Skip to main content

Eek!

I'm not ready to query my novel yet - I'm in the midst of what I hope will be the final draft - but I thought I would get a jump on hook writing by submitting my hook to the Fangs, Fur & Fey hook contest. The hook will be critiqued by a published author, posted publically for people to comment, and, if it's successful, I'll get to submit pages for critique as well. I just checked my email and got my contest number and, frankly, had a little bit of a freak out, like "STOP! NEVER MIND! GIVE IT BACK!"

I'm not sure why this is - I'm not a nervous person. I taught for many years, I've argued in court, I've been in critique groups, I enjoy public speaking. So why does exposing my hook (not even the book itself!) make my stomach quiver? Perhaps because this is the first wide exposure of my idea to the world. Perhaps because this is the internet, where anyone can become a troll and say "this sucks!" Perhaps because I'm a big chicken.

At any rate, I'm not taking it back. Whatever happens, whether the judges love it or hate it, their opinions will be good to hear. They will tell me how people feel about the idea and the execution of the hook, and will ultimately make it better. The hard truth is still the truth.

And, frankly, it's Super Nice of the FF&F people to even bother to take the time, even if they think I suck.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Monday Miscellany

1. I've been watching old episodes of The West Wing on Bravo lately, and have come to the conclusion that I love the character of Sam Seaborn. He's smart, he's earnest, he's a good writer, and he's played by Rob Lowe. What's not to love?* 2. I just bought the cutest jacket at Ann Taylor Loft. I know you care, but it's not every day that one can find a white denim jacket with styling reminiscent of Michael Jackson and a tailored waist. I'm just saying. 3. NaNoWriMo proceeds apace. There is no way that I'm going to be able to keep writing at this pace after this month is over, but I'm on track to finish. It's an interesting project...in some ways the speed is freeing and in other ways it's extremely limited, as to make the word count I have no time to go back and revise. 4. Alien and Aliens are amazing movies. Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection ? Not so much. 5. This week's Glee characterization inconsistency watch: Rache...
3 comments
Read more

Why Are The Characters Friends?

Lately, I've been reading a lot of books where the main character and her best friend don't get along. This is confusing to me. Why is the main character friends with someone she dislikes, or is afraid of, or actually hates? I get that it happens--I've seen Mean Girls . I've read Queen Bees and Wannabes . Heck, I'm old enough to have been the prime audience for Heathers . But in order for this fractured best friend relationship to be convincing, it has to be set up. In both Heathers and Mean Girls , there's a reason why the protagonist is friends with a bunch of b*tches--she chose to be. She knows that they're jerks. In fact, she can feel herself becoming a jerk right along with them. It's part of the character arc, the point of the story, that being friends with these girls is not who she really is. But the relationships I've been seeing lately don't make that kind of sense. The protagonist doesn't have a reason to be friends with...
2 comments
Read more

Jay Takes A Stand

Moonrat, still at Editorial Ass, is making me think a lot lately. She did a recent post here about sexualized violence in print ads, and connected the dots to sexualized violence in books and other media, which got me thinking about how I treat girls and women in my books. To be clear--I'm a feminist. I believe in equal pay for equal work and reproductive choice, and the whole ball of wax. I'm not going to go into detail about all that here because, frankly, there are people out there whose blogs are dedicated to that kind of thing (like Jezebel *) and they do it way better than I ever could. But that's my political orientation, in case you care. So when I was writing The Book, it was very important to me that my female protagonist S did not fall into any of those "heroine needs saving by the hero" tropes that so many books for teenage girls do. Sure, there's something very "romantic" about the hero swooping in and rescuing the heroine, right? ...
2 comments
Read more