Because of the great turnout, we’re adding additional prizes this week. Denise’s agent is offering a 10-page critique and Shana, Query Queen, is offering up a query critique! And I’m adding Rachel Vincent’s MY SOUL TO SAVE to the prize pile!

So, check in and let us know how your March Madness progress is coming along!

For inspiration, I have a quote to share today. One of my favorites.

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”
– Kurt Vonnegut

As for me, I’ve been having some writing woes so far this month. I have a project that I started for NaNo with 41k words that I wanted to work on and finish. I haven’t touched it since November, but I still managed to start out this month with a solid 1k and with good intentions. But then I hit a brick wall. Why? The plot isn’t right. I need to go back, evaluate and figure out the right direction here. I could keep writing in the current direction, but it would just be more wrong words. More words I’d have to throw away later.

But I still want to be writing. Even if it takes me only another day or so to work this out, I want to be writing new words on these days. So, I did a crazy thing and started working on another project. It’s a project I’ve been thinking about for over a year but have been too scared to write. It’s different than my other manuscripts. I never thought I was good enough to write it. I still don’t. But I probably never will, so I’m starting it now. It’s going to be my side project. The one I write just for me because I want to see if I can make this into a good story. And since these two projects are so different, I can go back and forth between them, at least for right now, until I get my feet back under me for AMPED.

Anyway, I’m counting word count progress on both manuscripts toward my March goal. So far only 3k, but I’m ready to get a lot done today!

March Word Goal
3,237 / 30,000 Words (10.79%)

If you’re anything like me, it’s hard to get into the habit of doing something, whether it be writing every day, going to the gym regularly or going to bed before midnight. I’ve had my head down in revisions and synopsis writing for the past couple months, and it has been a bit of a struggle so far to get back into the writing a first draft every day mindset.

But I think that’s only natural. In the past, I’ve found that if I just keep trying to get into the habit, eventually I do, and I don’t even think about NOT writing. For me, writing every day is just like exercising three times a week. Hard to start up, some painful muscle stretching at first, but easy to keep doing once I’ve gotten into a steady rhythmn.

The best thing to do is keep trying. It helps me to develop a schedule so I can carve out a specific time during the day when I will write.

So, on that note, here is my word count so far for March Madness. I’ve gotten 1k of my 30k goal done so far. Not bad! I’d like to have a bit more done, but I know I can pound out more words on a Saturday morning than on a Monday evening so I’m counting on those days to round out the beginning lower word count days.

March Word Goal
1,009 / 30,000 Words (3.36%)

How are your goals coming along?

UPDATE at 11:25am: Apparently, there seems to be a commenting problem for some of you, and I’m working to remedy the issue! So sorry about this! Hopefully I can get this worked out in a few minutes.

UPDATE: The issue has been fixed, and everyone should be able to leave comments now!

Set your goal(s) in the comments of DENISE JADEN’S BLOG today so we can all keep each other accountable. Join in anytime, even if you didn’t find this post on March the first – just head on over to the designated day, drop in your goal, and start reporting in on your daily progress.

I’ve officially declared my goal at Denise’s blog, but I will here as well. This month I plan to write 30k in my WIP, AMPED, which I started in NaNo, but didn’t finish. I wrote 40k in November, then took time off to work on some revisions for BONE DRY. I figure 30k more will get me a solid first draft by the end of March! Or at least bring me close.

So what’s your goal?

Now for the fun part! There will be check-in stations at the following locations through the month of March:

Mondays - http://denisejaden.livejournal.com
Tuesdays - http://shanasilver.livejournal.com
Wednesdays - http://jenhayley.com/blog/
Thursdays - http://www.denisejaden.com/Blog.html
Fridays - http://shanasilver.livejournal.com
Saturdays - http://ellestraussbooks.blogspot.com
Sundays - http://jenhayley.com/blog/

Check in up to once per day – share your victories and struggles – and for each check-in on the designated blog, you will earn an entry for some fabulous prizes. (If you live somewhere other than Canada or the U.S., please put “International” in your comment – we will have a few specific draws for international recipients, but unfortunately due to mailing costs, we can’t include you in all of them).

And now for the fabulous prizes…Here are a few of the great prizes you can win, and if there’s lots of support for March Madness, we will add even more!

Advance copy of SPELLS by Aprilynne Pyke

TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER by Dwight V. Swain

WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL and FIRE IN FICTION by Donald Maass

HEIST SOCIETY (autographed) by Ally Carter

ON WRITING by Stephen King

Advance copy of RADIANT SHADOWS by Melissa Marr

Keep checking back for additional prizes, including more great books, and query and partial critiques!

