While Will and I were out running errands, he took me into our neighborhood Borders (at 100 Broadway) and showed me the six copies of Nerdvana in the LGBT section. It was very exciting to see a book with a story of mine on the shelf and so we documented that with a quick picture!

Meanwhile, I’ve started reading Nerdvana to see what the other stories are like. Once I finish with it, I’ll write it up over on jeffandwill.com.

In other writing news…

• The dance competition-set short story is in the final revision stages. A couple people have read it and I’m tweaking it based on the comments and doing some overall tightening.
• I’m trying to come up with an idea for Dreamspinner Press’ Necking anthology. I’ve got until March 1 to submit. I’ve got a couple thoughts on plot, but I haven’t decided on anything for sure yet.
• I’ve been outlining/writing random bits of scenes for another story (or maybe a novella) for Mitchell and Alex from “Rivals.” I’m not sure where that may go, but I keep scribbling down things as they come to me.
• I’m finding time to be an obstacle on the Neutral Zone revisions. I’ve been working on those about one day a week while trying to get other things written. I wasn’t helped last week either when I ended up sleeping in a couple of mornings because of not sleeping at all well one night. I’ve got to be better about getting up and using those two hours wisely.

Frankly, I find it hard to revise since I see everything in my head so clearly with this story…including things that aren’t on the paper.

I think Will found a solution to this problem. A while ago he took an online course written by Holly Lisle called How to Think Sideways, a course on writing that he enjoyed and felt he learned from. Lisle just introduced a new course called, appropriately, How to Revise Your Novel. I read the synopsis of the 22 week course and decided it sounded like the perfect thing to give me guidance on how to make Neutral Zone (and anything else I write) the best it can be.

I started the course this week. The goal for this first week is to go through your book and give a really subjective look at the character, story, setting and any place that your plot loses your attention. You also have to highlight the parts that you love since those are important too. I’m working my way through the 247 pages of the novel, which is now in a  binder so I can make notations where there are issues. Luckily Lisle breaks this process down very well in the course materials so I really understand the objective I’m trying to achieve. It’s been quite eye opening so far and I can already see a path to a better book. If only I had the time to get that all done in week 1…at least she says it’s not a requirement to complete the week’s lesson in seven days.

I’ll write about the course periodically as the revision journey continues. My hope is to finish the course by  mid 2010 and move on to finding an agent/publisher who wants it. If only it was as easy to make that happen as it is to write it here.

In other news:

• A couple ideas started buzzing around my head: 1) A sci-fi story that involves a rescue mission of some sort. 2) A story set at a So You Think You Can Dance style show. Random pieces for both stories are getting written down and I hope to get drafts written soon.
• It’s been fun to watch the download counts on Rivals. After it’s first day it was #5 on the Nap-Size Dreams best seller list and since then it has been parked solidly at #4. If I’m reading right it looks like over 80 downloads have happened. Sure, it sounds like a small number, but I think it rocks that people are reading my story!
• Nerdvana may finally be out. Amazon is no longer listing it on pre-order, back on backorder. I’m not sure what’s going on there. Hopefully I’ll be able to take it off the “coming soon” list by the end of the year.
• I also have to say that I finished a wonderful book this weekend. Admit One by Jenna Jenna Hilary Sinclair, another Dreamspinner Press author. It’s one of my favorite books of the year. You can read my review of it over at jeffandwill.com

For some reason, Nerdvana hasn’t come out yet. It was listed on Amazon and other sites as releasing on November 17, but it remains in pre-order state. I don’t know why that is. As soon as it becomes available, I’ll certainly write about it here.

“Rivals,” meanwhile, is full steam ahead for release on Monday as part of the Dreamspinner Press Nap-Size Dreams series. With “Rivals” I had my first brush with e-book piracy this week. I discovered “Rivals” was already available on a file sharing site. I took the appropriate steps to get that removed, which happened within a couple of days. Sadly, it’s not a big surprise that it was there (except for the fact it wasn’t out for purchase yet). Since I’m being published by Dreamspinner I’ve been granted access to their Google author group and I’d already seen several posts about this problem. Luckily there were emails with directions on how to get the files removed from these sites so I was able to take action quickly.

