Where's Ruth?

I am still here! Just a little busy this month. There's been some of this:

also some of this:

There is evil plotting going on (characters must suffer and be forced into awful situations), and the less evil kind where there will be writing competitions with nice agenty prizes!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have fictional teenagers to torture.

The one where there's even more news from Christmas in July and it is also awesome

Remember this fantastic entry to Christmas in July? Of course you do, because SING TO THE WIND by Jaye Robin Brown is great and you know it is : D

She got three well deserved full requests from Christmas in July plus much agent interest from querying. You can check out Jaye's story on her blog wherein there is much encouragement and also stats.

And for those of you following the progress of #midlifecrisis, mainly manifested on the top of my head, here's the latest colour:

Yes, it's orange. No, it wasn't meant to be. Adding #bleachfail to #midlifecrisis.

#XmasinJuly resulted in 39 requests for 16 manuscripts!

First of all, a big thank you to all the wonderful agents that took part!

It's been an interesting and exciting few weeks for Michelle and me. I've read some standout queries and pages, and it was fascinating to get a tiny insight into the slushpile aspect of agenting. So thank you all for being brave enough to send your work to us. It takes balls.

If you follow me on Twitter, you'll have seen my stats tweets. I'd love to be able to say I used my mad maths/ICT skills to make the following charts, but that would be a big lie because I don't have any. Instead I need to thank Heather Hawke, Deanna Romito and Elaine Vickers who all worked hard so that I didn't have to. Excellent.

Also, shamefaced apologies to Elaine since I gave her the wrong total number of entries (hey, I never said I could count). Also, I have no idea how to make the pdf she sent me appear on my blog despite mashing the keyboard with my paws for quite some time.

The total number number of entries was, in fact, 351.

Adult (96)
YA (201)
MG (38)
PB (16)

Heather made this.

Deanna made this.

So there you have it. The official findings of the slush are that lots of people write YA and I'm a bit of an idiot.

Other stats include 20 requests for 8 manuscripts out of my 15 entrants, and 19 requests for 8 manuscripts out of Michelle's 15 for a total of 39 requests for 16 manuscripts (someone check that).

I hope they ALL turn into massive success stories!

Both Michelle and I had blogger glitches that meant one of our entries wasn't visible for some of the time. Rest assured we were both aware of this and made sure the agents were too. 

Last, but by no means least, you might have noticed that I had to redact two of the entries on my blog : D

This is because L.L. McKinney's COVETED has been snapped up by an agent, and Linda McLaren's THE SOUND CATCHERS is in the process!!

I couldn't be happier that we'll all get to read those incredible stories. It makes me want to break out the...

Yeeeaaahhhhh!

Both of these talented ladies have agreed to do a guest post about signing with their agents, so look out for those in the coming weeks!

All in all, Christmas in July has been awsesome, and we will DEFINITELY be doing something similar in the future.

One last request before I declare the entries open for comments: this isn't a critique round, it's simply an opportunity for you to let these authors know how much you like their work. In this situation, it's like my mom says - if you haven't got anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all :)

Why you need a crit partner. Also, porn.

Writerly friend Amy Christine Parker  recently wrote a post about how wonderful her crit partners are and suggested her readers do a similar post. So Michelle Krys did. And it sounds like she has this one critique partner that's particularly spectacular. I think her name is Ruth, or something.

I did a google image search under 'big headed' to find this pic. I recommend that you don't do that if you like your eyes because sometimes the interwebz are a bad place, kids. Also, in related advice, do NOT google Puss in Boots while on teaching placement. In front of kids. Yeah, I've never clicked 'close' faster in my life. Ok, back to the point.

So this is my post in the same vein (with added advice on avoiding porn. Or finding it. Whatever).

This is Michelle Krys. You got that, right?

 I've talked about how I met Michelle before. And I know she's going to be thrilled I dug that post out again. And if you don't already know who she is, then you must never have been to my blog before because I kind of never shut up about her. You know those girls who wear the same jeans and drink the same drink and go to the little girl's room together? I think that's us. Except I've never done any of those things in real life with anybody, and also she looks better in those jeans than I do (curse my Hobbit lineage).

Anyhoo, it's my new life mission to make her cry with this post, so get your mac out because you're going to get covered in sap otherwise.

Reasons you should get a crit partner as great as Michelle (but not her. She's busy reading my crappy first drafts).

1) She's read everything I've ever written. And that means my overwrought, craptacular first novel, my endless and obsessive draftings of various query letters (approx seven billion separate critiques. I wish that was an exaggeration) and my self-doubting, whingy, ungrateful and melodramatic emails regarding such subjects as 'I hate my book', 'I hate myself',  and 'Ugh'.

2) She's responded to every single one of those neurotic re-draftings of query letters and emails, often right away (even though she works full-time and has a kid) with stellar advice. She makes me a better writer. And she doesn't judge me for not being a better person.

3) She's a nurse. I can't even drive near the hospital without freaking out and she works there, saving babies lives. I can't fathom how she does it, but I have the utmost admiration for the fact that she does. I've never met her in person, but I'm kind of proud of the fact she does that job (wtf is that about? I have no idea).

4) She's honest about my writing in the most encouraging way you've ever seen. Seriously, it's a skill. How she manages to be that peppy about the fourteenth draft of a pitch for a book I haven't even started yet, I don't know. But she does.

5) Michelle's a great critique partner, but she's also my friend. I don't have to pretend I feel a certain way if I don't. I don't have to hide any part of me as a person (and there are some less than desirable parts), and I don't have to worry that any of my writing ideas aren't good enough or ready enough to show her.

