Or at least why I love a tortured hero. J I was asked about a week ago, what it was that drew me toward vampires as hero’s and in answering that, it brought me to another conclusion.
I love vampires, I think they’re sexy and seductive and sensual, but it’s not the vampire per say that I find so intriguing. No, it’s the fact that he is a tortured hero. What do I mean by that? Well, he’s had a tragic past, hates who he’s become, has flaws that he’s convinced no one will ever be able to look past. He needs to be saved.
The way I see it is, I, as a woman with that automatic save-the-hurt-creature-and-nurture-it-and-love-it, see a hero that needs to be saved and want to help save him. I want to read about the one woman who despite it all wants to be with him and take care of him and to see him struggle with the comprehension that this woman wants to be with him. He needs to be redeemed and saved, and the heroine is the only one who can.
There’s something so romantic about that, that I crave books like that, particularly vampires. On the surface, vampires are these evil, soulless creatures who kill without a second thought, but the tortured hero vampire doesn’t want to be who he is, and he has this sexy, broody, I’m immortal and wiser and can do whatever the hell I want and you can’t stop me attitude until that woman who can save him comes around and completely unravels him until his life revolves around her and he can’t spend a minute without her in his life and out of the thousands of years he’s been around he picks her out of everyone.
Okay. I know you’re the thinking what the hell kind of title is that? But the truth is, it’s how I’m currently feeling. Awful. Crappy. Tired. Shaky. And because I’m awesome and responsible I’m going to work today. Why? Because there is no one available to cover my shift and I won’t let a company who has done so much for me and that I care so much about, down. So I’m officially awake (which never happens this early, but I really didn’t sleep at all last night) and now must get ready for work with as much energy as I can muster. The boyfriends mad that I’m going to work, but he doesn’t understand. If I don’t go, then there’s no one to let the other employees in, to let the customers in, to answer phones, to ring up customers, to do the books, to do payroll…. it’s me. I’m it( a fact that I’m actually really proud of) If staying home was really an option I would. I’d curl back up in bed and stay there, but it’s not. Life’s not fair and you just have to deal. Which is what I’m doing. Now I just hope the customers can understand what I’m saying because yesterday and today I have a frog in my throat.
Okay so I may be crazy. I know I’m weird and I’m most definitely a nerd in disguise, but I really think there’s a good possibility that I’m crazy.
Why you ask?
Because not only am I scrambling to get my entire MS polished for the Golden Heart deadline, but I decided to do NANO this year as well.
What’s NANO you ask?
NANO, short for NANOWRIMO, short for National Novel Writing Month, is when hundreds of thousands of people all over the world attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Crazy right? How am I supposed to do all that AND prepare for the GH? I have no clue, but I’m going to try. For those of you who want to join, we’re only 2.2 days in and there’s still time to catch up. Here’s the link http://www.nanowrimo.org
You see, I hate editing, it really puts a damper on my muse and makes me not want to do anything writing related, so I’m hoping that by allowing myself to write a new story while I edit my other one, I’ll be able to keep the muse afloat. I’m sure she appreciates it.
So wish me luck as I enter into this crazy month of November, I have no clue when I’ll find the time to Christmas shop.
Update: Thanks everyone for stopping by yesterday and a special big thanks to Debra Holland for being available. Using random.org the winning comment number that was selected for the $10 Barnes and Noble gift card was comment number 11, Anne Barton. Anne, please send me an email with your addy so I can get that sent out to you ASAP!
Hi everyone,
Please join me in welcoming Debra Holland. My first official guest blogger. Don’t forget, Debra will be available all day in the comments section for Q and A and one lucky random commenter will receive a $10 Barnes and Noble gift card.
Kaycee
It’s Autumn, the time of year for unpublished writers to consider entering the RWA Golden Heart contest. The entry forms are due on November 16. The Golden Heart is RWA’s most prestigious unpublished contest. Finaling not only opens doors for your writing career, but is a LOT of fun.
When the GH call comes, the good news gives you a happy, bubbly thrill. It’s a great feeling to share with your family and friends. The high can last for weeks.
The days after the GH results are announced are a good time to send queries to agents and editors about your finaling manuscript. Finaling makes your queries stand out, leading to quicker responses. It also gives agents and editors more of a reason to request your book.
