The BEST Holiday

Taking a break from editing and wondering what my requested publisher thinks of my query was exactly what the doctor ordered. So much so that I'm not sure I want to come back to my real life. :)

But--having no choice in the matter--here I am. While I'm excited for the possiblities provided by the BEST PRESENT EVER (a sewing machine!) and looking forward to dreaming of a new habitat a year from now AND the thought that said publisher might want to sell my book, I'm taking a moment to relish in the past vacation of near perfection.

Love and I left last Thursday to travel up to my hometown of Greenwood, Arkansas. He drove for the first time and was able to fully experience first hand the glorious occurance of holiday travel. For me, to say I was looking forward to the vacation would be an understatement. We had bought/made presents for a couple weeks and I was more than ready to celebrate our perfect choices.

  

The scarf I made for Katie, my stepsister.



The scarf I made for my sister.



Holding down the backseat in the car was our furry son, Fezzik, who pretty much blocked the rearview when he sat up. To give you an idea of how big he is, here he is with my sister:

Suffice it to say he was definitely happy that we left his sisters back home with some good friends!

We arrived cheerily around midnight and Fezzik soon learned that old house rules didn't apply: he jumped and sat by my mom on her couch, roamed freely wherever he found a nook or cranny, and hoovered the kitchen floor after my niece had eaten (or while she ate). He was on a vacation as much as we were!

Friday morning brought a lot of nothing. Mom had to go run errands, Sister had to work, and my nephew Coleton requested a hiking expedition with Love. So, I got to spend the day with my two nieces, my furry son, and my working Step-dad although we did end the day making cookies!

When Saturday boiled around, I was super stoked. Our ORIGINAL plan was as follows: Love and I were to drop by my BFF's house to see her and my second family, then we were off to my father's house in Oklahoma for a turkey lunch and presents. All was well through the visit with BFF until we were saying our goodbyes. I had two missed calls from my father and one from my sister along with a text message from my mother to call my sister ASAP: Not good.

After making the appropriate calls, I found out that my father had been taken to the emergency room with severe abdominal pains. (Long story short: he's had pains for a while and had his gallbladder removed a month ago to fix it.) So, Christmas Eve was spent in the ER at Sequoyah Memorial Hospital: trying to break hospital rules, talking to my dad one at a time, waiting on test results, and keeping the kiddos from bouncing off the walls. After a couple of hours inhabiting the place, we left to get food.

The look on his face is priceless!

We ate at our second choice (KFC/Taco Bell) because we arrived ten minutes before Hardees was closing. Go figure!

Food in stomach, we drove back to the hospital to learn that the doctors thought dad had a blockage, performed a CT scan and...well, that was it. But, at the very least he was comfortable...and he was staying...the night. :(

Since we had to get the kids to church early, we reluctantly left our sick father and worried Step-mother and headed back to Arkansas. Church was great, except that our family was pretty much the entertainment: Coleton and Katie played chimes and sang, Lilly cried, I stepped out to swap places with my sister(so she could see the chimes), Love followed with a mischevious Ellie. By the time communion was over, my sister was the only remaining member of our family holding down the pew. I felt bad, but I had to plate some cookies and help mom with a punch bowl.

Christmas Eve is always fun for us because we get to hang out in our new pjs (from mom) and munch on finger foods and pretty much goof around with tv, the kids, and eat cookies. Mom, Step-dad and Katie stayed behind (Step-dad sang in the midnight service).

Christmas morning came with lots of presents and laughs. I got my first sewing machine, a mending kit, some jewelry, and a Victoria Secret fragrance set. We had our traditional breakfast casarole and learned shortly thereafter that dad was finally out of the hospital. Sounding more tired than ever, I told him to take the day to rest and we'd have a Christmas do-over the next day. (Unfortunately, that kept me from seeing some old school friends--you know who you are--which I was sore about. Next year, I swear!)

As promised, Dad was well enough Monday for us to redo our Christmas with him. We met at his house early with some breakfast and then opened presents before a lunch of pizza and chocolate cake with ice cream. After all was said and done, we sat down to watch Willow (which I had never seen) and talked and played with the kiddos new toys.

Lilly got stuck underneath Dad's side table. Too cute.

 After saying goodbye, we headed back in the early evening to spend our last night at mom's house. Fezzik was in good spirits, running around and barking at my step-dad. Ellie and I took some time to bond again when she decided for the second time to play with my hair, but then had the marvelous thought to do my make up!

