WIP Wednesday & Thoughts on Beta-Reading

So I'm cruising along the editing train. I've made it to the halfway point in first round revisions with my romance. Woo-hoo. :) I will have a lot more to do once my critique group goes through it, but progress is progress. I did not meet my goal of writing a query letter for book two. I started, got frustrated, then put it away. *sigh* Why are these letters so darn tough? I'll keep it on my goals for next week.

For those of you not in a critique group or a beta-reading exchange, I highly recommend it. Even a few weeks in, I find my critical eye strengthening. Things I would have glazed over and not noticed before are not popping out to me as I read through my manuscript. In addition, I've learned a few new rules that I wasn't aware of (more of that in another post.) It also means I'm getting tougher as a beta-reader/critiquer for others. So those of you who I'm beta reading/critiquing for, don't take it personally if more comments are popping up on your chapters than before. It's not you, it's me. :)

I've also found that each beta-reader has their own pet peeves that they consistently point out. I think I'm obsessed with flow. The comment I find myself making most often is "awkward, reword". I hate making this comment because it sounds vague. There isn't one thing I can point out that's wrong, the sentence just makes me stumble when I read it. It's a rhythm thing. My rule is I make note of it if I falter on the sentences in both read-throughs. Hopefully, I'm not pissing off my buddies with this incessant comment, lol.

*Note: I'll be heading to Louisiana tomorrow to visit family for a long weekend, so I won't be around the next two days. I'm going to try to figure out auto-post, but you probably won't see me commenting on your own blogs for the rest of the week.*

So how is your WIP going? Do you have beta-readers or critique group? What pet peeve do you always point out when critiquing?

**Today's Theme Song**

"Cry" - Kelly Clarkson

(player in sidebar--go ahead, take a listen)

**This song doesn't match the post, but I saw Kelly in concert this past weekend and loved this song. Thought I would share.**

WIP Wednesday & Award

It's that time of the week again. I feel like kind of a slacker because I'm now in revising mode vs. writing mode so I don't have a word count to report. However, I have done a first round revision on five chapters of my romance so that I could submit them to my crit buddies. So I feel pretty good about that.

I also have been doing a lot of critiquing for others which has been a nice break from staring at my own words incessantly. :) Critiquing is hard work and being critiqued can be painful, but I think both sides of it are invaluable learning experiences. Hopefully, we will all come out the other side stronger writers.

This week I think I'm going to attempt to draft a query letter for the romance. The novel is, by no means, ready to be sent into the world, but I want to have that letter done and waiting once I'm through with revisions. Last time I waited until the end and my brain was so fried that the query letter seemed beyond overwhelming to write. I'm hoping *crossing fingers* that this second query letter will be easier. The story is WAY more straightforward than my YA. No supernatural, no mythology, no world building. So we'll see. I have a feeling I'll still end up half-bald with hair-pulling.

So now for an award. Lazy Writer and Anna C. Morrison have passed along the Splish Splash award to me. This award is for a dazzling blog. I'm so excited to find out that my little site dazzles. I'm like a vampire, oh wait, that's sparkles, never mind. :)

Thanks ladies! Both of their sites received the award as well, so if you haven't checked them out, I highly recommend it.

And now to pass it on. I'm picked five people that I read regularly but that I haven't passed along an award to yet.

1. Dawn at Plotting and Scheming

2. T. Anne at White Platonic Dreams

3. Tabitha Bird at Books, Bubs, and Writing Blabber

4. Mandi at Smexy Books

5. Weronika at Weronika Janczuk

So how's your WIP going? (Feel free to leave a link in the comments section for your WIP Wed. update.) Is anyone else going through the critiquing stage right now? What are you critters catching that you totally missed?