If your manuscript is already with an agent or editor, it’s good to call or email with the news. This can motivate the agent or editor to hunt through their slush pile to find your manuscript, instead of waiting the months, or even years, it might take them to get to it.
It’s not uncommon to have five to ten finalists sell their books in the months between the announcement and the national conference. During that time about the same amount of writers also sign with agents.
Sometimes an editor who is judging the contest likes what he or she is reading and directly buys the entry–before the winners are even announced at the awards ceremony in the national conference.
The finalists organize themselves into a yahoo group and begin to get to know each other. They share stories of their “call” and of their books. They support each other through rejections and acceptances and celebrate if one of them sells. By the time the conference rolls around, the group has become friends.
At the national conference, GH finalists get to wear pink finaling ribbons on their name badges and be princesses for five days. The ribbon identifies them to other conference attendees, agents, and editors, and they get a lot of people asking about their entry. There is also a special reception for the GH and Rita finalists.
At the awards night, the finalists dress up in beautiful formal gowns and sit in reserved seating in the front of the theatre. As each finalist’s name is announced, two overhead screens show her professional photo and the name of her book–a great way to build name recognition.
Winners receive a beautiful necklace with a golden heart. Once a winner places that necklace around her neck, she is forever a Golden Heart winner. The necklace is a symbol of her accomplishment that other writers can recognize whenever she wears it. However, it’s also a tangible reminder when future doubts creep in–yes, she is a good writer.
As I see it, there’s only two cons to entering the GH. One is the entry price. $50.00 can be a bit steep on an unpublished writer’s budget, especially in this economy. Multiple entries can really add up. Make sure you follow all the rules. If you break a rule, your manuscript will be disqualified, and your money won’t be refunded.
The second drawback of the GH is that the only feedback you will receive are numerical scores. You’ll never know why you received a 9 from one judge and a 4 from another.
How do you know if you are ready to enter the Golden Heart contest?
Is your manuscript completed or nearly completed? A completed manuscript is a requirement for the GH, making it different from RWA chapter contests. This weeds out the people who have completely polished the first few chapters and synopsis of their books, and enter them in all the local contests, but have never completed the manuscripts. These entries might be multiple winners in local contests, but the GH is for finishers, which gives you a different caliber of competition, and much more respect when you final.
I have used entering the Golden Heart as a spur to completing a manuscript. As a finishing-the-book tool, this has worked very well. Actually there have been several years when I was writing right until the deadline to overnight the entry in order to have it arrive the next day. In other words, the ending was done, but not polished. However, one of these books still finaled, and the other finaled the next year when it was polished. But don’t do this unless you are confident you can finish. Otherwise, your entry will be disqualified.
Make sure the first fifty-five pages, including your synopsis, are polished. Have a critique partner or two or ten go over your entry. In the first round, it won’t matter how much you’ve edited the rest of your book. The first round of judges only sees the first fifty-five pages, which includes the synopsis. You probably won’t win if the quality of the rest of the manuscript isn’t as good as the beginning, but winning is just a bonus to being a finalist.
So challenge yourself. Get out those manuscripts, finish them, polish them, and enter the Golden Heart Contest!
***
Debra Holland is a three-time Golden Heart finalist. In 2001, her book, Wild Montana Sky, won the short historical category.
Ahh, the art of rewriting. I’m not so much a fan of it, but when it has to be done, it has to be done. It’s been mentioned more than once to me, that my hero ( in the first three chapters) is an asshole.
Well, of course that has to be changed. He’s an Alpha, not a jerk. So after work today I wrote out a new outline for my first three chapters in which I’ve rearranged the scenes and their content around. I’ve changed up the dialogue and the reactions.
I want Sam to be considered as a caring Alpha, he’ll do what he needs to, to complete his job, but he won’t stoop down to the level of harassment, which is what he was originally doing and which was not my intention.
The good news: I think the first chapters will be much stronger for it and I’m actually excited about making my story better which outweighs my dislike of rewriting and editing.
The bad news: It’s a little time consuming because instead of being able to move forward on my edits tonight like I wanted, I have spent all day taking care of the rewrite.
The good news: Once it’s done, I don’t think I’ll have to do another rewrite, rather just revisions and editing.