My makeup artist and stylist! :)

We capped off the evening with football before my sister and I shared a laughing exercise with my mother while I raided her closet. Moments like those are some of my favorite memories.

We got back yesterday to little fanfare besides a movie and research on my first sewing projects. I'm sad to report that my little Marlee decided to stay with the family who kept her and Keeley over our break. She got quite attached to them and, frankly, her happiness is all that matters to me. (As long as I get to go visit her! I already miss her!) Other than that, I'm more anxious than ever to move back home (hopefully!) and be around the kiddos more. I never get a grasp on how much I miss them until I'm back home away from their noise. For dad's part, he has a doctor's appointment with his PCP and then the ER doc recommended he see a cardiologist (he thinks the artery to his stomach is blocked) so there might be a surgery there. :(

All in all, it was a good vacation. I feel rested and blessed and sad that I'm back, but I hold on to the feeling of our family together until we can take the trip again!



*Kayla*

Just hit SEND...

I hope you guys enjoyed the little synopsis of my book. I'm really excited about the sequel that I've already started!

For those of you who don't know, I sent my first query two days ago. And, in celebration--or maybe a bit of venting--I want to touch a little bit on the awesome subject of such letters. (I apologize now if this gets to be long.)

When you think about it, a query is a good way for the publishers and agents who choose this route to dial down the amount of reading their eyes handle; instead of thousands of submissions of 100+ page manuscripts, they get thousands of submissions of 1 to 5 page glorified cover letters. Sounds good if I had to do it!

However, I really believe it to be the most daunting, mentally-crazy challenge I've come across so far in my short life in the writing world. First off, each publisher/agent may have a list of format demands: What type font? What size? How many pages? Then, a list of criteria: Author bio? General idea of story? List of awards? Then, they leave you to the thousands of pages on the internet that argue the actual ingredients: Provide the end of the book? Or, no, keep it to yourself. Be thankful, but don't suck up. Be unique, but remember: it's still business. And, then there's the argument over business letter format (which I'll be nice and spare you on). On the flip side of all of that, there are publishers/agents, who either honestly don't care how you format the sucker or they just want to test your imagination and skill because they really request no format at all. Just: "We're taking submissions; send a query!"

The worst part for me was the end result. I spent a day combing through craziness to find a couple of opinions that seemed good enough to draw from: a girl who had actually been acknowledged by an agent for her "best query" and a woman who was an actual editor. Of those two, I made like a buffet line and picked what I thought pertained to my needs. The major reason behind this was the very fact that my chosen publishing house was a relatively small one that had pretty loose demands. All they provided was a request for a synopsis and bio and they stated who to send the emailed info to. So, one would think it would be easy, but NO--which gets me to my point. Even after all is said and done and each letter is written and glossed over by spellcheck, it still takes a lot of cojones not to read the finished product and throw it out. 

Personally, I reread the thing--we'll say--twenty times (although, I wouldn't doubt it to be more), argued with Microsoft grammar rules, let it sit in my j-drive to recoup, and then edited the paragraphs until I could nearly see my reflection. But--in my head--it wasn't good enough. It wasn't going to be what they wanted. My luck would drain and I would pick a day where spellcheck didn't work or I had mistyped a word in a way it wouldn't catch. The draft would be too short to their liking. They wouldn't be able to get passed the second sentence of the atrocity.

Now, I'm not saying all of this to be buttered into believing the opposite; my sane brain is aware that the submission was just fine. I just want to illustrate the struggle that I think happens to anyone who creates something from scratch: It might look good in my brain, but the target audience might hate it.

In the end, I clicked send with my eyes closed and felt a nice rush of pride that I had done it. I bit the bullet and come what may, in 3-4 weeks I'll find out an answer. So, I suppose that's my new lesson regardless of whether I wrote my last query ever or if I have to write five more. I atleast know that I can do it. I can hit send. And, it isn't a failure if they don't like: I'll find someone else who does. Even if it means I have to start all over.

:)

*Kayla*

Editing, editing......and maybe more editing

Since the start of each month brings billing for the Firm (i.e., my time to shine!), I've spent the last few days editing time and money while I'm on the clock and making novel edits on a notepad over lunch.


