Another Round of Edits–>Done!

Well I think I might be finally done with my agent-recommended edits! It’s been a long haul–since October–but after many changes made and pages added, I think the manuscript is ready to be pitched to publishers!!! I’ve spent the last two and a half days carefully reading over the three hundred pages, trying to catch every last inconsistency and grammatical error. Whew! That’s a relief. Now it’s in the hands of my agent, and hopefully I’ll have some good news before too long. (If I do, it’ll likely mean yet another round of edits… It’s the way of the publishing world.)

In other news, I’m still watching the Olympics (Apolo tonight!), working my way through several library-requested novels, and trying to decide which book to review for next week’s Book Review Club post. Very little of interest.

Posted in edits, pitching on 02/24/2010 08:38 pm | 8 Comments

Everyday Minutiae

As usual I’ve had a relatively low key day (no complaints–that’s just the way I like it). Here are a few highlights:

1. Shredding. Lots and lots and lots of shredding. We cleaned out our filing cabinet after ten years and while the filing cabinet is now lean and mean, I am creating a winter wonderland with all the shreds. (And talk about a mind-numbing task…)

2. My son won 4th place in the 4th grade Earth/Space Science category at the District Science Fair. 4th out of 52 projects. And these were some good projects–we spent about 45 minutes browsing through them. And while he was initially excited, afterwards he was just bummed not to have done better than that.

3. An old friend (and longtime crush) of mine (think junior high) sent me an email today out of the blue. A mutual friend had given him my author email, and he sent a rather formal note congratulating me on my life successes. Here’s what I sent him back:

You haven’t seen me in 20 years, and that’s all you’ve got??? It was, admittedly, a very nice email, but that’s it??
Allow me to demonstrate:
Matt! What’s up??? Where are you living/working now? I glanced through your flickr pics–how old is Max? He’s a cutie!
Are you on Facebook? I’m new to it, but I tried looking you up and couldn’t find you.

Okay…I think that’s good for now.
Ball is in your court, dude.

Too abrasive?

Posted in day-to-day on 02/17/2010 03:04 am | 4 Comments

Said or Not

I was up at my sons’ school today to volunteer in the library and I passed the Literacy Coach (whom I just met a couple of weeks ago and who LOVES my new glasses) in the hall. She backtracked when she saw me and handed me a sheet of paper with the words, ‘Said is Dead’ written out in permanent market beside a two-column list of alternates to the much-used verb ‘said’. It was a good list, with lots of interesting words for kids to try out, like whined, ‘chuckled’, ‘exclaimed’, etc. When I showed it to my son, he glanced over it and added, ‘chimed in’, which I thought was awesome.

Being involved (somewhat) in the publishing world, I find it interesting that they are encouraging students to avoid the old ‘said’ standby. Although I personally am a big fan of these interesting verbal verbs, I have heard it said that they are typically frowned upon and that publishers tend to prefer ‘said’ as it’s relatively transparent to the reader (less jarring but also much less interesting). But I say–rather, I exclaim–jazz up those essays with ‘hinted’, ‘mentioned’ and ‘wondered’, kids! Said has had its day.

Recent signage in the school hall:
‘Don’t break a heat, buy a Valentine gram.’ Is that like breaking a sweat? Kidding.

Posted in said, school on 02/15/2010 11:26 pm | 5 Comments
Older Entries     Newer Entries