Introduce yourself here! Or say farewell!

[Kimiko]

Hiya Yangko! Welcome to ItL

EOU2 was a pretty good remake of the original. EOU1 doesn't really measure up in that regard.

[YangKoete]

[YangKoete]

[zamisk]

[Maxine MagicFox]

Ok, hey, guys! I'm going to try to say that I'm going to be back to posting here again. Going to TRY to say that. No promises.

The past month has been crazy and I'm sorry about my silence. I've been super-focused on my writing career. Back around November I sat down and sent out to a bunch of agents and while I haven't heard back from all of them (turns out this is their down season) I got back a bunch of rejections.

Then a buddy of mine introduced me to something called a "Twitter Pitch Party" that takes place throughout the year but mostly in December. The idea is that you hop on twitter, pitch your book within twitter's restrictive word count, using a few hashtags so people like agents and publishers can search the feed and read your posts. If the post is "liked" then you get to send your material to them (totally awesome for agents since this time of the year they are closed to submissions). Fantastic opportunity since when you send them your query and how ever many pages of material they request you are pretty much get a first-look.

Obviously this has meant several things. I had to create those pitches. Then I had to clean up my query (I explain below) since it was obviously not working for me. And I had to sit my ass down and put in some long hard hours to finishing up the edits of my story.

If I follow my schedule for my story it's going to be polished by mid-January with more last minute tinkerings to get my word count down. This will be perfect since agents start reopening usually by February.

I got some very good critiquing and help on my query. I'm pretty sure this one is super-shiny and fantastic.

As for the twitter parties, I participated in three of them, plus a query contest. Did not make the contest but I got likes from two different publishers (but no thanks - I want an agent for maximum effectivness) and then yesterday one agent who looks like she is within my agent-want list (she's followed by agents I've already sent out to).

Super nervous. I just sent her my query along with my first ten pages. I scoured and edited my little heart out all last night and this morning.

Now that all of that is done I'm hoping to sit back and focus strictly on the editing. I will TRY to fit you guys in some more so sorry about my silence. I've just not even had all that much time to play video games. It's so saaaaaad. Etrian Odyssey II calls to me and I can't even remember the last time that I picked it up. *cries* I seriously feel like I'm working two jobs right now. T-T

*Queries, definition because unlike the crowd I've been running around with for the last few months I'm sure you have NO IDEA what this is. Call it a Resume for a book and writer - maybe cover letter would be a bit better. The idea is to use 250-300 words to tell the agent about your novel and sell them the story so that they will choose you as a client - oh, and if you have some, stick a few details about your accomplishments in as well. It's a cutthroat business and agents turn away about 90% of the queries they get.

I guess I should explain agents, too. It's really what it implies. Kinda like a manager or a talent agent. Most of the top publishers don't accept non-solicited novels. Agents are people that you can hire to knock down those barriers. They are the people that will (theoretically) march into the office of a top publisher and slam your manuscript down on their desk and tell them to read. They take a small commission fee of sales from the book (15% is the norm), and at that point your book pretty much becomes a partnership. Depending on the agent they will often work with you to clean up your story and spruce it up. They only work for that fee so they have just as much invested in your book doing well as the author. (For example, if the author gets a $2k advance royalty - they are only make about $300 from that sale... barely worth their time!) Yeah... so I first have to convince these people that I'm someone they want to waste their time on and then I have to decide if they are the right agent for me when we sit down to sign the contract. I have certain expectations that I want from my agent.

(advance royalty? - exactly as it implies. the agency pays you royalties before they are in. The author doesn't get royalty checks until this is paid off. Is a very good thing - if your book bombs you still keep the money... but then again the publisher might not think you are a financial prospect for a second book you show them.)

[zamisk]

u go gurl

[Kimiko]

Sounds like a very exciting (and exhausting) time for you Here's hoping you get yourself a nice agent to promote your book.

Do you plan to keep writing for publication after this?

[Maxine MagicFox]

Absolutely! It's been my dream since I was a kid. This book is actually one of trilogy so I'm hoping to get a chance to do the other two books. If it does well I have other series in the same universe. But if it doesn't do well I've got plenty of other ideas in my head.

Lately I've even been playing with the idea of picking up some magazines and looking into reading short stories and maybe trying some myself and trying to get them published. The eventual goal being able to sustain myself to be able to quit my day job and actually focus on writing as a full time career. But it's hard. Like anything to do with art the image of "starving artist" is always too close for comfort.

A lot of hopes and dreams are involved in this, haha.

[YangKoete]

Good luck! ^w^ I know how hard it is to write, make a world, etc!

[Kimiko]

Giving up your day job for writing is a nice dream, but very few writers actually get to do so. Or artists in general I suppose.

[Cottontofu]

Don't worry about being silent Maxine, it's great that you spend more time on writing awesome stories. I wish you good luck and send you good vibes

[GhostsandDragons]

//sneaks in after 10000 years
i've been gone for a really long time because...... school stuff/personal drama but yes hello i'm alive x2 still

[Reynard-Miri]

Oh my gosh, it is Ghosts and/or Dragons.

[GhostsandDragons]

[Gleason]

@Maxine: Keep on pushing for it! Don't be a dork like me who kinda retreated to the shadows after the first 10-12 rejection letters and is planning on trying out Kindle publishing (also I never knew Twitter parties were a thing and I'll totally jump on a twitter account next December, damn).
So yeah, fight to see your stories become real live books!

As for GhostandDragons, you seem more like a Totodile to me. But hey~