“Rivals” is the first time I’ve taken out a copyright myself so it was kind of fun to go out there and defend it. With other stories I’ve had published, I’ve let the fact that they appear in a physical book or magazine take care of the copyright. Since “Rivals” is an eBook, I filed with the copyright office for it so there is no doubt that it is mine. Having Google Alerts set up for “Rivals” was a handy tip I learned from the Dreamspinner Group. It’s how I’ve been following the web presence of the story, including its inclusion on the file sharing site. I set one up for Nerdvana too so I can see what’s going on with that book as well.

Meanwhile, since work has calmed down I’ve been back to the editing and revising of Neutral Zone. It’s great to be back here. My goal is to have it revised by the end of the year so I can do something meaningful with it in 2010 (as in get it in front of agents and/or publishers) . Wish me luck on that endeavor!

I also killed a story, or at least put a story in a coma, since I blogged last. I was working on a piece for an anthology around sexy skateborders. The idea flowed on to paper pretty well, but it just didn’t gel into something I liked. Needless to say I didn’t submit it. Will is taking a look at the story and might try bring it back to life. It might turn into a co-writing adventure … and that would be fun.

In other news, Nerdvana (edited by Fred Towers, from STARbooks, ISBN: 1934187577, list price: $17.95) is up for pre-order now from Amazon and other sources. I’m excited about this since “Adventures of Jake #1″ will be the first story I’ll make a little money for as well as my first story in a book that will be available nationwide. It’s going to be fun to read the other stories in here too to see what the other authors created from the theme. (Caution: Nerdvana contains adult subject matter)

Over in Neutral Zone land, things have been static. Work picked up for the summer and I haven’t been able to give time to it and get the short story done. Work kept me from finishing a short story for the Games in the Dark anthology. I’ve got a good chunk of that story written so I am going to finish it and hope to find somewhere else to shop it to. Work will lighten up by mid-October so I can get back to Neutral Zone and finish that editing job. Reading David Inside Out by Lee Bantle further drove the point home that I need to finish working on Neutral Zone and work to get it out there. There is a market for this kind of story–Martin, Bill and Lee have all proven that to me this year.

In the months since I submitted, I’ve read three books that have influenced how I feel about the characters in the Neutral Zone. Out of the Pocket by Bill Konigsberg (read review), which I finished just last week. It featured a main character whose voice is so loud and clear that I’m re-looking at Simon to make sure he’s as strong.

Two other books that I’ve drawn inspiration from are Martin Wilson’s What They Always Tell Us (read review) and Power Play by J.M. Snyder (read review). Wilson’s book, among other things, featured a very strong, tight plot that I admired and as I’m re-editing I’d like to live up to his standards. Snyder’s book, though not classified as YA, does deal with young people. The emotional connection and passion between her main characters is also something I want to make sure comes through with Simon and Alex.

With all this swirling in my head, I’m working through the pages and making enhancements/edits. I also need to start researching agents who tend to work with YA/gay fiction and create the all important documents that I would send to them to entice them into looking at this work.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all this, I finished the first draft of a short story that is a sequel to Neutral Zone. It takes place two years after the events in the book. I realize it will be a while before that sees the light of day, but it was screaming to get on to the paper so I spent a few days to make that happen.

——

By the way, there was a winner in the Delacorte contest this year: Something Like Hope by Shawn Goodman. It’s good to see that someone wowed the judges this year after two years of no winners. I can’t find any information on what the novel is about, but congrats to Shawn anyway.

Now that I’ve got the rejection under my belt, it’s time to look at other places to get Neutral Zone published. I believe in the story. I’ve even started some short stories based on Simon and Alex because I like the characters so much.

Meanwhile, there’s no news yet on Neutral Zone and its status at the Twenty-Sixth Annual Delacorte Press Contents for a First Young Adult Novel. I can’t decide if I should be encouraged or not that I’ve heard nothing and it’s  mid-March. The rules say “Writers will be notified between January and April as submissions are evaluated by the editors.” The winner (if there is one) is announced “on or around April 30.” I’m trying to stick with the “no news is good news” mantra for now.

I’m still working on the Untitled Dream Project, writing some scenes and sketching out the main characters to see what I have there. I’ve also hatched an idea recently for a story set within a reality show… too early to tell what might come of that idea.

