Posts Tagged With: lord of the rings

I’ve finally submitted my manuscript!

This image has nothing to do with the post. I just like it because it’s awesome.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s official. I have finalized the manuscript for Imminent Danger and How to Fly Straight into It. It is written, edited, revised, and submitted to iUniverse via their incredibly complex submission form.

So what does this mean?

Step One: Editorial Evaluation

To quote Rebekka, my iUniverse “Check-In Coordinator”:

Your project is now ready for its Editorial Evaluation. Your project will be assigned an Editorial Consultant and you should hear from them within 2 – 3 weeks (once your Editorial Evaluation is finished). It’s helpful for you to understand that the Editorial Evaluation is a general overview of your manuscript, which focuses on key industry-standard areas, based on your genre of book. Some of these might include: point of view, grammar, plot points, etc. At the end of the Editorial Evaluation, you will receive a 10-15 page form, which highlights areas of possible improvement in your manuscript and gives you pointers regarding how to make your manuscript more marketable.

Now, my hope *fingers crossed* is that there won’t be many suggested changes. I hope this because I have had approximately 15 people read the manuscript and made a zillion revisions based on their suggestions, so there really shouldn’t be all that much left in the book needing fixing.

Of course, these are professional editors reading the manuscript, so they’ll probably catch something or suggest something that my myriad proof readers missed. I’m cool with that. As long as they don’t tell me to “re-write the entire book” like one super-helpful reader did (*sarcasm*), I’m good.

While I wait for the Editorial Evaluation …

I bite my nails and hope it turns out well! No, seriously, I will probably get back to editing the sequel to Imminent Danger. When last I checked in on it, it was titled Interspecies Relationships and How to Make an Already Complicated Situation Worse. As that is somewhat of a mouthful, the title will be one of the first things I change.

My big thing with a sequel is making sure it’s as good (or nearly as good) as the first book. Because is there anything worse than reading a sub-par sequel to a book you love? Famine is worse, probably. Poverty. Child soldiers. Slavery. But you get my point!

And what is there in store for us, your loyal blog followers?

I just switched to “FAQ” mode. Whoops. Anyway, I really want to start posting excerpts from the book, which y’all may or may not read at your leisure. That won’t happen until the Editorial Evaluation gets back, however, so until then … expect pretty much the same. Random thoughts on writing, links to various photos/videos that probably no one but me enjoys, etc.

Woo!

Thanks, as always, for letting me ramble on. Speaking of Ramble On, that song has an entire verse about Lord of the Rings. Talk about awesome.

Right. So that’s my news, as well as my random link of the day. Happy Thursday!

PS: Can I even say PS in a blog? Right. Moving on. Does anyone have an opinion on vlogs? Good? Bad? Annoying? Would anyone watch an unknown author ramble about her publishing experience for 3-4 minutes? I won’t force you to watch any vlogs if you say yes.

Categories: My Works | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

My Bizarre Inspirational Moment

Have you ever been doing something completely normal, like walking in the park, or watching an old Disney movie you haven’t seen in years, and then see/hear something that just reaches right down into your soul and makes you feel like anything’s possible?

This happened to me recently. I was playing Kingdom Hearts (if you own a PS2 and haven’t played this game, you need to go buy it right now), and one of the levels is set in “Deep Jungle”, which is based off Disney’s Tarzan. I realized that I hadn’t seen Tarzan in years (probably not since it came out), and I was like, “Heck, why not, I’ve got nothing better to do.”

So I downloaded it. Not going to lie, it’s not the best Disney movie out there – probably doesn’t even crack the top 5. But the Phil Collins musical montages are great, and Jane Porter is hysterically British. Then the third and final montage of the movie came on — “Strangers Like Me” by Phil Collins, in which Tarzan learns all about humans and their achievements, and all the wondrous things he’s missed while living in the jungle.

If you want to just watch the clip, click here. If not, here’s what happens. Basically, Jane fires up a slide projector and shows Tarzan various images – a gentleman in a suit, a city, etc. Then a dancing couple appears, and Tarzan and Jane start doing this really bad yet adorable dance … and then this happens:

The music has been crescendo-ing since the first note of the song, and now it reaches it’s peak as Phil Collins howls, “I just know there’s something bigger out there! I wanna know! Can you show me?”

And I got the most massive case of chills all up and down my spine. My skin is goosebump-ing right now, just thinking about it. Something about that combination of space imagery (man, I LOVE anything to do with space), music, and lyrics just makes me feel incredibly inspired, like I’ve just been a part of something special and unique that no one else has experienced. And that’s crazy, because hundreds of thousands of people have seen Tarzan … but I have to wonder if they were so impacted by it in the way that I was. Maybe I’m crazy. The evidence is as of yet inconclusive.

Does anyone else feel this way? You’re doing something totally innocuous, and then you see/hear something that staggers you, makes your whole world spin, makes you feel like you’ve just been privy to something unbelievably amazing, even if just for a brief moment? That’s what inspiration feels like, for me.

I’d love to hear about what inspires you. When I hear that Tarzan song, I just want to sit down at my keyboard and write until the sun rises. How do you get inspired to write? Are there certain things you do to get you in the writing mood? Or do you just get randomly hit by things that strike you as incredibly profound?

A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.

– Joyce A Myers

Awesome meme(s) of the day:

Categories: Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

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