I Have A New BAFF

(That stands for Best Author Friend Forever)

By Michael Seese
 
I hope my previous cliffhanger wasn't too cruel. So...

About two weeks ago, I blogged about a wonderful opportunity created by author Brenda Drake called "Pitch Wars."

She had come up with the idea to pair agented writers and publishing industry interns with aspiring writers. On her site were photos and links to the blogs of 31 mentors. We (the aspiring folks) were allowed to choose three, and send them a query plus five pages. They all chose one to work with.

So I sent off three copies of Nightmares.

Late last week, I received an email from Brenda. The body of the message was a cut-and-paste from an email from Fiona McLaren who, to be completely honest, was my first choice. It began

WOW

OK, to paraphrase Renée Zellweger from Jerry Macguire, "You had me at wow."

Now, if you'll recall a post from this summer (of course you don't; here's a link if you want to look it up) I decided to rearrange Nightmares to put the action sequence first, whereas previously the novel started with a dream... a lame dream, to use my wife's word. (And she was right, by the way.) Of course, even though I buried the dream a little farther on, it was still lame. So one night I revised the dream into this exercise in stream of conscience. In short, I made it sound like a dream.

That prompted me to put the dream back at the beginning. And that is the version I submitted for the Pitch Wars.

Fiona went on to say

In the end, I thought in the scope of this competition, this would be too tough a piece for me to work on with you.

Bummer! But...

There is a wonderfully surreal element to your writing style and there is definitely plenty of originality in your sample pages. Your unusual and quirky style appeals to me a lot. I would like to extend the invitation of working with you outside of pitch wars on this.  If you're interested, you can email me.

Um, yes!

This just keeps getting better and better. So I wrote back to her, thanked her about a billion times, and explained that I had two versions I could send. She replied and said to send both. So I did.

About a day later, she got back to me.

ACTION based query ALL THE WAY.  Seriously, dude.  WOW.  Why didn't you send me THAT version? You have such vivid action and fantastic characterization.  And you set the tone of what type of book you have.

Did I already say it keeps getting better and better? Then it keeps getting better and better and better.

She did offer up a suggestion which will require a bit of work. When I moved the action sequence to the beginning, I took advantage of a small lull in the plot line to put in the backstory which originally had been at the beginning. Fiona said that much backstory in that place killed the momentum, and suggested I pare it down and sprinkle it throughout.

So that's what I'm doing right now.

And that's why Dragons & Dungeons may have to wait.

Keep your fingers crossed, friends.

A Change In Plans

By Michael Seese

For the past few weeks, I'd been kicking around an idea for my first post of 2013. I have planned to announce new personal initiative for the new year. If you're outside of the author community, you might not have heard of NaNoWriMo. Actually, even of you're in the author community, you might not have heard of it.

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. As the name would suggest, it's an open challenge to write a 50,000-word novel in one month, specifically, November. The idea is not to make it perfect; it's to get it done.

If you do the math -- 50,000 divided by 30 days hath November -- that comes out to 1,666 words per day, each day. Given the constraints of my life -- you know, the job thing and the family thing -- I really don't think I can manage that. But over two months...

So I planned to launch my own NaNoWri2Mo, if you will.

I'd been kicking around an idea for a YA fantasy novel called Dragons & Dungeons. It's about four high school senior girls -- self-described geeks -- who get sucked into a medieval Celtic world while playing the aforementioned (noun-swapped) game. Here is the opening:

(Bear in mind, there will be Dungeons & Dragons-esque dialogue interspersed. But, 1. I haven't researched any yet, and 2. The moves they make will tie into what happens in the medieval Celtic world.)


    “Ladies, as another Friday night dawns to Saturday, another meeting of the She-man Boys Hater Club comes to order.”
    "For the record, I don't hate boys."
    "And shouldn't it be 'She-girl?' Can we be She-men?"
    "It's a joke. A play on words."
    "Whatever. I still don't hate boys."
    "Neither do I. But it sounds better than the 'Losers Who Can't Get A Date Club,' doesn't it?"
    “I’ll be so glad we're out of high school.”
    “Yeah, college is going to be different.”
    “You think? Roll.”
    “Oh yeah.”
    “How so?”
    The bell of the clock of the Federated Church tolled, the first of 12 peals to follow.”
    “Well, first of all, the boys will be men. No more stupid pranks. No more name calling. No more Callie the Collie.”
    “Or Mason Jars.”
    “Mason Jars?”
    “Well, they’re not exactly jugs,” she said, holding her chest.
    “Oh, you two have so much room to complain. Louise! Do you have any idea what it’s like to carry a name like ‘Louise’ around?”
    “At least you have a girl’s name. ‘Edwina?’ What kind of name is that?”
    “Yeah, you’re right. It is pretty onerous. But ‘Eddy,’ sounds really cool. It fits you,” said Mason.
    "And besides,” said Lou, “you're a babe. You’ve got that blonde hair, and that funky short cut."
    “And I’d kill for those lips.”
    "Can I help it if my Mom’s a beautician, and likes to practice? Though I have to admit I enjoy looking like this, rather than a 'Plain Jane' and never..." She let her voice tail off, rather than continuing to insult her best friends. "Sorry guys, I—"
    "It's OK, Eddy,” said Callie. “Lou’s right. You are a babe."
    "Yeah. Hanging with you is good for our image," added Mason.
    “And there is no place I’d rather be on a Friday night, than with the four of you.”
    “Bull sh— I mean, liar,” said Callie.
    “College will be great.”
    “It will. But wouldn’t it be awesome if we could live this life. Just for one day?” ...



I say I was going to do that. But something else has come up which may require my attention...

To be continued. (Ooh! A cliffhanger! Just like the original Batman TV show.)