The bad news: I feel pressed for time even more now because although I still have a month until the Golden Heart deadline, but time flies and I’ve already been at this a week and haven’t gotten past chapter three revisions.
Stay tuned as I keep you posted on my Golden Heart Journey!
Well,
I’ve done just about all I can for the night. I’m officially exhausted and off to bed, but wanted to let you all know that Day 2 of my Golden Heart Journey was another success. I read 3 lectures from Margie Lawson’s ECE course, fixed the -ing’s out of chapter two.
and chatted with my various CP’s about ways to better pursue my revision Hell so that I may enter my MS into the Golden Heart as the very best it can be. So another productive day. Who knows? Maybe I’m getting good at this time management thing. God knows I’ll forever struggle with organization, but Project: Get Organized is well under way for both my home and work life and I’m going to try my hardest to get Project: Stay Organized to be a success.
It’s hard though, I won’t lie. My brains so flighty and spontaneous half the time that I always forget what I’m doing. If I can stay organized and keep my time managed well, then I shouldn’t have a problem meeting the Golden Heart deadline.
I shouldn’t and I hope.
Okay, so Sunday night I entered myself into the Golden Heart. I was super excited and nervous, but I though what the hell? I was already a finalist in the Maggie’s why not go for something even bigger?
Then I received a critique of my chapter one. Now mind you, this chapter one was different than the finalist chapter one because I’d changed some things around. Everything I thought I knew or didn’t know was thrown out the window and I was cast face first into a pile of mud as I struggled to figure out the truth behind one of the so-called “writing rules”
All day yesterday I drove myself crazy over the simple part of a word. -ING. Ugh. What do I do, I thought, because now I have half the people critiquing my work saying to use -ing to help vary my sentence structure and the other half telling me not to.
Not Fun!
Thanks to my WONDEFUL writing groups, I was able to get to the bottom of the “rule” and figure out that it’s okay to use -ing words in your story, just be careful how you use them and use them sparingly because you don’t want too much repetition. I think the “everything in moderation” rule comes into play with just about every writing rule I’ve come across.
So I grabbed out the copy of my old version of the story, used a friends critique and tightened that chapter 1 back to where it should be at least for now. Thank God for that!
I don’t think I would survive if I didn’t have all these wonderful fellow writers supporting me!
So that was Day 1 of my Golden Heart Journey. I’ll now be subsequently fixing chapter 2-5 to fix the whole -ing issue and then will be polishing the entire manuscript until the end of November when I have to submit my entry. Wish me luck!
Starting tomorrow I will be conducting a series on once to twice weekly blog posts concerning my entry into the Golden Heart and my subsequent journey from there. I’ll talk about any crisis’ I might have, any joyous moments, and I hope to start a guest blog list of former Golden Heart Entrants, Finalists, and Winners, so stay tuned because I’m sure there will be tons to enjoy.
I’m so excited to say that the launch of the new KayceeKacer.com is now official and I LOVE it. I couldn’t be happier and want to thank Jaxadora Design for implementing this wonderful and easy to use site for me! Now I feel like I have something professional for editors and agents and all of my other writing contacts to look at and it makes me feel more like a professional writer.
In other news, in case you haven’t checked the news and updates section of my site- To Catch a Thief received Honorable Mention in the 2009 Maggie Award of Excellence for Unpublished Authors. Also, I’ve, as of today, entered my manuscript into the Golden Heart (the equivalent of the RITA for unpublished authors) so I’m scrambling to get my entire manuscript edited and ready to go for the December 2 deadline. Wish me luck! I’m off to go edit my novel
Yesterday I got a call that To Catch a Thief is a finalist in The Maggie Contest for Unpublished Author’s.
* waits for applause to die down*
Thanks! When I got the call I decided it must be because of all those Icee’s I drink. See I KNEW there was a reason I’m so addicted to them.
They feed my muse.
Okay they don’t, but I love them anyway! I think they are responsible for my final.
Maybe not.
There’s a small, itty-bitty, teeny-weeny chance I’m making up an excuse to drink them since I LOVE them so much. Or maybe all that sugar has gone to my head.
It’s a definite possibility.
The boyfriend thinks I should join icee’s anonymous, and he’s probably right, but to tell the truth…
I’m not ready to end my relationship with them yet. They’re entirely too yummy!
