Waiting On Wednesday

I'm quite excited about my very first Waiting on Wednesday. This meme was started by The Story Siren.

My Waiting On Wednesday includes books I'm waiting to afford!!

First up is Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. If you've read my previous posts you'll know I loved The Hunger Games. There's still no cover for this yet, but I'm hoping it will be as good as the cover of book one--the hardback edition at any rate. The paperback here has a ghastly "fold your own" cover that shows either Katniss or Peeta, and the colours are dreadful.

Then there's Skarlet by Thomas Emson. I think this one might be more adult than YA as it involves clubbers and recreational drugs that turn people in vampires, but what a plot!

Next is Swoon by Nina Malkin. From fishpond: "Torn from her native New York City and dumped in the land of cookie-cutter preps, Candice is resigned to accept her posh, dull fate. Nothing ever happens in Swoon, Connecticut--until Dice's perfect, privileged cousin Penelope nearly dies in a fall from an old tree, and her spirit intertwines with that of a ghost." What a name and what a cover! This is a May release so not long to wait now.

Now, an Australian book! Arrival (Strangers of Paragor, Book One) is by Charlotte McConaghy and out under Black Dog Books. It was released in March and McConaghy is so young! Apparently she started writing this book when she was in her teens.

From the Black Dog Books website: “There will come a time when greatness is needed. Strength, passion… goodness. For in the land of Paragor an oppressor travels closer. Four is the sacred number, and it is only by looking beyond ourselves that we will find salvation, and only through love that we will defeat the darkness that threatens to consume us forever…”


E-e-pic.

To do list. And a Lolcat so things don't get too serious.

I just wrote a few thousand words of The Harmings so I thought I'd reward myself with a Lolcat, hehe. Here he is!


Bad, impatient kitty. Now, down to business...

The following is a list of things that have to be done before I send Lharmell off to agents.

The current draft needs some tweaking. After plenty of voddies at Sentido funf, or whatever the silly place is called (the bar is fun, but what a name! Worse than Cas Retops around the corner. And how much are Smith and Gertrude streets the new Brunswick Street? You can't walk on the pavement for all the drunk people!) I extracted some good criticisms from Mike. I also have Stephen and Tam's marked up manuscripts to look over. Fingers crossed that Clare, my YA teacher, will hand me back my MS tomorrow too.

Tam also said she had some ideas for my synopsis of Lharmell, too, to stop it being so "and then and then and then". I can't decide which is harder to write, the opening of the book or the damned synopsis!! It's certainly a close one.

I have scrappy outlines of The Harmings and Queen of Lharmell (books two and three) but they certainly wouldn't be fit to grace an agents desktop. They'll need to be fleshed out and polished before any letters are sent, in case of request.

As much of The Harmings should be completed and polished too. It's going to be difficult to prove to agents and editors that an unpublished author has the skill and motivation to finish a trilogy, so having as much done as possible will work in my favour.

Then there's the letters to the agents themselves. Nathan Bransford's blog has lots of great tips, and Kristen Nelson's. I have a rough draft of a query letter down somewhere but this will have to be polished too. I tells ya, sometimes I feel like a maid, not a writer with all this polishing going on!

That's it for now. Coffee time. Wordcount: 17,508. When I hit 20,000 I'm going to print it off and deluge it with red pen.

Stuff you, Aslan, I'm going back to Narnia

Book Two wordcount: 14,354 words. So you see, I got started without you.

This blog will document my attempt to get my YA paranormal romance trilogy published. I love YA. I stopped reading it when I left home at seventeen, thinking it was now time to put my toys away and move onto the big bag world of adult literarure. But STUFF YOU ASLAN! I'm going back to Narnia!

This year I'm completing my last unit of a Diploma of Arts at Melbourne's fabulous RMIT. The unit is Writing for Young Adults. And it's wonderful fun. Everyone is in their mid-to-late twenties or older, so it seems a lot of people are going back to Narnia!

I have to go op-shopping now and see my friend's new art deco apartment, and also get a big coffee. Too many vodkas on Gertrude St last night.