Rare Diseases Day

Tomorrow, February 29th, is the 5th Annual Rare Diseases Awareness Day.

One year ago, I'd never heard about Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome.

Today, I live with its effects every day, and see its challenges in the face of my son.

Please help raise awareness. It's not just cancer and obesity that creates health challenges. Rare disease--like SDS--together are just as common as cancer, obesity, and heart disease. But because the individual diseases affect only a handful of people around the world, you never hear about them--and few people fund research simply because they don't know about them.

Results?

Hello, dear readers!

This will be brief, as I've got a lot on my mind, and just want to let you know about the things that happened last week.

First, wasn't Jeannie Campbell's couch time with my character awesome? I really, really, really appreciate her! Now, it's off to work on that project. :) Third Draft, here I come!

Second, the contest.

Well, I didn't make the cut. But, as I said on my Facebook page, that's okay. About two weeks ago, it came to be that a newly published author agreed to do a first few chapters critique of my story, and we found a bunch of problems, which I'm working on. Nothing insurmountable, but between that and some critiques I'd sought out on my pitch, it was for the best. Upward and onward!

And, the biopsy.

It went well. From start to finish, it lasted maybe 10 minutes (from what we were told), but sedating him and waking up made it about an hour total. A little nerve-wracking, but it's done with. Now, we're just waiting on results, which we're hoping for today or tomorrow.

It's been rather hectic this weekend, hence the brevity of this post.

Until next time,

Liberty

Hectic

When did life get so hectic? I mean, really?

Between the fact that I've been spending a ton of waking hours working on writing projects, it seems everything else has been pushed to the wayside, up to and including normal housewife duties. TMOTH often asks what I managed to get done in any given day, and I give him a blank stare. How can I say that most of what I did involved editing, writing, outlining, etc.?

Oh well.

This week probably won't be much different. However, there is one thing this week that'll get me away from the computer.

First, two writing-related things happen this week.

The fabulous Jeannie Campbell, AKA, The Character Therapist, is going to have my male lead in my next publishable novel on the couch. I'm so excited! Back in October, she had Tamryn, my female lead, on the couch, so I'm really interested to see what she says about the hero and how they'll interact together. Bridger's couch time is slated for tomorrow, so be sure to check it out.

Thursday is to be the latest day at which I'll learn whether Homebody made the first cut for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. I'm hopeful, but I don't know what kind of competition I'm up against, either. Well, I take that back. I do know TWO of the novelists I'm up against--two of the members of my local critique group have also submitted. This part of the contest is all about pitch, which I'm a bit more confident about than the actual novel, just for the simple fact that I've had some recent critiques from a new critter that have already drastically revamped the first few chapters of the story. Oh boy.

And, finally, Friday... our little boy has his bone marrow biopsy, provided he doesn't get sick. He gave TMOTH and me a cold in the last week, so hopefully, we don't give it back!

I don't know if I'll give an update until next Monday about any of this, but we'll see.

Until next time,

Liberty

Am I Ready?

Well, I've missed the last week or so blogging... And, I really have no excuse. I've been here. I've been at the computer. But things went Ca-ray-zy! I swear! (Of course, when in my life have I not described it as crazy?)

This is going to be more of a writing update than anything... After submitting to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest two weeks ago, the contest closed early, which was a little nerve-wracking.... especially when I started going over the manuscript in question, and started catching little tweak-y things (including a missing punctuation mark late in the last chapters.)

But, this means I'm doing something I'm still not 100% sure I'm ready for (mentally--the book is ready) and that's submitting to agents.

On Friday, I sent out 10 queries with the appropriate items requested by each agent (and I don't think ANY of the requests were the same!) Saturday morning, I got a rejection--yeah, that was FAST. I was disappointed since it's from an agent I admire and follow on Twitter, and it was a standard form rejection. But, I could chalk that one up to not being exactly what she's looking for, or maybe she's full-up on mystery writers right now.

So, now Number 11 went out late Saturday morning/early Saturday afternoon. I figure I'll try 20 - 25 agents, see what happens, and continue to tweak as I go through the process.

It'd be nice if I make the first cut on the Amazon contest, which I'll know probably in about 10 days.

Ten days. Wow. I don't know if I'll be able to sleep in that time!

Of course, I will, but if I get as wound up as I've been lately right before bed, it'll be difficult (which is also why this post may be a bit disjointed--my insomnia has been acting up and I actually had to medicate last night.)

In the meantime, I'm just going to keep doing what I've been doing. I'll finish up the pass on my manuscript in case I get that coveted partial--or full!--request, and I'll continue work on my cross-genre novels (which I think pretty much describes the projects with the working titles of Cora's Song, Beyond Dead, and its sequel, Dead Before Arrival.)

I still have my work cut out for me.

Until next time,