My Other Baby

In other infertile news, i entered my novel into a contest. I lost. But, the judges did say really nice things about it, like, they'd continue reading it and buy it if it were in stores. I got points off for technicalities, like not finishing my chapter in 25 pages. I chose substance over form (i am an artiste) and very gauchely ended my submission with a hanging sentence (i am an artiste with no class). I guess if you know anything about writing contests (i dont), you never end your entry with a sentence that presumably continues onto the next page (because, duh, my chapter didn't end yet!). Anyway, judges no likey.

I showed it to dh. He said it was better than Davinci Code (Ha! Take that silly contest) even though he never read Davinci Code it (but saw the movie!). Now lest you, dear readers, think that this is another one of the good dh's ploys to get into my pants, he is a writing professor (although, he's never written or read a romance besides mine, Jane Austen's, and Charlotte Bronte's).

Now, in defense of Davinci Code (or my novel), these two works are not in the same genre. Mine is a historical romance complete with CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT (HELLOOOO how did Dan Brown miss that?) and a happy ending. Mine is not a high concept, plot driven story with flat characters (yes, Gah! Flat characters, in a movie by Ron Howard, no less), one of which is supposed to be a descendant of Jesus.

Which begs the question, what happened to character development? Is character development just dead in today's novel? No depth? Just running from one scene to the next in pursuit of the elusive ending?

Unfortunately for me, my main characters are not related to Jesus, so no chance of riding the coattails of an awesome history. But, they love each other (well, not right away in the beginning, but soon enough!) and, well, doesn't love conquer all?

I wish, especially in book sales. On that note, i spent the day panicking over my query letter. I eventually settled on the right font for my letterhead (like anyone's paying attention to that, anyway, but i get so hung up on details for surely i will be rejected if i just use Times New Roman for my name) and sent it out to a few agents.

Tomorrow i want to get up early and make sure this baby is camera ready just in case anyone actually asks to see it once they get passed the debacle of my letterhead (even dh was like, you are spending WAY too much time on this AND wasting TOO MUCH PAPER).

But i have to say, after reading some slight changes i made to my novel yesterday, dh said "Your writing is better than mine." Aww (so not true!), thanks babe, you taught me everything i know ;)