Mostly Reading, Little Writing

Hello! Even though I haven't been doing much physical writing, I've been doing writing related things:

-- I entered the first paragraph of my untitled work-in-progress (WIP) to Nathan Bransford's contest! He's amazing to volunteer his time like that. Merry Christmas to us! Already he's got over 809 comments ... half of those are probably entries! Wish me luck! If I win, I hope he'll be OK with reviewing the partial for The Unicorn Tamer because I haven't finished the query or the first 3 chapters of my WIP. I decided not to submit the first paragraph of TUT because after Miss Snark's First Victim two sentences critique, I know that the first paragraph of TUT needs work. A partial read by Nathan would really jumpstart my editing over Christmas! Santa? Please?

-- I got curious and decided to try out Authonomy - if you want, you can check out the first 11,500 words of The Unicorn Tamer here. I haven't decided if I liked the site yet. I'm not really sure if I feel comfortable having so much of The Unicorn Tamer out in the public like that. Also, I feel that if I want to be "successful" on Authonomy, I would have to spend a lot of time networking, commenting on profiles, critiquing books, ect. I don't know if I have the time to invest all that energy. We shall see ... EDIT: It's Dec. 19, 2008 and I pulled my stuff off Authonomy a couple days ago. I just didn't have the time to invest in the community. Maybe someday I'll try again ...

-- I entered the two different versions of the first two sentences of TUT here and here. It was great - reading the other entries and reading the comments on my own. The exercise helped me see that I need to make the first couple of chapters of TUT (essentially, the partial portion) much more exciting.

-- I joined Miss Snark's First Victim's first chapter critique group. To help a fellow aspiring author, I am going to be reading the first chapter of her love story (that oddly reminds me of the movie "P.S. I Love You") and hopefully giving her fair, useful feedback.

-- I am now following 41 blogs! Woo!

P.S. I miss Disneyland.