**Today's Theme Song**

"Misery Business" - Paramore

(player in sidebar--go ahead, take a listen)

Okay, so only the title works and not the lyrics when referring to querying, but it's a good song anyway. :)

Work In Progress Wednesday #4

*wipes sweat off forehead* Hallelujah. I just fixed my internet. After spending my entire evening on the phone with Time Warner (fun times), I went to bed and still had no internet. This morning, nothing had changed. So I've spent the last two hours playing with buttons and functions I shouldn't touch and lo and behold--internet! I have no idea what I did to fix it (something about DNS servers and IP addresses, who knows), but I'm not complaining.

Okay, so now for good 'ol WIP Wednesday. The one benefit of having no internet yesterday was that I was able to finish the rough draft of Wanderlust. Woo-hoo! It's a thousand words shy of where I wanted to be, but I'm a layerer. When I revise, I add words vs. cut, so I don't doubt that it will get to where it needs to be during revision. Therefore, I'm going to focus on the fact that I was able to type THE END. :)

As for the other manuscript, it is now with two agents. I sent out my newly revised query letter a week or so ago and received a request for a partial! :) So that means one agency has a full, the other a partial. I'm sure it will be a decent wait to hear back from either of them, but I'll let everyone know when I have more info.

This week has also been a good week for contests for me. I won a three chapter critique from Once Upon a Crime, so I'm excited about that. I'll let ya'll know how it goes. And I also was selected for a spot in a romance critique group, Rumored Romantics, over at Lynnette Labelle's site Chatterbox Chitchat. I'm really happy about becoming a member because I have been wanting to join a critique group for a while. Hopefully, all these things will help me grow as a writer.

So I think that's it for now. I'll be spending my day doing some beta reading and critiquing since I was sans computer yesterday.

How's your WIP going? Feel free to leave a link for your WIP post in the comments.

Work In Progress Wednesday #3

I'm a week behind on this update, so this is actually going to be my progress over the last two weeks.

First, I would like to give a shout out (do people still say that or am I a complete dork? lol) to Lynnette at Chatterbox Chit Chat for giving me the Kreativ blogger award. Since I just posted on that award a few days ago, I will spare you seven more things about me. I'm not that interesting. But I wanted to thank Lynette and also recommend her site to those of you who haven't checked it out yet. She has some great information over there.

Also, I am so excited to see that I have hit 50 followers. Thanks you guys! I feel so lucky to have met so many great people since I've started blogging. Who knew this could be so fun?

Alright, now for the nitty gritty.

I was cruising along on my current WIP the week before last. I added 4k words and am now within a chapter and epilogue of finishing the first draft. I probably would have finished if not for the surprise request from that agent on my previous novel. I immediately put down my current project to dive back into that one and make the necessary edits (based on a previous agent's feedback).

So last week, I did nothing but revise that novel. I didn't blog, I barely slept, my toddler watched way too much Barney, my husband cooked dinner for the first time in probably a year. I stayed up until 2am each night. It was ugly. I went line by line. I murdered prologues, cut entire chapters, and executed adverbs and dialogue tags without mercy. I also rewrote three entire chapters, reworked the mythology, and completely changed the ending. By the end of the week, I had written 6500 new words. The process was hellacious but I am much happier with the new version, so hopefully the agent likes it too.

So that's it for me. How's your WIP going?

Work In Progress Wednesday #1

So I've noticed that a number of my bloggy friends participate in WIP Wednesday, where they report on their writing status. I enjoy reading others updates, so I thought I may give it a shot as well. This week has not been productive in word count. I've managed to get 2000 words done, which is less than I had hoped. However, I had been stuck at one point in the book for a while, and was not sure how I wanted to proceed for the final five chapters. (This is the plight of my pantser plan instead of the well organized plotter way. I know where my characters need to get to, but not sure how I want them to get there.) But luckily, yesterday, I had a breakthrough and finally know what I want to do with them. Woo-hoo! So, I'm going to count this week as a success.

Here is an excerpt from my very rough draft:

(redacted)--oops you missed it! Only posted temporarily.

That's it for now. How's your WIP going?