Now, don’t forget to check at Denise’s blog, let us know your goals, and head back to Shana’s blog tomorrow to let us know how it’s going.

Anyway, I’m feeling really, really good about the changes I made to the manuscript. I feel like it is so much stronger now, and I love this version so much more than the previous version, and that’s saying a lot, as this book is my favorite of all the ones I’ve written. I’ve heard writers refer to “heart books” before, and this one is mine. I often wonder if I’ll ever feel this way about a book again. I hope so. I’ve put so much work and time into it, and I’m STILL not tired of it.

I use a lot of different techniques for first drafting and revising, and the one that really worked for this revision round was my cork board covered in notecards of my plot. I needed to move a couple scenes and add a couple scenes, and using the cork board really helped me organize everything. I don’t think this would have worked well in first draft stage, but it REALLY helped me during revisions. I have it hanging on the wall next to my desk so I could refer to it while I typed away.

Once I’m done with the synopses, I’ll be first drafting again. It’s been awhile! I have a few ideas rattling around in my brain, but I’ll probably start AMPED back up again. I’m about 40k into it, and while I know it needs a lot of work, I’m excited about working on it again. Of course, there’s this other idea that has me pretty excited…so, we’ll see! I’m planning on devoting March to first drafting, writing every single day, and getting some good progress done on something new.

Hope everyone is staying warm! How did you pass the snow day?

From l-r, front: Chandler Craig, Me, Shana Silver, Wendy Cebula
From l-r, back: Gretchen McNeil, Steve Cordero, Sarah Eve Kelly, Kody Keplinger

And there’s more to come this weekend!

1. Kidlit party tonight

2. SCBWI NY Conference Saturday and Sunday

3. Bluboarders dinner Saturday night

Can’t wait! It’s going to be a busy weekend, and I’m really looking forward to meeting writers I know from the interwebs and hopefully making some new friends. Yay for conferences!

I am super excited about working with her. We really clicked on the phone, she has great editorial insight and her enthusiasm is infectious! I’ve started on agent revisions for BONE DRY and am already seeing a big improvement. Yay! It has really been a great start to 2010.

And here is my Friday Intro post:

First, welcome Jill and congrats on your release! Since the big prize at the end of your blog tour is a query critique from the awesome Holly Root, I’d like to talk about getting an agent today. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers on crafting that perfect query letter?

I think being specific about story details that make your story different is key. Too often, I think we (as writers) have difficulty summarizing a big plot into something succinct. So we take the easy way out and give a vague tease, like “As troubles escalate, the heroine must decide what she is fighting for and what she truly wants.”

BORING.

What sorts of troubles are escalating? Why does she have to fight? What does she want? What makes this unique? You have to really bring it. If the agent has to ask “Why?” or “What?” in the query letter, I’m not doing my job right. “Escalating troubles” could be struggling in algebra, or it could be an alien uprising. Being too broad does not help your story.

First pages are definitely important. The trick is that you have to make someone want to keep reading. You need to start off with a bang - and by a bang, I mean that you need to make someone keep reading. It doesn’t have to be all action and shooting guns - it could be introspection, but it needs to be really good introspection. And leave off at the part where you know the reader would be dying to read more. As far as advice for making them shine? Print it out and read it. Have a friend sit down and read it aloud to you. Read it again after that. It really helps to be grammatically perfect, of course, but you need to make sure that your voice is evident more than anything else.

Look at this as a job you’re applying for. Your query letter is your resume. If you don’t hear back or get rejected, it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with your resume. Just keep working on it until you start getting some of those ‘call backs’.

Every relationship is going to be different, I think. Some people like to call every day and some people prefer to be left alone. I’m kind of somewhere in the middle - I might email repeatedly when something is in the works, but otherwise I might be totally silent. I think it’s key to respect your agent’s time (she’s got a bunch of clients, and you only have one agent) but you also need to make sure that your needs are being met. If you have certain expectations, set them up front. If you want that weekly conference call, establish that at the get-go.

Trust is a big one. I know I find it really hard to work if something is bothering me, so I ask all kinds of questions. Even if my agent has a small answer or even a non-answer and a “I’ll get back to you”, once I hear back from her, I’m confident that she’s on it. Nothing is worse than emails that disappear into Never-never-land, or conference calls that never happen. If you don’t feel that you trust the agent you sign with to look out for your career to the best of their ability, then don’t sign. It is 100% true that a bad agent is worse than no agent.

Luckily, I have a terrific agent!

Thanks for stopping by Jill, and congrats again!

Be sure to comment below for a chance to win the critique, and check out Jill’s next blog tour stop tomorrow with Kerri, where she’ll be chatting about mythology and research.