A Name Change and some Good News!

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to let you know a few things. First off, a name change to the blog since I am no longer a law student, I've renamed the blog. While I'm not quite a lawyer yet (give me a few months) but it seemed fitting.

Additionally, I can finally announce that I have contracted my firs book. It will be released sometime in the near future by Musa Publishing. So I will be chronicling my experience through this process. I will also be putting out a bunch of promo as the time gets closer.

How the time flies!

So I've been thinking I might need to change the title of the blog come May 25th as I'll no longer be a law student. That's right, in a little over a month, I'll be a graduate!

I kind of can't believe how fast the last 3 years have gone. a lot has happened. I've been agented, and parted ways. I've written several manuscripts. I've teamed up with Jen over at More TV Please! It has been a great 3 years.

After graduation, I dive in to bar prep land so probably won't have a lot of time to write. And pretty soon the Person of Interest recaps will be over for the season. I will be blogging series 1 of Sherlock though, so once those go up on MTVP, I'll link to them here.

A short update and things to come

Hi everyone. I just wanted to stop by the blog during finals to give a quick query report and what's coming up next on the blog. I've just got my Evidence exam left until I'm officially 1/2 done with law school. Kind of can't believe it. It feels good to be closing in though.

I have sent out 23 queries so far and received 12 rejections. Yes, for those of you doing the math, that's a 50% rejection rate. I'm not overly pleased myself. But I've got 11 queries still out there floating around and I'm going to let them do their thing until January. I'll pick up the process anew then.

I'm also gearing up, once finals are done, to do a blog post about the success of back door pilots. So look for that in the near future.

A little bit of law for the lay person

So since the title of the blog has law student in it, I'd share a little about my first week of 2L year. I have classes Tuesday afternoon through Friday morning (no, not like every since hour between then) and that means five courses. Week one was longer than I thought and far more exhausting. But I thought I'd give you a little run down of each.

I'm doing clinic this semester and that means I get to do practical work during the semester. My credit hours dictate that I must do at least 10 hours a week. I'm looking forward to it, even though I'm a little bit nervous about dealing with my own clients. At EEOC I sat in on some charging party intake meetings (well potential charging parties)but I was always with an investigator and I didn't really talk much. I'm sure I'll do fine but it's just a new experience.

In addition to my 10 hours a week of work for clinic, I also have a weekly seminar (which includes a 15-20 page paper) on Tuesdays. It's public interest so I had to read a lot of articles this week about different aspects of public interest work. I'm looking forward to this week's discussion. In general, my professor is nice though I've learned I need to sit closer to him if I want to hear what he says because he speaks rather softly.

I also have Evidence on Wednesday morning (and Friday morning). This and legal writing are my only required courses this semester. Evidence is also my only two-times-a-week class. Going in (after seeing the syllabus) I feared it would be a lot like my criminal law course from last semester. Thankfully, it's not. Our professor is new (and fairly young) and he's very laid back. He assigns a few problems from the casebook and manageable reading each class and he's very open to explaining things if you don't get it. I'll definitely be taking advantage of his office hours most likely following the first graded problem. That is, of course, if I don't do as well as I want. The Federal Rules of Evidence are deceptively complex for short little blurbs in a book.

My other Wednesday class is Alternative Dispute Resolution. I think this course is going to be the most engaging, quite literally. Each week in class, we do role playing (no not in the "what's your safe word" way). We did a couple of smaller exercises in the first class that I liked. I'm not really one to confront conflict. I tend to avoid it. But I'm hoping that through this course, I'll better be able to confront conflict. I'm certain it can help in both my professional and personal lives. We also have a 15 page paper for this course.

My Thursday class is Internet Law. It's not much reading and our professor is pretty laid back too. She assigned only a 6-page paper because it's only a 2-credit course. I'm cool with 6 pages. Plus, I already know my topic. This is one assignment that can be knocked out over a weekend (Prof said as much). The one thing that was a little weird with the first class was she Facebook stalked people, including me. Then again, I thought certain things were set to private if I wasn't friends with them. Guess not. Though she did seem impressed with my writing and that I have an agent and such.

Friday morning comes way too early. 8:00am on a Friday for a class is just cruel. It's legal writing. I know I'm a writer but yeah...legal writing isn't my favorite. At least our assignment this semester is an interesting topic (constitutional law issue). But yeah, I'll have tot get through the two 15 page assignments for this course, plus an oral argument at the end of the semester as well. My professor is nice enough. She's an immigration law attorney which is kind of interesting.

So that's a no-so-short list of my classes for this semester. Overall, good classes, good professors, lots of writing. I should enjoy the fact that I only have 1 actual exam in December. I'll just to forget for the time being that it's at 9:30am on a Monday.

End of Summer a Success!

I promised I would be back this week to let you know how everything went with wrapping up my few fun things before classes began. I managed to do evertyhing.

I read "As Lie the Dead" by Kelly Meding. It's the sequel to a book of hers I picked up at the beginning of the year. I really enjoy the world she's created and she gives you just enough info to know what's happening if you didn't read the first book.

I buckled down on Saturday and got all of my revisions done to Pharaoh. I hae a call with my agent this Friday to discuss our plans for it (other edits, going on submission, that sort of thing). As for what I'll be writing next? Well I'm starting to plan for November. It's probably going to be a middle grade fantasy with a new twist on part of the Arthurian myth. We'll see how it goes.

