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.