It has been awhile...

Wow! How could I forget my blog?
I did.
I haven't posted since August it states and I didn't even remember until I saw an email for a friend request on here.
I promise to write more soon.

Speaking of writing; haven't done any...:( I met someone whom I consider a dear friend now off of the query tracker forum, who has been helping me edit my novel, but I just literally stopped sending her anything. Not because of her advice because it was great. But mostly because all the mistakes were the same. I have always said I am a storyteller, not an editor or writer.
Soon I will edit my novel and send out more queries but for now, it is family, the new house and my art. Yes if I never told you; I have another passion, which is painting. I do sell a few here and there, but I also do it for another reason; to give proceeds back to the community to help fight Children's Cancer. I am a huge supporter and have been for over 20 years. So if you do know of anyone looking for art or needs a commission piece done, tell them that part of the proceeds go to a great cause.
http://bryandub.boundlessgallery.com

Thank you CipherQueen!

Here's the rules.
1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might not know.
5. Nominate other Bloggers.
6. Post links to the blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

So here we go!
Thank you so much to CipherQueen! We follow each other through here and http://www.querytracker.net/. She is an amazing woman and I can't wait to see her success through the years! Thank you so much for nominating me!

Seven Things You May NOT Know about me:
1. I am an internationally sold fine artist.
2. I am retired from the US Navy, but am still young!
3. Fifteen mintues of Fame: Had a documentary filmed about me and my work I do to help cure Children's Cancer.
4. I have visited over 50 countries around the world.
5. I stink at editing my own work!
6. I have the paperwork in now to the Guiness Book of World Records for the longest Human Tongue.
7. I am a certified trainer/instructor and have taught many classes, including listening skills, which ironically my wife tells me I never listen!

And now for the Nominations!

Litgirl01, Shelli, Gretchen, Quixotic, Sara Tribble, Tara Maya, Jeanne Tomlin .


There you have it!
Feel free to take the award and follow the rules!

If I could put time in a bottle...

Sorry, just singing again. I do that a lot, as long as no one is listening, which usually they are not. I can never remember the words, so I kind of just add my own.

As I constantly beg for followers, I guess my attempt at helping Ms. Nelson has no marketing merit if no one is here!

So back to the writing world, or query wars. I still have 22 queries out, waiting for response. I like most of you have understood and accept the form rejection world, but got a new one today, actually two! Two full request in one day!

The funny part is; I sent both of those queries awhile back, one was in February! Now that is a busy agency! So does that mean I need to wait 8 months for a response now?...lol.

Anyway, just random as usual. Say hello followers!

Kristin Nelson

I try and read blogs daily.
Anything to help my craft, fine tune my writing, fix my many errors.

I have yet to find a blogger, an agent or agency owner for that matter, take as much time as Kristin Nelson
( http://pubrants.blogspot.com/) does to help writers and authors.

Don't get me wrong, there are some great blogs out there, but she even takes the time to add a search title or labels to help you find what you are looking for. Now that is dedication!

I know this seems silly but I want to make the push to get her to the 1,000 follower mark. She is now at 857 and counting! She deserves it and I think, even with my little following here, each of you knows a lot more writers/authors or just blog followers in general, than I do.

So let's take on the task and help her achieve the much deserved milestone. If you do not follow her, please do now. If you already do, I ask that you blog the same and help get her to that mark!

The one thing I can say I have enjoyed as a writer is the dedication we put in to helping each other. Thank all of you who have inspired and helped me through this journey!

What Age Category are YOU Writing for?

I received an email back from a agent today asking me that question.

At least it wasn't a form rejection right?..lol.

She continued, very professionally stating that although it wasn't for her, it seemed I needed to clarify what age category my novel was.

Clarify? I had listed it as a middle grade, so where is the confusion?
So being the happy-go-lucky person I am, just chalked it up as experience and started doing more research via my best friend Google.

As we all know, there is so much advice out there that no two people would ever be remotely close to the same.

Here is a little history of what got me here:

I had entered a contest that Miss Snark posted at one time, and received great reviews by most. The one question was my age category, as I had listed my novel as YA. Most thought it should be Middle Grade due to the fact that the protagonist in the entry was 7 years old.

The problem is that she really isn't or wasn't the main character. She plays a very important role in the novel but mostly as the set up and the finale. The main character is 4 actually, but is a mystical creature, and they age like dogs do; 1=7, so in reality she is 28! It even states this several times in the book, how she couldn't wait to be older. The storyline follows the thinking and reading of a YA reader.

Back to my new research.

MG is listed as 8-12 and between 20,000 to 40,000 words on most sites I looked at. My main character I guess would fall in this age if you didn't count the dog years, but isn't if you follow the story and my novel is 69,932 words!

YA is listed as 12 and up which I believe my novel would suit this age of reader and the length is perfect.

I also found sites that listed an "Upper" Middle Grade and a "New" Young Adult category, but have not found these on www.querytracker.net or any agents website.

So again I need help. This is my third blog today, really should get to work!

I could easily raise the age of my "other" main character,but her actions and reactions do reflect a 7 year old girl, so want to clear away from that.

The Power of the Internet

Isn't it amazing how much technology has changed over the years?

I mean, well, for us over the age of, um...30, our life and technology have made a full circle. My 13 year old got confused when I handed him a VCR tape to watch in a weird machine he had never seen before and then he got annoyed because he couldn't find the menu button on the remote. I should give him one of my 8 track tapes to play in his Ipod!

I "googled" myself last night and Thank the Lord I have never done anything wrong or bad...lol.
I couldn't believe how many entries there were on me.
I do sell my art a lot so that is great publicity but was kind of cool.
I even saw a Wikipedia entry on me, only to be let down when I went to it and it wasn't there. Guess someone was trying to make me famous.

One entry bothered me though; my art was being used on a podcast or drabblecast without my permission.(http://web.me.com/normsherman/Site/MP3_Feed/Entries/2009/6/17_Drabblecast_119-_The_Seven_Deadly_Drabbles_by_Jake_Bible.html)

Is this legal?
I wrote to the guy and haven't heard a reply back. At least he credits me but I was not fond of the content of the podcast. Until last night, I didn't even know what a drabblecast was!

Anyway, back to reality. I guess my thought or better yet, question for the day is this; everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame. What is yours? I mean, if you sat down and had to answer the question, "What would you want to be remembered by.", what would be your answer?

We all want wonderful things for our children and family, so be selfish and make this about you.

If someone "googled" you, what famous tidbit would you want them to see?

Should I stay or Should I go?

That was just me singing. I promise, not going anywhere. I apologize to some of you who wished I did!

I am still working on my latest,edited,re-edited, fourth version, second phase query letter.

I was going to start back at square one and edit my novel but I like it, is that bad? Besides the editing job that needs to seriously be done by someone who has time to deal with my grammar problems and has an ample supply of Advil, I am happy with it.

So back to the query; I am looking for inputs on what worked for you, what didn't.

There are so many advice columns out there, which has my head spinning, so I do not need the "you need a hook" advice, just tell me from what you have learned since you all have been doing this so much longer than I, just tell me what you learned to perfect your craft of the query.

I am back at the point where, like most it seems, know I have the capability of putting a wonderful story on to paper, but selling myself and the novel in a one page format that will catch the eye of this super agent, who receives a thousand queries a week, well that is what I am looking for, or better yet, missing the boat.

Hit me with your best! I can take it!