Word Imperfect

Well, today is the 12th and no email.  That means that I was one of the 29 eliminated from the YA category.  I'm not going to lie, it hurts a lot more than I thought it would, but it isn't the end of the world.  It certainly isn't the end of my writing.  In fact, it's just the beginning. So, where do I go from here?  Truth is I don't really know.  I am hoping to hear from the judges who had my entry.  I want to see if they can give me some insight into why they didn't pick me and what I need to do to improve things.  I know I need to add a few thousand words to the manuscript.  I need to find a freelance editor, though I have someone in minds if she'll have me as a client.  After I have this thing perfectly polished and tweaked I'll try querying some agents one on one.  If that doesn't work I guess I'll self publish. Thank you all for your support and positive thoughts, please know that this is not over, not by a long shot. A ...

I have been writing, in one way or another for most of my life.  From little poems and stories when I was small, to longer fan fictions for my kid sister in my teen years.  For the last ten years I have been working on an original series.  I made it about 17 chapters in only to have it be destroyed (this was before online backups and external hard drives).  Then, discovering that the plot line needed a lot of work anyway, I dove into intense research, plotting and outlining.  By January I had outlined a trilogy. Earlier this year I sat down and put pin to paper (well, fingers to keyboard) with the goal of finishing book one before the years end. As fall approached I had nearly 20K words, but it was nowhere near what I needed.  Hoping for helpful push, I signed up for my very first NaNoWriMo .  In 30 days I wrote 29k words.  Again, it wasn't what I'd hoped for but it was amazing. In the end, I didn't finish by New Years Eve, but on January ...