Working Hard

Found out last night that something called gather.com is having a competition sponsored by Simon and Schuster, a first romance novel contest. You enter your first chapter, and it goes to a vote, then if it makes it past that round, the second chapter goes to a vote, and then the whole work is judged by them after that. Winner is paid, published, and featured at Borders.

Yay! Why not? However: They want the WHOLE work. That means it has to be done. And roughly edited. This is a first draft, hardly edited at all. I am at the cafe at 825 in the morning, planning on staying here until I'm done. Doesn't have to be great, I am telling myself -- after all, yesterday I had no intentions of sending this anywhere yet.

1. 8:27
2. until I'm done, hopefully less than eight hours
3. Priorities this morning:
    a. Make first two chapters shine
    b. Make line edits from marked hard copy of rest of work
    c. Slap on a happy ending
    d. Send it out.
        1. Update: 9:36 - the first two chapters are done, as well as I can. Having Bethany and Lala read them. Scared! I've editing about the first fifth. Lord, I can't believe I'm sending out a first draft of ANYTHING even if it is only an online contest.
        2. Update: 12:45 - first half of the book is line-edited, and I'm working on slapping on that ending. I'm emotionally overwrought. The writing actually almost made me cry. They're about to be happily ever after, and I had to take a break. But so exciting! I will need a drink tonight.
         3. 1:35pm. I just typed The End. I am wild with happiness.
        4. The goddamn hippies are here, playing bad guitar and singing right behind me. Screw this, I'm going home to finish the line edits.
        5. 4:01pm: 80 more pages to line-edit. I'm dying here.
         6. 5:15pm. Done. With all the line-edits. I'm sure I have one million typos I missed, but at this point, who cares? Drinking champagne!
        7. 5:36pm. Submitting to gather.com    What the hell?
4. 6:01pm. The entire thing is done. I sent out a NOVEL today. For a CONTEST.9.5 hours. Almost 4,000 words written, to the end.
5. Went fucking great.
6. Tomorrow I am seriously working on nothing.
7. I will work at nothing all day (well, I'll be at work, but apart from that, nothing).

Comments

[Janice]

Hi, I just sent you an e-mail on this EXACT topic. I'm SOOOOO glad you already knew about. In fact, I was thinking about you when I heard the story on NPR. If you didn't hear the story and want to hear it (it was pretty interesting), it's on NPR.org. It's titled "Publisher tries 'American Idol'-style talent hunt."

Good luck!!

Janice

[Faith]

Best of luck! Way to go on a day of hard work, enjoy your day "off."

[beverly]

Fantastic!!!!!