Sunday, October 17, 2010

Sunday Report Card: The Multi-Week Version

funny pictures-Ai forgetz..    Waz ai goin up or down?


Well, seems I've been a little remiss in posting my weekly progress. Okay, a lot remiss!

So many things, so little time. The evil day job, a trip to Ohio and a request for chapters has made the last couple of weeks interesting. Interesting doesn't necessarily mean good. *cackle*

My last posted goals on September 26 were:

1) Work on Beloved (lesbian vampire).
2) Self-edits on Naughty Nooner.

I finished the lesbian vamp story on October 3rd. It's in the hands of my critique partner. I didn't get around to the Naughty Nooner. The evil day job is at its worst the first week of the month and I had off on the 7th and 8th for Romanticon!

Oh, and speaking of Romanticon! What a blast! The weekend was fabulous. Saw a lot of people I only knew online. Spent time with galpal Delilah Devlin. Ate too much. Ogled hot male cover models--who were so young they made me feel like a dirty old woman! *cackle*

I only had my cellphone camera so I didn't get any really great pictures. However, Delilah and I had our picture made with the cover models. See what I mean about hot! And young!

Very hot. Very young! *cackle* And very sweet.

Oh, I forgot the request for chapters! Wednesday night before leaving for RomantiCon, I received a request for chapters from one of my Harlequin proposals.

While thrilled at the request, I was also a bit freaked. I hadn't looked at the pages since I sent the query and synopsis. I knew I had changed the synopsis around some. I thought I had changed the pages. Ooops! I wouldn't have sent the chapters on Wednesday night anyway. I wanted at least a read through but I didn't expect to do revisions. Like a fool, I promised the editor the pages by October 18.

I transferred the pages to my Kindle for the flight to RomantiCon so I could read on the plane. I had a few tweaks here and there through chapter one. Then I realized the synopsis had a sex scene early in the story. Ooops. The pages didn't. Okay. I could fix that. Easy enough. A spot in chapter two almost begged for a sex scene.

Then I hit chapter three. Uh, oh. This is where the focus of the synopsis switched and the pages didn't. While I managed some editing during down time at RomantiCon, I couldn't revise chapter three there. Too many distractions or just too tired.

The EDJ was hell when I got back. No one does the boss' job when she's away. I wrote very little during the week and yesterday was my RWA chapter meeting. So most of Saturday was shot. Although I hit Starbucks after the meeting and finished up the sex scene.

Today, I hit Starbucks early and by noon had chapter three worked out to my liking. I sent the pages to a few people to read. So far, I've received two back and tweaked the story accordingly. I'm still waiting on one but expect it any minute.

I don't get my hopes up too high with requests to see pages. I've been rejected before after sending in partials. But a little bit of hope niggles in the back of my mind and won't be silenced. I'll send the pages either later tonight or early in the morning and then the waiting game begins again.

And while patience is a virtue, no one ever accused me of being virtuous!

Goals for this week:

1) Finish self-edits on Naughty Nooner
2) Plot and write a synopsis for a new EC story (BDSM series)
3) If CP returns lesbian vamp story, finish and submit

Have a fabulous week!
Shayla

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Shayla,

I understand completely about the EDJ. Seems to stop us from reaching a lot of our potential, doesn’t it :)

Good luck with the book submission, if they do not pick it up its their loss, really.

Have a great week and don't work too hard. Seriously, you must be the only boss who has not trained her subordinates to do all her work :) Your too nice that's why...

Tess MacKall said...

Congrats on the request for chapters. Sounds like you've been an ultra-busy lady. Great pic. Good luck with HQ. I'm sure this one is a winner.

Denise Golinowski said...

Hi Shayla! You've been a very busy gal and I totally understand your not having time to post. Congratulations on the chapter request. But more, congratulations on getting to meet the men of Romanticon. One year I'll have to go. Nano will certainly get us all back on track!

Denise Golinowski - Fantasy With A Kiss of Romance