Writers :)

"In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, in Australia you have to explain what a writer is."

-Geoffrey Cotterell

You know you're closer to publication when...

1. when you begin to receive "encouraging" rejections


2. they reject the manuscript you submitted but ask you to send your next one


3. your mentor tells you to contact his agent without you asking for a referral


4. agents and/or editors proactively contact you because she spotted your quality writing somewhere online or in print


5. you need more sophisticated critique partners


6. you understand why your work had been rejected

Quote- I don't know from where!

"The role of keeping a notebook is to remind you that you are a writer...image album, record thoughts events dreams and revelations...valuable for future generations."

i love this quote

Inspirations

"Looking back, I'm not sure if I ever would have become a writer if it hadn't been for that professor who said I probably couldn't make the grade, and he doubted if I'd ever get out of the "provisional" category. I made it out.
By now, I've written and had published 286 books, mostly fiction, but twelve non-fiction books as well. Motivation? Yes, that "provisional" tag still bugs me. But I realize that I had used that tag to help me make my dream of being a novelist come to pass.
I'm going to keep on writing novels until I learn how."

-Chet Cunningham

Sophie Kinsella Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqTxi4zhLhQ&feature=player_embedded

Above is the a link/video from Sophie Kinsella (author of the Shopaholic books, Remember Me?, etc). She speaks about how she edits her work and gives a super helpful tip. i love you, Sophie!

Inspirational Quote

"A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent because everything she does is golden. In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway."


-Junot Diaz

how i started...

(a submission i recently wrote- without double checking, as usual. That's a fact I have to work on!)





It was a quiet early-summer day and there was absolutely nothing to do.

It was too hot for my sisters to want to play with me and too humid for my parents to take me to the park.

What I did next was the only thing that could quench my boredom...I snuck into my sisters' bedroom, very quietly.

I knew exactly where she kept her diary and I figured that it was as good a time as any to begin reading it.
So I did...thoroughly. Maybe twice.

I had finished reading the last page when an idea struck me-I can publish a family newspaper! Everyone was so busy doing their own interesting and grown up things that they had forgotten all about me.

I began to write and write and write. Than I rewrote the front page about three times (so I can pass it out to my family members- there was no copy machine in my house.)

It now occurs to me that the whole time I wrote and wrote and wrote, no one came to check on me. Seeing me sitting on the floor and writing on something was my usual past time if I was stuck indoors.

Finally, my masterpiece was complete. I wanted to wait to hand them out, but I just couldn't. I headed to the living room and handed out a copy of "Family Times" (a spin on 'Family Ties')

My Mother and Father had practically burst into tears and hugged me into submission before they read the article about my sister's diary...then...

chaos.

There was no time for them to hide the third copy from my sister.

So I ran and ran and ran.

And that's the last time the Family Times was published.

Inspirational Words

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

~Joan Didion

time- see what's become of me

"How much do you want to be a published author? That's how much you have to read."

With the exception of this weekend, it seems as if all I have been doing is reading and writing. My freelancing is working out smoothly and I have been inspired for a lot of my already-started manuscripts and new stories altogether.

It doesn't leave me much time to query literary agents and publishers about my two self-published works.

Today, I am trying to get back into the groove by going over my writing to do list.
Tomorrow, I will continue. I will. I will.

Sigh.

Other than that- the past few months have been very exciting- filled with travel, and good friends. Then, there's always the good food and good wine part.

Yay.

So back to the writing board I go with my thousand ideas. Pray for me! :D

thank you thank you thank you,
christina rozeas

persistence and luck

(Taken from Ray White's Excerpt in How I Got Published)

"Persistence is sending letters again and again, ignoring the rejections, sending more letters, and so on, until somebody caves and takes your book. Luck is buying a lottery ticket. Luck is your Uncle Phil being the manager of a large publishing house, or your cousin's babysitter being the daughter of a top literary agent."


Ok- can someone please tell me if I have any of these things, and maybe i'm too googly to realize it?!

wah.

still waiting.

christina rozeas

inspiration from successful authors

The Publication Blues by Ray White

I've queried and networked, till blue in the face
Submitted, submitted all over the place
Read my rejections (and some made me cuss)
"Great Concept,""well written"-"just not right for us."

Then what, I would ask, does it take to succeed?
If "Great Concept," "well written" won't get me a read
Persistence, it seems, in the face of rejection
Is the only sure path that leads to selection.

The odds are quite simple- you will or you won't
Those who will, do--and those who don', won't.

inspiration from successful authors

(Excerpt taken from F. Paul Wilson in ('How I Got Published')

"That- the satisfying conclusion part- is, I believe, the best reason for an utline. Count how many novels have done this to you: You're sailing along, digging the prose and the plot and the characters whe, about three-quarters of the way through, you start to notice it falling apart, eventually concluding not with a satisfying bang, not even ith a whimper. It doesn't really end, it just seems...to...dribble...away..."

Ok.

So this happens to me...except, upon completeing 'A Coincidence Away', I figured there just has to be a part 2. Possibly, part 3.

Dear Literary Agents....

I'm still waiting!!

love,
christina rozeas

dear sophe kinsella:

my all-time favorite author is Sophie Kinsella.

Her books, especially the Shopaholic series, seriously put a smile on my face. It's not that I could relate to the heroine of the novels; but I could relate to the language and tone of her books.

I love Sophie Kinsella.

Seriously, it was one of my morning missions to locate some of her information so that I may send her a letter up front about how much she's inspired me. do you think she'll take on any mentees?

pray she writes back...or at least one of her people reads my letter. if anyone can help me with my books, stories and ideas, i know she can.

i'm writing, ms. kinsella!