Google Meme!

Deniz didn't really tag me for this, but I thought it would be fun anyway.  *g*

 

Five Google searches that return my blog as the first hit:

 

1. lonsdaleite wormhole

2. elspeth time travel

3. jenny elspeth alec (is that cheating?)

4. sailor's blessing doldrums (I get a lot of traffic from searches like this, for some reason.  Nina posted the blessing in the comments.)

5. scottish time-travel romance kilchurn

 

Close, but no cigar:

kilchurn breadalbane - I'm the second hit, right after a Clan Campbell society!

medical physicist romance novelist - also the second hit, right below Deborah Hale (see below)

alec glencoe massacre - again, second...after EE's discussion of my query!

 

I'm finding a pattern...a lot of the hits I'm getting are to one specific post - this one.  I guess it has all the really unique combinations.  It's loooong, too.  *g*

 

Interestingly enough, searching for "Alec and Elspeth" pulls up hits to another book, Remembering Laughter by Wallace Stegner, several posts to this blog, and quite a few of my CompuServe posts.  (I have been formerly immune to the CompuServe-Google link as I don't post under my full name and even that is so commonplace that I am buried in the pile.)

 

The MCs' names plus a story location (i.e. "alec elspeth glenstrae" or " alec elspeth glencoe") will almost always get me as first hit.

 

Kind of funny: there is an Elspeth Martin who did math and physics at Glasgow University in the early 90's *cue Twilight Zone music*

 

And apparently there is an author of Historical Romance named Deborah Hale who is married to a medical physicist.  (I've requested her most recent book through PaperBack Swap...she writes Regency, my other preferred subgenre.)

 

The search "compuserve forumites" did not pull my blog up on the first page, much less the first hit.  That honor belongs to Claire, hehe.

 

Another string that I got first hit on, but not to the blog, was "kilchurn glenstrae glencoe", which linked to the House Party "I" hosted on behalf of Alec and Elspeth over the summer.

 

Quite a few of the strings I tried pulled up my CompuServe posts.  But then, if you're doing these searches, you likely know me anyway, because they are pretty random combinations.

 

Okay, now that's my Friday-afternoon-blow-off and I have to get back to work if I'm going to see my husband and son tonight.

 

P.S.  Close game last night, but the Sox prevailed.  I may actually get to write tonight and then the Series resumes in Denver tomorrow and Sunday...

Pitch Critiques

Jessica over at the BookEnds Agency blog is offering "Perfecting Your Pitch" critiques. Just leave your one-sentence or one-paragraph pitch in the comments, and she'll choose as many as she can to critique on the blog.

In a fun coincidence, Agent Kristin is talking about the same thing right now (though not offering critiques, alas).

Because I can't help myself, and figuring out this whole query thing is a long-running obsession with me, I spent all my writing time this morning working up a new version and posting it. I tried to take the advice of both agents, which basically boiled down to "try to make it read like back cover copy".

So that's what I did, trying to set up the situation and give a feel for some of the external conflict (Breadalbane, political climate, etc.), while coming right out and saying that Elspeth and Alec fall in love, but only hinting at the separation that drives the story from climax-resolution.

It may look like 3 paragraphs, but if you count closely you'll note it's only 5 sentences long. *g* So we'll see if it gets picked and what she has to say.

I left out everything about why they can't have a relationship, and Elspeth's trade-off with the Earl to save his life after his capture and sentencing - and their "one night" together that the title draws on - and Alec's journey into the present to find her...which is kind of my core idea and the crux of the whole story. I wasn't thrilled about it. But I was matching the tone of cover copy for books in my genre, so again I guess we'll see.

My problem is, whenever I get it worked down into what I feel is a nice, tight little package (like I did for EE) the commenters always want to know this or that, and answering everything baloons my tight 5 sentences out into 2-3 paragraphs, almost like a short synopsis but still trying for a hook instead of revealing the ending as a true synopsis would.

And often the "sucessful" queries posted have much longer bodies, with more detail. So which to use when I actually get to the query stage?

...

Personal status update: Sven is angry with me, but I married into Red Sox Nation and watching the first game of the World Series with DH last night pre-empted any writing I would have gotten done, just like the ALCS pre-empted it last week. I hope the Sox take this thing in 4, because I don't think I'll be very productive at home until it's over, and work is too busy right now to sneak in much writing time here.

Taking the Plunge

I succumbed to peer pressure *g* and entered the brand-spanking-new version (as in, it came to me last night in bed as I was drifting to sleep) of my opening to Nathan Bransford's LIFPC.

 

Precie entered, I know.  And I saw Jen's openings up there, too as I skimmed through the numerous entries .  So good luck to all!

 

And don't forget to give me costume ideas in the post below...

I need ideas.

Halloween falls on a weekday again this year, and we are allowed - practically encouraged - to dress up at work.  Fun times.

I need ideas of cool/creative costumes I could put together with minimal effort/expense.  Last year I went as Puss in Boots and had a pretty good time of it.  All I had to buy was the mask and cape.

I wanted to do a seventeenth-century getup this year, but finding or making the skirts and shift and bodice was just too difficult and time-consuming, even if I cheated and used department-store plaid flannel for the arisaid.

So...suggestions?

