Earth Signs

I'm so excited! I got the preliminary layout for Taurus, Virgo, & Capricorn: All About the Earth Signs from my editor last night! It looks amazing!

My name is right on the cover!!

As a work-for-hire project, there were a few changes made by the publisher. But, I'm very happy with the outcome. My first published book!! Well, almost published anyway...

I'm not sure when it will be out "for real", but I'll be sure to post as soon as I know.

Whoo-hoo!

Young Adult?

I spent some time at Barnes and Noble in Nashua yesterday writing in their cafe. After I finished what I was working on, I decided to cruise the YA titles on the shelves. I was expecting to get some inspiration...and I did, sort of.

While there are a lot of great novels on the shelf, there are a lot of really cheesy stuff, too. Lots of dead girls, lots of vampires, etc. And while I like a good vampire book as much as the next person, I discovered I really think there's a place for my little story amongst all those others. There wasn't a lot of 'girls in sports' titles - like zero.

I've been working on my 'hook' sentence. In a nutshell, right now it's:

"Kate struggles as the only girl in her area who plays competitive golf. More than anything, she wants to win the State Championship and prove that she has what it takes to play with the boys. When the boy she loves is framed for vandalizing the golf course her parents own, it's up to Kate to prove his innocence and save the business in the process."

I'm still not 100% sure how proving his innocence saves the business, but I'm working on it! There's also a bad guy, a couple of interesting characters, and hopefully a nice little romance.

Plot and Structure

Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell and Writing the Breakout Novel: A Workbook by Donald Maass are the two newest additions to my library. I've been reading the Bell book and getting some ideas.

I really need to decide what my character, Kate, wants more: to be the first girl to win the Mass State Junior Golf Championship, or to get the boy. Does she win the tournament on the way to getting the boy? or Vice Versa? Or does she want both, but only get one or the other? Or, neither?

Hopefully the plotting book will help me make some decisions.

Novel update

Those of you keeping track of my sidebar will notice that my word count has just dropped significantly. :(

I just made a major decision to chop chop chop a pretty big chunk of what I've already written. I'd made the plot too big, and have decided to simplify my characters lives a bit. I've also come to accept that writing a YA novel means more than 35K words. More like 50K +

Back the drawing board. Now, where did I leave that board?

Anyone have any teen angst I can borrow?