A deadline is a wondrous thing!!! (And, NaNoWriMo summary.)
Well, I just finally finished the book proposal for my Michael Jackson biography -- you know, the proposal that I've been working on since July or so. (I actually have done a fair amount of other work on the book, too, although it sometimes seemed like the proposal was taking up all of my time.)
Here's why I had a deadline. Last summer, I "won" a charity auction to have my book proposal critiqued by an agent. I realized just a few days ago that I was supposed to send the proposal off by the end of November. I suspect the person doing the critique would have let me submit it late, but I didn't want to take chances. So, I promised myself I'd send it out no later than November 30th. Luckily, the proposal was pretty far along, so finishing it was feasible. (I was 12 minutes late. Oh well, it's still November on the west coast.)
What I just sent out was:
My query letter (a bit over 1 page)
A synopsis of my book, with description of proposed audience, plus a marketing plan (10 single-spaced pages)
A chapter-by-chapter summary of the book (15,000 words, condensed down from 24,000 words -- this is the part that took forever.)
A sample chapter (5000 words -- there are maybe 300 words on a typical printed page)
What made the book proposal so hard is that I had to keep coming up with new ways to present the same material -- I did a half-page summary of my book (for the query), then a 5 page synopsis of my book, then the 15,000 word summary. Plus, of course, I eventually have to submit the book. I don't want to repeat myself by using the exact same phrases, so I had to figure out say the same things in four different ways.
I wish I had more deadlines in my life; I don't seem to really get anything done without them.
As for NaNoWriMo, I was hoping that even though I was writing nonfiction, I could hang around the NaNoWriMo website and pick up some motivation. It worked to some extent, but what I was doing didn't really fit the goals of NaNoWriMo. It's not just that I wasn't writing fiction; it's also that I'm doing lots of editing and revising, so word count isn't really a good measure of my progress. (I gave up counting words around the 10,000 mark. I also decided not to keep posting updates; I didn't want to bore my flist.)
OK, some of the online post-Thanksgiving sales are in effect until 3 am my time, so I'm off to do some shopping!
Here's why I had a deadline. Last summer, I "won" a charity auction to have my book proposal critiqued by an agent. I realized just a few days ago that I was supposed to send the proposal off by the end of November. I suspect the person doing the critique would have let me submit it late, but I didn't want to take chances. So, I promised myself I'd send it out no later than November 30th. Luckily, the proposal was pretty far along, so finishing it was feasible. (I was 12 minutes late. Oh well, it's still November on the west coast.)
What I just sent out was:
My query letter (a bit over 1 page)
A synopsis of my book, with description of proposed audience, plus a marketing plan (10 single-spaced pages)
A chapter-by-chapter summary of the book (15,000 words, condensed down from 24,000 words -- this is the part that took forever.)
A sample chapter (5000 words -- there are maybe 300 words on a typical printed page)
What made the book proposal so hard is that I had to keep coming up with new ways to present the same material -- I did a half-page summary of my book (for the query), then a 5 page synopsis of my book, then the 15,000 word summary. Plus, of course, I eventually have to submit the book. I don't want to repeat myself by using the exact same phrases, so I had to figure out say the same things in four different ways.
I wish I had more deadlines in my life; I don't seem to really get anything done without them.
As for NaNoWriMo, I was hoping that even though I was writing nonfiction, I could hang around the NaNoWriMo website and pick up some motivation. It worked to some extent, but what I was doing didn't really fit the goals of NaNoWriMo. It's not just that I wasn't writing fiction; it's also that I'm doing lots of editing and revising, so word count isn't really a good measure of my progress. (I gave up counting words around the 10,000 mark. I also decided not to keep posting updates; I didn't want to bore my flist.)
OK, some of the online post-Thanksgiving sales are in effect until 3 am my time, so I'm off to do some shopping!