kimlajevardi

I’m a bit late. Okay, okay I’m more than a little late. I guess it’s more like seven days late. *hanging my head in shame*

But I am here.

So, here comes my great insecurity for the past week – going to my first writing conference. I spent this past weekend with over four hundred other writers, agents, editors, etc… discussing my craft, making my first agent pitch (whew, was I nervous about that), and connecting with other writers in my area.

After all of my insecurity, and a few additional beats of my heart (that sounds cheesy even to me) 😉 it turns out that I had a wonderful experience. I participated in a fantastic critique group, connected with several writers who I can continue to network with, and I successfully pitched my book to an agent. Let me say that again a little louder: I SUCCESSFULLY PITCHED MY BOOK TO AN AGENT. After hearing my pitch, one of the attending agents has agreed to read my first three chapters, and…

I don’t know where it will lead, but all in all it was a very exciting first conference.

So, I guess the title for this entry could be: A Less Insecure Writer Make Up Post. 🙂

I’ve been a bit busy over the last few weeks. I admit it – I’ve been a bad blogger * head hangs in shame* ;). To make it up to the blogosphere I plan on writing two this week. This is the first, and the second will be in the next few days. Stay tuned for that second one because I have so much to say about the writing conference I went to. Oh, it was a FANTASTIC experience.

A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, but by far the most important is hearing back from the Colorado Gold Writing Contest.

Does that last sentence make you think I won, or at least qualified for something? Well, I won’t leave you hanging too long. *insert evil laugh* But first I need to explain what was at stake. The Colorado Gold Contest accepts the first twenty pages of a novel. They accept submissions in a variety of genres, but the caveat is that they must be unpublished. The prizes are: a nominal cash amount for the ultimate winner, and a guaranteed editor or agent read of entries that make it to the finals. The second part was what I was hoping for, drooling over is more like it.

Now I knew my chances were lower than some of the other submissions – Silent Witnesses is my first novel – but I wanted to enter anyways. Why you ask? Why not polish myself up a bit more and present a fully-formed writer to the world? Well, the answer is complex. My primary reason was to gather valuable feedback, but a secondary – although almost equally important –  reason was that I wanted to challenge myself. I’m not always totally motivated intrinsically. I sometimes need a little outside pressure to raise my anxiety and push myself to act, sharing my novel with judges and leaving it open to their critique provided just the anxiety-inducing impetus I needed to polish up my first few chapters and press forward with my overall revisions.

So, I won’t leave you in suspense any longer – drum roll please… I didn’t win. I know you’re shocked and dismayed. The world is not the same place it was when you woke up, right? Well, it’s okay, it really is. It’s okay because I received very valuable feedback and praise. Some of the feedback the judges gave me helps me fix a logic problem through the first portion of my book. It’s something that my beta readers have previously mentioned, but that I didn’t know how to address. Finally, lightning struck as I read my critique, and so I have a solution to a niggling problem that was dragging my first chapter down. Yeah! The best part by far of the critique, though, was the praise. Both judges commented on how strong each voice is, and that’s tremendously important given that I have three 1st person POVs. Apparently I’m walking that tightrope pretty successfully.

It’s the first Wednesday in August and time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. This is a supportive network of writers who post about their writing insecurities and then hop to the blogs of other writers to commiserate with everyone else. It’s a great idea, and I’m thrilled to be a participant. If you’d like to support some of the other writers involved,  click here: http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/p/insecure-writers-support-group.html

As to my own personal insecurity, well, it centers around time. I worry that with all of my other life responsibilities I’m giving my novel short shrift, and in doing so, I’m limiting the possibility of the story developing into what I originally envisioned. I’m been working on my book for over a year now, and I’ve made great strides, but I want more. I want the book to meet my own personal expectations, and, hopefully, find an audience someday. Can that happen if it’s being written in small snatches of time? Will it?

So there is a construction project at a shopping center in a city near where I live. They are tearing down an old mall and creating a shopping plaza. Sounds great, huh? Well, in the meantime, there are still two active stores, and I went to one the other day.

And what do you think I saw when I came out the side door? That’s right,  the wall above. A single wall, standing all by itself in a space that used to have about half a dozen stores. One wall, with not one, not two, not three, but four doors. And I began thinking to myself, why this wall? Why would they demolish all of the walls, stores, hallways, and closets between this wall and the store you still see in the background, but leave one exterior wall?

Well, as you can imagine, my mind began to come up with all kinds of possibilities. Possibilities like: dimensional doorways, secret below-ground meeting spaces, alien conspiracies, enchanted spells, and drunken construction workers. It was such a strange sight that I actually returned this morning to take the picture above for my blog.

What do you think? Does an image like this prompt story nuggets for anyone but me?

As a writer, I’m interested in articles or blog posts about copyright when I stumble on them. What I hadn’t spent much time thinking about are the images I use in my online writing, Facebook, and now this blog. I was reading through one of the blogs I follow (Chasing Dreams), and I found a link to a cautionary tale for anyone – but particularly writers – who posts, shares, and communicates online:  http://www.roniloren.com/blog/2012/7/20/bloggers-beware-you-can-get-sued-for-using-pics-on-your-blog.html#disqus_thread .

Now I’m off to search through all of my online images.

Edited comment –
After searching and deleting any images I didn’t have rights to, I found a background image for this blog on Creative Commons. The image requires attribution only, so my thanks go out to JanetR3 for the wonderful tree image.

So who in the world am I? And why am I adding another blog to the glut of blogs online?

Well, I’ll answer the first question first. I am a writer, teacher, mother, wife, and reader. I know you’re thinking to yourself: not another writer’s journey blog. Right? Well, kind of. I’m hoping this blog will be more than that, and I promise to try to explore more than just my own writing works. As a person who wears multiple hats, I’m interested in a myriad of things, and I hope to get to share them with you.

As to the second question about why I’m adding yet another blog. The answer is because I am a writer, and as I’ve moved through the process of writing my first novel, Silent Witnesses, I’ve come to the realization that writing is truly what I’m passionate about. I love the writing process and I’m interested in communicating with other writers and readers beyond my own keyboard. So, feel free to post your comments about writing, great books you’ve read, or any other random thought you have, and I promise I’ll do the same.