I know I haven’t updated in a while, but I’ve been really busy and I almost have solid proof of it — through my new novel-in-progress, DUALISM, about a neurosurgeon with a deadly cause. If you want to check out general writing stuff, you can check out my blog on Whisper Box .

But onto the good news! I’m almost done editing I’M SORRY for the last time. I’ve decided to go through it with The First Five Pages, doing all the exercises that could apply, and call it quits once I got through the book successfully. Well, I’m done going through the book today, so I just have to skim one last time and check out the specs before I put it up on PageToFame again. If it doesn’t go through on that, there’s an option called AgentInbox I can use before going to traditional querying.

This is very exciting for me, since I’ve never really gotten through the editing on a book before. I didn’t really consider any of them worth it anyway. xD But I’ve got high hopes on DUALISM as a good follow-up, since the I’M SORRY sequel didn’t work out — 70,000 words of waste and pointlessness if you ask me.

Well, I’ll keep you up-to-date as much as I can, but it seems like I might be well on my way to getting I’M SORRY’s break soon! Definitely not going to try traditional querying until after January though, since agents and publishers are typically swamped the first two months after NaNoWriMo.

So wish me luck! :D

Take care~

Since June 20th, when I uploaded I’M SORRY to PageToFame, it has received 32 votes on a star scale of 1-5. Here’s how it was doing on 7-5-10 … and here’s how it was doing this morning when I grabbed a picture of it.

To show you I’ve improved over time, here are the other two things I submitted to WEbook:

The optional introduction

The original introduction (BTW, this was done when WEbook was still in BETA… that’s why it looks so different)

I’d say my odds are better now, wouldn’t you? I’ve really got my hopes up that I’ll get to the next round this time… Hope with me! : D

Counting down to the one-year anniversary of I’M SORRY’s 1st draft completion. I can’t believe it’s been this long! On Monday, my book will be a year old. And, not long after, it will get out of WEbook’s poll and… who knows where that’ll land me. If I get through, then it MIGHT land me with an agent. If I don’t, then it’s back to the drawing board to figure out if there’s some lines I missed. I was hoping to have the book edited the last time through by the time it hit its birthday, but… whatever. I’m going.

Got some feedback on chapter 4 that got me stuck, see:

atmoore1 said “This chapter was good and well written only a few minor mistakes but I have to say that it kind of threw me off especially when you consider how the last chapter ended. I’m thinking that maybe you went in this direction because the next chapter will have a lot more to do with Kagayaki’s father, maybe that’s who he calls after being arrested. If so maybe this one should have started with him being in jail thinking back on that conversation and then making the decision to call his father with that one phone call after the flashback is over.”

So I’m not sure what to do about that. :/ But I’m editing chapter 5 anyway.

_{Take care}

I put I’M SORRY up on WEbook for feedback. I got some mixed reviews at first, but here’s the feedback that really struck a chord for me (both in good and bad ways) :

In reference to Introduction – いつまでも Forever, EddieTol said: “In general, this is a good opening chapter. It accomplishes all that you need it to and you do it in an effective way. I like the way that you try to establish an emotional connection with the reader right away, and for the most part I think you do that. The only place I see that you are weak in that aspect is your culpability in his death. It is hard to feel too sorry for you (and when I say ‘you’, I mean the narrator) when you basically let him die for something you did. I would expect to hear more guilt, more denial, or more grief over what you are responsible for. I trust that you will either deal with this in the next few chapters, or give us a pretty compelling reason why you let him take the fall for you.”

In reference to Chapter 2 – 悪夢 Nightmare, atmoore1 said: “This chapter was awesome you painted the perfect picture of fear both during the dream and when it was over, I enjoyed reading it.
Couldn’t find one thing wrong with the writing, it all came together nicely and flowed really well.” ( BTW, A. T. Moore is a published author. DDD: )

In reference to Chapter 2 – 悪夢 Nightmare and Chapter 3 – 殺人者 Murderer, HybridVigor said: “First, I think you’re having some issues with structure in this story. Switching from the first person to third person can work, but when you alternate like you seem to be doing it only prevents the reader from really getting into the story. If you want to examine the piece from a different perspective, I suggest that you do so more sparingly, choosing to do so only in very significant moments, parts of the story that really NEED that extra perspective.

Also, the first few paragraphs of chapter 3 are very philosophical. However, they don’t have much depth to them. They blunt statements about death, revenge, and murder without any logic to back them up. They’re just what the narrator believes. Now, you don’t need to provide a solid logical proof in a novel, in fact, you shouldn’t. However, you need to back up these statements, or better, precede them, with Morgan’s experiences. That is, you need to explain what events in his life allowed him to think this way, to have such views on murder, killing, revenge, etc. Without that kind of explanation, this opening is a real turn off for a story that has loads of potential.

One of the really good things about this story is that the emotion is almost palpable. It’s a pretty unique situation that has the potential to really hit the reader in a soft spot. However, there’s no where near enough character development to do this. You spend a lot of time talking about Kagayaki and how incredibly altruistic he is, but not nearly enough on SHOWING us these traits and explaining from where they came. Now, ordinarily, you wouldn’t NEED to get into all that by chapter 3, but when you have a chapter 3 like this, some explanations are needed.

Your intro opened up with the murders from Kagayaki’s perspective. This left a lot of questions in the reader’s mind about who murdered them, why, and why did Kagayaki save him? How did he and how can someone become so altruistic? This gets the reader interesting, which is great.

Chapter 1 switches to Morgan’s perspective, talks about him just arriving in Japan and his first meeting with Kagayaki. This is another great starting point. You can go from here to explain their relationship, explain Kagayaki’s unique personality and all the backstory to the introduction that’s critical to making that scene make sense. And for getting across your theme.