Project Night Night

Sweating with Sven is off to a slow start.  Guess I'm taking some of my "free" days of the challenge right out of the gate.  *sheepish grin*

Besides work kicking me in the @$$ like never before (and I thought it was bad enough previously!) I've been hard at work on a very worthy cause: I'm organizing a donation drive within my local playgroup - we're fairly large, almost 90 families - for Project Night Night.

PNN is a national program based in California that collects stuffed animals, books, and blankets and bundles them into tote bags to be donated to homeless shelters and given to kids that come through there.  They end up with warmth and comfort (in the form of blankies and lovies) and a book that encourages reading.

I'm very excited because lots of people in our group have "extra" stuffed animals and books, and more are pitching in to buy the blankies.  I think we'll have enough to split between the Salvation Army shelter for women and families and the Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program shelter.  Then PNN will step in and continue to send them packages to meet their further needs, though we are welcome to continue to contribute.

But yeah, between that, work, and an indefinable exhaustion and general funk this week, it's been hard going.  Things are looking up, though.

Be the Hammer

I almost missed it, but check out Alec - I mean, Martin (looking an awful lot like Alec) in the new Cadillac commercial.

Thanks to DH for pointing that out to me the other night.

...Of course, it has to be Martin.  Alec can't drive.  He's somewhat afraid of (call it "morbidly fascinated with") automobiles.  *g,w*

Sweating with Sven...Again

Seventy Days of Sweat, Round 2

 

Today is the kickoff and I'm back to story wordage, even though I'm not done with my bios and timelines.  I'll keep working on those on the side.  I need between 750-1000 words a day to stay on top.  Since tonight is TV night with DH, I planned to get those words at work.

 

Ha.  After a three-day weekend?  No dice.  Too much to catch up on, AND Little Boy gets his flu shot this afternoon, AND one of the Four Mewses has an appointment for yearly vaccinations and we're taking one of the dogs along for his cortisone shot.  Many needle sticks in store today.  And THEN I need to get the grass seed down on all the huge dead patches of our yard before the scarce and blessed rain tomorrow. 

 

Total words managed this morning: about 170.  Hey, at least it's something.

 

Kicking off with a deficit is a less-than-auspicious beginning, but I'm confident I can make it up.

 

Watch for a challenge wordcounter, so I can see how many new words I write even as I begin to cut and revise.

 

A shout out to my fellow Forumites and Sweat participants, Precie and Deniz (you did sign up for round 2, right?), and then it's back into the fray for me.

 

Oh, and a friend from my BabyCenter birthclub has worked up some awesome cover drafts for me, to use in case I do enter the Amazon contest.  I'll try to get those up soon.

Status update

I took the day off work today, paying myself back for working 12 hours - unpaid - on Saturday and until midnight Wednesday night.  We painted the spare bedroom a really nice denim blue during Little Boy's nap (he slept long, thankfully).  That room is going to be his "big boy" room when he moves out of his crib, and we're keeping the tiny nursery as, well, a nursery for when the next one comes along.  (At this point, we're not planning on starting that process until next year sometime.)

I'm back to my nightly B-I-C routine, warming up for the next round of Sven starting Monday.  I'm almost done with Alec's bio.  I've enjoyed doing it, and it prompted a few realizations about his motivation at a several key points that will help me with some of the remaining scenes.  Elspeth's up next, then my historical timeline, and hopefully by Monday I'll be back to story wordage and steaming on for the end.

Oh, and a published author in my subgenre has offered to read my MS when I'm done with it.  Woohoo!

What I've been up to

Still not a huge blogging presence from me, but work continues behind the scenes...

 

Right now I'm in a researching/planning phase before I hit the last major unwritten scenes (Glencoe, Elspeth's kidnapping, etc.).  I'm currently in the middle of a character bio for Alec, getting all my thoughts and decisions on him - family background, beliefs and tastes, what he thinks of Elspeth, and his reaction to present day when he gets here - down.  Then I'll do one for Elspeth.  I've done these for other minor characters, but let the MCs grow as I went.  Now I want to get it all down so that in rewrites I can smooth it over and make sure the characters are consistent and grow throughout the story.

 

I'm also going to hit the books hard for more historical detail as I come into the really historical scenes, namely Glencoe.  I have a "character/story events" timeline but I'm going to write out a historical events timeline for the 9 months Elspeth spends in 1691-92 so I can get the correct political nuances in and make references to the right characters and happenings.

 

Then it's back to the nitty-gritty and finishing up the SFD.  The static word counter over there is starting to bug me.  *g*

 

I've signed up for the "Seventy Days of Sweat: Round 2" to begin a week from today and run through January (allowing down time for the holidays) and my stated goal is to be done with the first draft and into rewrites by the end of the challenge.

*snort*

Y'all, seriously, I checked my "sitemeter" stats and someone actually found this blog by Googling "what do medical physicists do?"

 

Ahahaha.

 

I'm assuming it hit on my then-most-recent post, which was all the (bad) physics jokes.

 

Boy, did they not get exactly the info they were looking for.

 

Though they might have gotten a little unwanted insight into the mind of one particularly cheesy medical-physicist-cum-aspiring-romance-novelist...

 

Oh, and an actual writing update: 1700 words today and going strong, baby!  I am out of the rut!