Wow.

Last night, I finished the final polish on my manuscript - getting rid of pesky extra quotation marks and strange pronouns.

Today, I finished my synopsis.

Five minutes ago, I emailed everything to my agent.

WOW!!!

Now, should I extend my vacation, or start in on my next projects???

Back to work.

I met with my agent this morning. All I have to do is tidy up my synopsis and we will be ready to start shopping this beauty.

I'll let you all know how it goes. :)

Whew!

Only four days into my vacation and I'm feeling full of vim and vigor! I've gone out, met people, and thought a lot about what I want to do for my upcoming projects.

I wonder what the rest of my time off will bring!

YES!!

Today, I turned my completed manuscript in to my agent, Jewelann Cone of Atlantis Literary Agency.

This is a big milestone, so I'm going to celebrate for the next week!

A writing game.

A while ago, Jane Porter spoke at my local RWA chapter, the Rose City Romance Writers.

I'll be honest. Jane's blonde, gorgeous, petite, skinny, and looks about sixteen. I was consumed by envy. Then she gave a brilliantly inspirational speech about where your writing fits in the market.

I was expecting something very business-like, maybe a breakdown of the different publishers and what they tended towards.

Instead, she talked about the roots of your writing- the fables, myths, and fairy tales that consumed you as a child. What could you listen to over and over? What were those themes? What keeps coming up over and over for you?

The fairy tales didn't reveal that much about me, I thought. I picked.

1. The Seven Swans: I chose discipline, faithfulness, and sewing shirts out of flowers (transformation) as the themes I loved about this story.
   


2. Aladdin : Flying, courage, and risk.
   


3. Sleeping Beauty: Disguises, awakening to a new reality, and (what the hell) fairies with personalities.
   

I really flailed with these. No common themes seemed to emerge. Then we went to mythology. I chose:

1. Medea: Revenge, justifiable wrath, a woman who controls her life, a woman who kills, escape
   



2. The Golden Fleece: Powerful allies, justifiable wrath, travel
   



3. The Aenead: Rising from the ashes, travel, new starts
   

I suddenly realized why my attempts at light-hearted romantic comedy failed miserably. I had much darker stories inside of me.

I focused on the story that began, "She swam in an ocean of blood" instead of "Lola blinked." I'm pretty sure we can all tell which first sentence is far more attention grabbing. :)
(That's not the first sentence anymore, by the way ;).

Myths, fables, legends, and fairy tales are our playground. They provide the archetypes, the symbols, and the language for our lives.

Play the game with me. What are the stories that have haunted you? What themes do you carry inside of yourself?

Rocking it.

There must be something to that pure heart business. I've been rocking the revisions like crazy since the New Year.

*knocks wood*

I'll be back when these get done!

(or for some version of done)