However, Chapter 2 is a real step back and Chapter 3 is more like the final chapter in the whole book. I’m not sure if chapter 3 is supposed to be the end, but if it is then I think there’s a lot more to this story. There’s so much we want to know about Kagayaki and Morgan before we can call it quits. And even if it isn’t the end of the story, you’re basically revisiting the introduction again.

The real problem with the story is that the intro, chapter 2, and chapter 3 could ALL function as introductions. Personally, I prefer the current intro, but that’s just me. I know you’ve had a bit of trouble with intros in the past so maybe that’s manifesting itself here, but don’t overdo it! Get into the story, the experiences, the interactions between Kagayaki, Morgan, and Hope.

Love is clearly an important part of this story, yet without the falling in love, it’s difficult to really become enthralled in the love. You have to get the reader to fall in love with Kagayaki and, I’m guessing, Hope. No amount of explanation can do this. You have to tell a story. The intro and chapter 1 do a great job of this but chapters 2 and 3 fall flat.

All that said, this story has the potential to be really great. I can see opportunities everywhere and I even think it would make a pretty good movie. Your task is to come up with an exciting, meaningful, well-written middle to bridge the explanatory gap between chapter 1 and the intro. It’s a tall task but that’s what writers have to do haha.

You’ve started something really good here so don’t mess it up! As a fellow writer and reader I will be disappointed if a story with this much potential goes awry. Just stick to your themes, but don’t preach, tell a story, tell what happens, and remain faithful to your characters.” ( This confused me. >< )

I liked this chapter because the heighten emotions in the situation were wrote out well. However this chapter seemed a bit rushed, lacking some character details and a bit more back story. There were also some minor grammatical errors. I understand first hand how it is when you’re pounding out a powerful chapter that has the potential of landing you loyal fans.

In reference to Chapter 3 – 殺人者 Murderer, atmoore1 said: “This by far is one of the best chapters due to it’s powerful ending and the way you took your readers into the mind of a killer. You are a great writer, my only advice is to slow down a bit maybe this should have been stretched out. You can’t just rush into a thing like five murders, leave us wondering from chapter to chapter is he really going to go through with it.” ( : DDD This is that published author again! )

Yeah. So I guess I have work to do, but I’m not sure where to fix it. ><

OH OH OH NEW COVER FOR I’M SORRYYYY: http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l81/Fallen_red_rose/IMSORRYcover6_20_10-BRIGHTER.jpg

JFEKJFWEOFJWEIFJWO I LOVE FREE IMAGES SITES. WWW.SXC.HU CHECK IT OUT.

Ahem.

I found those pictures on there for free and I LOVE them. It’s just gorgeous. The best part? After I brightened it, I didn’t want to change it. YAY!

Okay, so I edited up to the 4th chapter again… now I just need to gather up the courage to do chapter 5… hmmmmmmmmm… xD

Hoping to get more information up soon…. Maybe a book deal! HAHA AS IF.

~ Take care of yourselves and take care what you say ~

I’ve been working pretty hard on my homework lately. GPA is 3.26 right now. : D Yesss~

Edited chapter 3 of I’M SORRY last night, partially to reward myself for doing pretty well in my school. Also took sensei’s advice and gave kanji titles to each of the chapters I’ve been working on so far. Now they’re all pretty. :”)

The introduction and the first 3 chapters alone is nearly 9,000 words. I feel so happy~

I’m been thinking a little. I’M SORRY is definitely not a YA novel anymore. I mean, I’ve taken it so much farther. It’s ready to be a full-on Inspirational novel. I know, I know, novels of that genre rarely get any attention. But guess what? I looked through the inspirational section of my library, to do some market research? All of them are based on the Bible directly! I didn’t find ONE novel that was modern-day and not Bible-based. Seriously. This genre needs something like this. It needs a book with Biblical references that’s NOT a Bible story we’ve all heard a million times.

HA, I FIT A NEED!!! There are few feelings better than that.

Anyway. I’m gonna wrap up this draft of I’M SORRY, Bible references and all, the revise my query letter and try again. I will NOT be let down. It’s been 3 months since I sent out my queries. None of them are gonna say yes at this rate. The only one that answered was Nathan Bransford, now a definite rejection. Whatever. I’m not gonna let this get me down.

Even if he was the agent I was most excited about getting a chance to work with.

There ARE other agents!

At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

So I must get to work, but I send you all the best. Wish me luck, okay?

~ Take care of yourselves and take care what you say ~

Was doing a report on why I wouldn’t want the mark of the beast (Isn’t that obvious stuff? “I don’t wanna burn in Hell,” “I don’t think that the pleasures of today are worth the joys of forever,” etc.) when a verse came to mind. I’d planned on using it to edit the last chapter of I’M SORRY, when Clarence is at Kagayaki’s grave and he meets Cassie.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33

Beautiful stuff, right? Gave me a whole new reason to believe. Peace, joy, love… These things outlast the pleasures of today. “I have overcome the world.” Isn’t that a wonderful thing to know? It is for me. :)

I’ve gotten very behind with editing stuffs for I’M SORRY. But the issue of the beginning is OVERRRRRRRRRRR~! Just ended up kind of slipping the new intro into the beginning of the old one… I just didn’t like the conflict they put together. Thanks for everyone who helped me though! Even if most of you don’t read this blog……

I think GG and Poppy are still the only ones that read this blog….. XD

Well, not much more to add… except I still need to get to work on chapter 3 for the 4th draft… Gotta use my verse-reference, which is gonna be really fun! I’m just SO behind in my school, I feel like a loser. >< And I still need to get to that editing project I said I’d get to… darn it…

And my assignment for the Institute of Children’s Literature. EEPS!

Yeah, I should get going. Will try and update you later! : D

~ Take care of yourselves and take care what you say ~