Ok, if you're not in diabetic shock from all that syrup then wth is wrong with you? Is your heart made of coal??

There are other people who have helped me tremendously since I started writing - but they're going to get their own post : ) Michelle gets the whole post to herself for being my bestest critique partner/internet bff. THAT's how much I <3 her. Just sayin'.

Tagged Part 2 (Hey, if it's good enough for Breaking Dawn.)

Part 2 of the subverted and highly self-indulgent Tagged post. You can read the first part here where I do at least say something about books.


6. Describe your ideal holiday destination.

Must have a forest. I like trees.

Must also have a lake. This one in New Zealand will do.

The Seychelles. It would be cool if they could be at hand too. Mr Steven could shade my laptop screen with palm fronds or what have you.

Venice. Yeah, I'm going to need that to be available. I don't like sand EVERY day, after all.

This is Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. The rainbow is not optional - I must have it.

This is the the Eden Project in Cornwall in England. I've been here once, but it's way cool and this is my insane fantasy, so it should be close too.

Mount Fuji in Japan. I could write a beautiful book here.

Machu Picchu. COOL!

Paris. Must be at night. Must be raining. This holiday IS going to happen, right?

And while I'm visiting all of the above, I'll be staying in this cottage in the woods.

At the same time, I'll be staying at the Burgh Al Arab Hotel in Dubai because LOOK AT IT!

This is inside the hotel. Probably I'm staying right at the top.

7. If you could have written any YA book in history, which book would you choose and why?

To Kill A Mockingbird. And if the reasons aren't obvious you should go away and read it now. 
Also, Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma broke my heart and I don't think I could make myself write something that difficult and sad. I admire Suzuma greatly for being able to do it. Sometimes I feel like I wimped out and I don't like that.  

8. Choose one: your book is a literary masterpiece with tons of critical acclaim but very, very lacklustre sales, or your book is a blockbuster of a novel with millions upon millions of copies sold but others question its quality and it is nearly universally bashed in the writing community, a la Twilight. There's no in between choice (Nice try!)

Gah! Can I. But if. What about. Are you sure I can't have both? 

Actually, I will always love Twilight, because those books are the reason I picked up a laptop in the first place. My first novel wasn't exactly fanfic, but it was reasonably close. I thought, 'I'd love to do this, and if Stephenie Meyer can do it, maybe I can after all.' Turns out I was an idiot, and writing a book is hard. But I would never have written my second book and so never signed with Julia if I hadn't read Twilight. 

Ok, did I talk enough for you not to notice me not answering the question? I did? Super. 

I love you, Edward! 

9. You're forced to re-live one day of your life over and over again for eternity. Which day would you choose and why?

How hard if this question?! Think about it. I have kids, and when they were born, those were pretty great days - especially when baby4 turned out to be a girl. Bonus! But do I want to live those days again? Um, not even a tiny bit. 

My wedding day? Mr Steven and I have been married for thirteen years this year. Now, would I like to look like I did on that day? Hell yes. Said wedding dress is unattainably SMALL. Does raw silk shrink when exposed to, er, time? I can only assume it does. We'll put this day down as a maybe, because high on the list-of-things-I-suck-at are these weddingy things: a) being the centre of attention, b) graciously accepting compliments, c) having photos of me taken, d) engaging in small talk, e) kissing/hugging/touching people (yuck).

However, I do excel at these weddingy things: a) stuffing my face, b) accepting/consuming free wine. It's tricky. 

The blushing bride. So pretty!

 
Soooo, did I actually answer any of these questions? My next post WILL be about writing. Unless I see anything else lying around the internet that needs derailing. Or if I see something shiny.    

Tagged

 Ok, so April's blogging was filled with competitiony goodness, and it's likely that July's bloggery will be taken up with something similar too, so today (and although I'm going to pass on forwarding the Tag) I'm combining the questions that two of my lovely writer friends asked me for this Tag game thingy. Also, I'm not answering eleven questions. Also, I've cherry-picked the ones I wanted to answer. Yeah, stand back, I've gone renegade. 

 1. Which three books are at the top of your TBR pile?

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi




Next one up is easy, because I've been press ganged into bumping this one up my tbr by the fangirl ravings of Michelle, who assures me this book is AWESOME.

Insurgent by Veronica Roth




After that is this little beauty, because I've only been reading YA for a couple of years and it will make me feel like one of the cool kids if I read something so shiny and new. I never said I wasn't shallow. 

The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan




Then there's this one. I'm reading other Greenhouse authors work and this is one of them. I hear it's different and unique and beautiful and moving. These are words I like.

2. Who is your favourite literary villain and why?

You know who does a good villain? Dickens. Complete with suggestively evil name. But my favourite clever, manipulative, grey-area villain in kidlit is Long John Silver. 
 

3. The world is going to end in 24 hours, how do you spend your last day on earth?

WHAT? I run to London, force a publishing house to sign a seven figure deal and hastily shove print outs of my book at panicked strangers who don't care because SOMEONE MUST READ THE DAMN THING. 

I'm kidding. Mostly.  

4. Vampire, werewolf, or other?

I'm a sucker (pun intended) for the vampire's. Always have been, always will be. I love them all. Notwithstanding the fact that Breaking Dawn Part 1 might have been the most disturbing thing I have ever seen.

Interview with the Vampire

 

5. What is your favourite perfume?

I am NOT only answering this one so you know what to get me for my birthday.

Ok, this is getting looong, so I'll do the other questions in another post.

Here are the blogs of the two writer friends who sent me these questions so I could subvert the game and ruin it for everyone. I think that was their intention anyway. 

Amaleen Ison's blog

Michelle Krys' blog