Merlin has also been blogged. I will post a list of all the recaps over on MOre TV, Please! once Jen posts the last 3 blogs. I really enjoyed the rewatch of series 1. It turns out SyFy picked up series 3 and it will likely air in early 2011. I will try to be good and watch when it airs on this side of the pond.

Speaking of recapping, I think I will be recapping season 1 of Body of Proof this season for MTVP!. I'm quite excited because it means I get to watch more Jeri Ryan and gush over her. I know, I'm kind of sad and pathetic but I'm really hoping it turns out to be a good show. I don't normally do medical dramas but this is more of a crime drama in that the MC (Dana Delaney) is a medical examiner.

Well I need to head off to my first class of the semester! I'm excited to be getting back into the swing of things, even if getting up early has been more difficult this week.

Pre-Semester/Summer wrap-up

So sorry I disappeared for a couple weeks. Not much was happening on the writing front. I had family visiting this past weekend which was fun. This was my last week of work for the summer as well. This weekend and next week I start gearing up for school. I've got all my first assignments for class. Some will probably take longer than others but I'll get them done. All except one of my classes meets once a week. Right now it seems enough time between classes to get things done but that could change when I'm doing 10 hours of clinic work a week.

As for the end of summer, I have a few fun things I'd like to finish before classes begin. I would like to finish blogging Merlin series 1. At this point, I only have 4 episodes left. I just re-read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I have one more book I'd like to read before classes. I'm hoping to finish revisions on Pharaoh's Link by the 24th as well. It seems I'm well on my way to getting all of my end of summer to-do list done. I'll be back before school starts to let you know how everything went.

Oh Happy Day!

So I've had an interesting week so far. I'd totally intended on powering through PHARAOH'S LINK this weekend but it didn't end up happening. Instead, the muse decided to wack me over the head with 3 other ideas. So I gave in and am starting a couple of them.

I'm really hoping to get a few chapters in on this one project, an historical thriller, before July 6. Why you ask? Because I'm going to a writer's workshop led by Steve Berry and I'm hoping to get his opinion on a few things. Plus, I'd like to be able to send the material to Roger to get his feeling on the project.

I also have some other good news. I was very concerned that I had lost my scholarship for school. I received a letter in the mail today congratulating me on keeping it! I was SO happy. You have no idea. I'd been pnaicking for weeks that I'd not made the grade to keep it. I'm so relieved now.

I also recieved another rejection on EUTERPE'S SONG yesterday. And it was quite the lovely rejection. The editor praised the premise and a lot of the situations but they felt it wasn't quite right for their imprint, which focuses on character driven work. And they were concerned that any new work that has a heavily Greek mythology bent will obviously be compared to Percy Jackson and it may not hold up. But the editor assured me (and my agent) that we'd probably get a taker and that they would have the perfect vision to get my characters on the shelves.

Now this may seem like, oh they didn't want it because of the competition. Which, to be fair, is true. But what I like about this is that it shows the editor took the time to carefully consider my work. That to me, speaks volumes.

And hopefully I'll be back next week with some writing progress updates for you. And who knows, I may have read another book by then. We'll see.

What's wrong with this picture?

As I was thinking about what to blog about this week I realized I didn't know what to write about. So I pondered it for a few hours and realized how depressing the job market is right now. So, this is going to be a (mercifully short) rant post.

So, being a first year law student has enough stress attached to it with the constant studying and piles of reading. You add the search for a decent summer job and you have one neurotic me. Which I have to say is not fun for anyone.

I have submitted to probably twenty places (a little less than the number of agents I submitted to before I found Roger), and I'e had one positive response. Yep, you heard me right. One. Uno. Everything else, dead silence. I realize it's only January and that summer is like 5 or 6 months away but I need something solid in the next month or so. I'm hoping to haear back from some other places and not just have to rely on the one place that showed interest.

There is someting seriously wrong with this picture. It shouldn't be easier to land a literary agent than a summer job. It just shouldn't. Agent searching is a long, arduous process and yet It took me a little under two months to get that squared away. But with jobs, it's like I'm spinning my wheels even when I'm not. I know the leal job market is a festering pool of dispair right now but it makes me all sad inside. In my special angry place.

Check back next week for your regularly scheduled writer-y topics.

December Ahoy!

Hey, everyone. Just wanted to give you all an update on my writing journey (as well as my academic pursuits).

I just finished the first draft of a new novel, an adult dark urban fantasy. I'm letting it sit for a while before I go back to it for revisions. while I still love the story and the characters, I'm conflicted about whether my main character is really suffering from PPS (Passive Protagonist Syndrome) or not. I think some distance and time away will help with that.

I'm also busy working on research and planning for a women's fiction novel that I hope to have done by mid 2010. It's a new genre for me and I'm extremely excited to jump in and see how I fare.

As for the academic front, I have 3 more days of classes and then 2 weeks of midterm exams and I will be halfway through my first semester of law school. And I thought being halfway done with the semester was crazy! Anyway, I'll try to drop by more often with some fun tips for writing.

One step closer

Hey everybody.

I just wanted to drop by and let you know that I just finished round 1 of edits with my awesome editor, Carlie. The next step is another round of edits, hopefuly less to change that time around.

I'm also planning on spending the next month working on a new project. I'm hoping to have a first draft by the end of 2009.

And, I will be spending the next month and a half getting ready for my first set of law school exams. It really boggles the mind that I'm halfway through my first semester. The time really has flown!