It only matters if you let it
Get up, go through, press on,
Today’s your day

It’s on and on
It’s on and on
Today’s your day
So c’mon bring it on

—
Ahhhh their lyrics say it so… so… SO very well. It’s work. It’s hard. You are going to get knocked down. Press on. Today’s your day.

I am sending out 5 queries today. It’s sooo on.

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In any event, if I don’t make goals for the week, things aren’t going to go as well as they could. Turning older takes thought and consideration. If I don’t have it written down, I just might think too much about the fact I am almost old…er.

So, goals… Yes.

• Finish my UNSEEN CHRONICLE on Good Friday events. Its a long one… I thought it would be a quick 2K story… now pushing 4 and I am not done yet. I am not sure why I didn’t expect that. We are talking major events here. I am just hoping to do it justice.
• Not think about the fact I am older… Must be on my list.
• Raise more support for Ethiopia (See that post here) because I need to turn in my first deposit on May 1st and this is totally something I feel like I need to do!
• Not think about the fact I turned in a partial and it’s on her desk now… :-0 Try to focus on something else… anything else.
• Switch up my kids book. I realized it’s missing… SOMETHING. Yah, Uber Secret here LOL YA is so hot right now you have to be else someone will snatch it up LOL
• Try to get DS7 into the doctor for allergies/asthma/RAD/RSV he struggles and he sounds like a seal today.
• Plant my garden… after the snow. Goodness, gotta love Colorado! Yes, it’s going to snow.
• Drink a lot of coffee.
• Read the third Percy Jackson book
• School with kiddos, I can’t believe it’s April already! Where did my year go?
• Make my own doctor appointment to find out what is up with the hip pain after running recently. (Old… old, old, old is going to be the answer… I am sure.)
• Not thinking about the emails I am NOT receiving regarding my partial
• And just generally have a great week…

Sounds like a good set of goals to me… and not terribly unobtainable.

*DS7 coughs barks in the background*

Time to go make that appointment…

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But the reason they poked you, totally worth it… right?

Well okay, not always… but maybe sometimes. Like say:

*poke* “Hey isn’t this your stop?”
*poke* “Aren’t you suppose to be leaving?”
*poke* “Is that your car being towed?”
*poke* “Your butt’s onfire!”

You know, those types are totally worth the pain.

So yah, I was poked yesterday. Okay, maybe not to tell me my butt was on fire, though really it needs to catch a spark or two… but for completely different reasons. It was the kind of poke that makes you say… “OMGoodness is that a fire?!?! Quick put it out!”

“What, pray tell, are you talking about Eisley Jacobs?”

I am so glad you asked… I received my ABNA reviews back yesterday… there was definitely a poke in there. Like a quick hard one that made me fall off my chair. One that told me, “You missed the mark.”

Ouch.

Now, I bet you are wondering where the “awesome” part of the title comes in… Haha, well it’s the whole idea, “I want to know if my butt’s on fire” kinda thing. And my butt was just about to light up like a Olympic Torch in a NO FIRE ZONE! Because I was turning in the first 30 pages of this SAME manuscript… in the morning. THIS morning.

Still again, where is the awesome? Well… Haha this is the place I come in and tell you to ALWAYS go with your gut… ALWAYS. Because I didn’t… And my butt almost caught on fire.

“Explain, Eisley Jacobs.”

I had a prologue in THE RINGS OF TIME that was a dream sequence. It was ominous and dark and really just set up the idea of the book… very, very loosely. VERY. It was designed to make the reader say, “WHAT THE HECK!” and apparently it did… but one of the reviewers said he thought it was two different books. ROTFL… Oops.

Okay, so yah. I already knew this… months ago. I actually took the prologue out a long time ago. Like 8-10 months? But upon some advice, I added it back in… though I didn’t know if I should. Oh well. I did. Peer pressure! Haha… Ahem. My fault. No ones but mine. Moving on.

Then I had this flashback sequence… I loved writing it. And it was chapter 2… but another peer says, you should make that the first chapter so we know “THIS AND THAT” right up front. Against better judgement, and my gut, I switched it around. Again, my fault.

When I uploaded my chapters to ABNA I realized the parts they would read didn’t even have much mention of my MC! But that should be okay… right?

Uhhh, no. No. No. No. No. NO! Eisley, your gut said right then that something was wrong… why, pray tell, did you not fix it?

*headdesk*

So when these reviews arrived yesterday as I am prepping my partial submission… I realized I needed to bring it back to it’s true form… and I did. Which brings in the awesome. The reviews arrived JUST IN TIME.

No prologue… Chapter 2 is now chapter 1… chapter 1 fits right in as a flash back… and chapter 3 fits blends right through.

PHEW!

Thanks for the timely *POKE* ABNA reviewers… I needed that. I might be sore… but it was worth the pain because I am going with my GUT!

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Like all first, second and maybe even fifth drafts, it’s surely not ready for submission, publication or the general public. But it is ready for Beta Readers… a couple of whom were emailed last night with squeals of delight with the attached PDF file.

I know there are things that probably don’t make sense to the reader, which is what Beta’s are for. Since I wrote it, everything makes sense in my mind, but it wont necessarily make sense to my readers. So I hope everyone will come back with honest opinions and let me know what works, what doesn’t and what is all screwy! Cuzz it’s what I need.

So while I wait for the first Beta readers to come back, I thought I would be fun to identify two things I search and destroy in my first drafts, which make my MS tighter and much easier to read.

This is just one opinion, but I know this stuff to be true in my OWN writing.

THAT: Poor that… it’s so abused in today’s society. I mean really. So abused in fact writers really need to give it a break. And unless you are speaking of “that object right there….” you should never, EVER use it in a MS. Using that is like saying, Blah Blah Blah… It’s a filler word and it slows the pace down and it just a rotten word. Just say no! Example:

It reminded her that no matter how large the problem, or how small, that He was always there to guide and protect.

*twitch*

It reminded her no matter how large the problem, or how small, He was always there to guide and protect.

Ya digg? Do you see the first sentence is “fine”. In fact, it’s the way some people talk. Fine. But in your MS, it does NOT belong.

Suggestion: Do a SEARCH/FIND for that and highlight them. Then read through your MS and I guarantee you will be able to take out at least 95% of them.

Serious. Try it.

ADVERBS: I don’t feel very sorry for the adverbs of the world… mainly because you use them every day but man are they abused. Adverbs are those pesky -ly words that seem to creep up in a MS and part of the reason your critiques say, “Please show, don’t tell.”

-ly adverbs SCREAM TELL…

She walked quickly down the dimly lit hall, hopefully to find the creature she sought dutifully.

*screams running*

(yes I know, that was a gross overuse, but I had to get my point across and  I have come across sentences like this!)

Please, please don’t do this to me, or your reader. This sentence tells me a lot but shows me nothing. We, as readers, want to experience the hall and the creepy of it all. We experience NOTHING when you write it this way… because the adverb gets in the way. It handcuffs the reader and the writer!

Now, not all adverbs are evil. Some have to be there. Some just move you forward past something that doesn’t matter in your MS and this is completely fine. Just watch for the abuse.

Suggestion: SEARCH/FIND/HIGHLIGHT “ly”. Count how many you have used in your MS. The number may shock you. Then take most of them out by SHOWING us the action, instead of telling us.

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I had way too much fun with this fake trailer… I thought I would share before it ended up in the garbage

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