Right now, I know there isn't much to change in the book--just a few scenes here and there that I feel the need to add, delete, or adjust for one reason or another. Over the course of writing the novel, I took many breaks from adding new material by checking back at the old stuff and rewording/deleting what I didn't like. In the past, I spent that time working out a block on a completely different piece, but I think the reread method worked in my favor here. In retrospect, it also didn't hurt that I took a handful of mind breaks to work on a few articles/fiction pieces for the Magazine.


None of that is to say that it is completely polished, because it isn't. My plan is to spend the next month talking out chapters and mapping out plot points to catch errors. I read an article that suggested paying a freelance editor to look over the piece so it is as pristine as possible, but a) I really don't want to pay someone for that and b) I see the next step like this: my first query is headed to a small publishing house who requests 3-4 weeks before a response, which gives me that amount of time to edit as much as I can (which should be the whole thing--let's be honest). Some of the information out there made it sound like other authors spend vast amounts of time editing their work before even thinking about sending out a query. Well, I don't feel the need to wait that long.


But, I'll talk more about my newfound love for queries next time.




This post, I wanted to give a rundown of my book:

The main character is a seventeen year old empath named Joelle, who sees the energies of those around her. After the death of her mother, she moves to another state with her father and older sister. Immediately, she befriends a girl who lives a few houses away, Lilly, and begins a flirtation with a boy interestingly connected to her tragic past named Clark. When her father leaves for business, she and her sister continue to make the new town their home. However, Joelle's world takes a new spin when a mysterious TA, Theo, saves her life and lets on that he knows more about her than even she does.  


After enlisting Clark to help heal a set of wounds, Theo lays the cards out on the table: not only is Joelle adopted with no record of biological parents, she also comes from a blood line of demon hunters who possess superhuman strength and the ability to heal quickly. To make matters worse, her father--who is a hunter, himself--isn't away on business; he was sent by Theo and his brother, Eranon, to find the hunter ring that was set to be hers (it was actually taken from her mother by her killer--disguised as her wedding band). If Joelle doesn't get the ring back, her body will not be able to handle the changes of becoming a hunter and fighting evil and it will eventually break down. 


Why does Theo know this? Because he and Eranon are both Angels and have been involved in many ways throughout her life, tipped off by the strangeness of a hunter with no clear birthline.


When Joelle starts to have heavy visions of her father held in captivity by a vicious demon, the group realizes that they need to act fast to get him back safely. Joelle speeds up her training and goes out on her own to fight any evil creature she can find to gain experience. After one particularly gruesome battle, Theo partially heals her--causing an array of dreams about Heaven. To her dismay, not only was Theo a friend of Lucifer when he was the First, but his sidekick Osius is the one who has her father!


Torn between the anger of being thrust into an age old fight that isn't hers and the desire to get her father back unharmed (as well as the ring), Joelle reluctantly joins forces with the Angels and enlists the help of Clark--who has abilities of his own, Lilly, and her sister to hopefully end things once and for all...

     

*Kayla*

14 Years in the Making

It has been one week exactly since I wrote the ending cliffhanger of my first novel.

I've been writing in some form or another since I was 13, living back home in Arkansas, and enjoying the awesomeness of a shiny, new home computer. I started off with a dab at poetry, but never really proved a talent in that area (atleast I didn't think so). So, I segued into writing prose about the kind of life and situations my junior high mind wanted to have. In fact--for a little while--I had a group of friends that would circulate similar, fantastical stories, using up precious notebook pages that probably should've gone to my schoolwork. I guess one could say that was my first foray into a writer's group. 

If only I could say my lunch money went to dues instead of the candy line...but, I digress.

After my friends moved away from our silly writing endeavor, I continued to make up stories. However, the farthest I managed was a shoddy horror story that only made it over a hundred pages on Word because my child mind was sceptical that the program could get there (if only that kid could see the 300+ page monster I've created now!).

Needless to say, fourteen years later, I finally have a good, complete product on my hands. Though Hunter isn't the piece I would've pegged to be the first, I couldn't be happier or feel luckier to at least have something out of my "working on" category. Now, I can move it to "editing".

Which brings me to my purpose in this...
I have a lot of work ahead of me to get to where I would like to be, a slew of ideas that may one day be my core writing catalogue, and a blemished story that needs to be cleaner for a publisher's eyes. But, along the way, I don't want to forget any of it and I know of a few friends who would love to follow my pursuit.

So, here's to the start of my dreams......

*Kayla*