Since I finished Neutral Zone and the end of last month, I’ve been casting around for the next writing project. I know I want to write something forThe First Line this year (in fact I like a couple of this year’s sentences a lot). There’s also an idea floating around to write the prequel to Neutral Zone, an idea planted by TFL’s David.

Yesterday during the morning commute though I was attacked by an image monkey. The little critter brought with him an idea that I’ve been working over in my head ever since. This is a particularly agressive and generous monkey too. Not only did he show up unannounced flashing bits and pieces of story idea, he kept at it all day yesterday. I’ve got random bits of character personalities, a couple scenes setups, settings and more. I’m going to start getting this down on paper to see what I can actually make out of it. For now, it’s known as Untitled Dream Project (dreams play a central part of the plot… and that’s all I can say on that for now). Now the fun begins… seeing if it can become a living, breathing story.

Yes, I made the entry deadline! (Yes, on the left is my totally [tos]-geeky photo ripoff with the envelope just before I took it to the post office.)

It has been a crazed month working on the manuscript to get it ready. Right after I wrote the post about wanting to submit, I formatted the manuscript properly for submission and was devastated to discover I was about 120 pages over the maximum page count. After a day recovering from that, I dug in and started editing. Whole characters and subplots were vaporized, scenes vanished, and a couple rounds of tightening occurred. The manuscript that went into the mail today is 223 pages (one page under the max) and approximately 56,000 words.

It’s amazing the mind games you play on yourself while editing, especially day after day. Some days I could zip along with no problem. Other days the voices in my head would nag, nag, nag about the choices I was making. This morning was the worst. I skimmed through the story one more time and found it quite emotional… a mix of “wow, i really finished this!” and “you’re not really about to send that to Random House, are you?”

The good news is that the people who read the story said they liked it and gave good feedback about things to fix and tidy up. So there are at least three other people out there now who think this book is okay. I think it’s a good story too. As much as some of the editing was painful (I hate that I cut two Christmas scenes), the novel is much better for it. It’s also not lost on me that the 56,000 words is so very close to the 53,000 words this story was at the end of NaNoWriMo 2006. What I submitted today is tremendously better than that, although there are several scenes from that first draft that made the final cut. (I actually looked back at that draft briefly this morning and was stunned at how bad that draft really was.)

Icing on the cake this morning: As I left the post office, snow flurries were falling!

By the end of April, the judges will issue their decision. So now it’s about waiting and watching the mailbox for that SASE to come back.

The past few months have been about editing, tightening, polishing and making sure that everything that’s in the manuscript has a purpose. I’m working as much as possible now on Neutral Zone because I want to submit it to the Random House’s Twenty-Sixth Annual Delacorte Press Contest for a First Young Adult Novel. It’s a lofty goal. It’s going to take a sizable amount of work to have the manuscript ready to go within the next month (it has to be postmarked on or before December 31). The Delacorte prize has high standards too: there’s been no prize awarded the past two years.

To borrow and modify a line from [title of show]: “Hartinger, Sanchez and Moore have done it before you and better than you.” Who you might ask? Brent Hartinger, Alex Sanchez and Perry Moore are responsible for some of my favorite YA books. Each of them are an inspiration for what I’m trying to do in Neutral Zone. I hope I can stand with that trio, and it’s a bit daunting trying to get there.

In the past two week’s I’ve started giving Neutral Zone to some people to read, and that, even more than the idea of submitting to competition, has the vampires raging in my head. (Vampires, for you non [title of show] folks, are things that fill you with thoughts of self consciousness, feelings of worthlessness and make you second guess everything you’re doing.) While it’s exciting to have the manuscript read by someone other than me, it’s really scary to await the reaction. I know the people reading it intend to provide constructive feedback. Still, it does get the butterflies stirring.

Five people have it: Will, of course, is a valued reader. My frequent writing partner and First Line co-creator David has already given some feedback on the first half. I tapped Roman to read the hockey parts to make sure I captured the game right… his girlfriend Kendall also picked it up, so I get a female point of view as well. Will down in North Carolina is also reading. I’ve read some of his stuff recently and he offered to give me some feedback on this.

Can it all come together in the next 30 days? I’m saying yes. If I fail at getting it into the mail, it will only be because I decide it isn’t ready yet and not from a lack of commitment or the stupid vampires talking me out of it.