you say banned, i say recommended

A few thoughts on Banned Books Week:

*Banning a book just draws attention to it, alerting us to the fact that the book contains some form of honest, gritty, human experience. Anything that stirs up that kind of passion and emotion has got to be an interesting read.

*If a child is old enough to go the library without parental guidance, said child is also old enough to decide what they want to read. Kids are smarter than we give them credit for. They're going to pick something that interests them. Let them. Discovering what appeals to them will help them develop dreams and ambitions.

*Why anyone would want to discourage reading of any kind is completely beyond me. Reading questionable material is better than not reading at all.

*If a book's content is worth fighting, it's worth fighting for.

Conclusion: Read a banned book today! It will make you wiser, more worldly, and a whole lot more fun at parties!

hello fall

Fall is officially here. I love fall, but I hate winter so this is always a strange time. I guess all I can do is enjoy the fall weather as much as possible before the first snowflake falls (and truthfully, it's not the first snowflake I hate. In fact, I love the first day of snow. It's the months of snow that follow that I'm not too keen on).

Nothing much to report on the query front, which makes me anxious and sad. I thought September would bring more reponses, but so far it's been as quiet as August, only without the excuse of summer vacation. So I continue to wait and hope and hope and hope and, well, you get the idea...

I'm currently working on two story projects--one that I've been working on for a while, plus a new project I'm really excited about. So excited that WIP #1 might have to step aside so that WIP #2 can stretch out. WIP #2 is feeling good right now. It feels the way Chameleon did when I started writing it. More to come on that eventually...

things that are made of win, part 2

sometimes you just need a break

I know I've been a terrible blogger this summer. I'm sorry for that and unfortunately, I don't see things changing dramatically anytime soon. I do want to try and post something every now and then, but as long as I'm in the middle of this enormous confusing question mark that is the query process, things are going to be slow. I'm finding it hard to share the ups, when a down is just around the corner. That said, I'm going to try and get back into the swing of things in the fall, and who knows, maybe I'll eventually have some really good news to share, and I do want to try and post more about my WIP, which I am actually pretty excited about.
For now, this blog's sporadic nature can be attributed to "summer vacation" (the quotes are due to the fact that I'm not really taking much of a summer vacation this year, with the exception of the trip boyfriend and I are taking to Halifax over the Labour Day weekend).

Speaking of taking a break, have you ever wondered what a hummingbird looks like when it's sleeping? Ok, you probably haven't, but if you have, wonder no longer! It looks like this:


For some reason, I was thinking about hummingbirds on the way to work this morning. It's nice to know the little guys aren't moving 100 miles an hour 24/7. Everybody needs a break sometimes.

Quick QQ09 update:
I currently have 3 partials and 2 fulls out there (I somehow managed to go from no full requests to quite a few, with 2 more that have since been very encouragingly rejected--that is, the rejection letters were encouraging. The rejection itself was not.)
I also have 11 unanswered query letters.
I'm hoping to hear back from any of these 16 agents soon.
One truly amazing agent regretfully passed on a partial recently, citing the many things she loved about the manuscript. It was a little heartbreaking that she had to pass, but she made me feel pretty good about the story I'm telling and my chances for one day seeing Chameleon published. She also referred to it as "Spiderman for girls", which I love, and can't thank her enough for drawing the comparison. I'm going to have to keep that one in mind for future marketing of the book (you know, should I be lucky enough to be in such a position one day...)

I pretty much feel anxious all the time these days, waiting, and waiting. I'm still waiting to hear back on a partial from that very first agent I queried back in April. The wait may kill me, but from what I've heard, the agent is worth that kind of damage so I continue to wait.

I think that's all the news that's fit to print. Oh man, now my tea is cold :(

stats, romance in washington, and tossing the cookies

Good morning blogoblogs,

As promised, I'm going to post my updated QQ09 stats, though yes, they are a day later than I'd hoped.

I've been a little swamped helping everyone prep for the RWA (Romance Writers of America) conference in Washington (which starts today, though most of my HQN people won't depart until tomorrow as we spend today putting the final touches on various presentations, etc) so yeah, my days have been busy as of late. "When are they not busy?" you ask? When everyone has finally left for Washinton, that's when! I plan to hit that slush pile hard.

In addition to being busy, I'm also very tired today. Last night, around 4am, I awoke to the sound of sweet little Oliver kitten retching in the living room (it wasn't very loud--I must just have an ear for kitty barf). I wonder what made him so sick?


Oh I see....

After cleaning up the multiple messes (he's a bit of a traveling cookie tosser) and steering him toward a large bowl of water, I headed back to bed only to find I was in that zone where I'd been awake just long enough that I was too awake to sleep and just hungry enough that my stomach began to growl. I'm not big on the idea of eating during the night. I'm convinced it will give me weird dreams or an upset stomach so I convinced myself to toss and turn through the growling stomach and around 5am, I finally fell back asleep only to find myself cursing at 6:45am when my alarm went off. On the upside, Oliver seemed to be back to his chipper snuggly self when I went to feed the kitties.

So yeah, Kate = tired, but still mildly glowing from her first FULL request!! Here are the stats:

Query Rejections: 20
Partial Requests: 6
Partial Rejections: 3
What's that? A new category, you say?
Full Requests: 1

Hooray! Let us all rejoice and dance and sing to celebrate this next milestone in my publishing journey! I know I will be celebrating with my family this weekend at the cottage.

One more thing before I sign off. Harlequin Teen has launched a new website to correspond with the imprint launch later this month. It's very shiny. Check it out.