In Which My Paranoia Sets In

This is all new to me, right? Sure, I've taken a class where we talked about it some, and read loads of personal accounts and blogs and whatnot...but I've never done this whole getting-published thing before.

I know Clockwork is good. I worked hard on it, and I've had loads of help from you guys. That's not what worries me. I know it's just a matter of time manuscript-wise.

But what about my query letter?

The query I wrote for Ishaera for my exam only got points taken off for phrasing and tense (I wrote it as if I was still working on the book as opposed to having finished. The directions confused me so I thought that was the way he wanted it.)

But that's just one. It's an entirely different thing. Prose I can do decently. Poetry is subjective. But a query letter? I've only written three of those in my entire life. Okay, maybe four. But still. 

And I know two rejection letters is nothing. Really. I know this. But that doesn't keep me from worrying. So I'll be reading my query letter to you next week, and you can have at it.

Yes, so I sent four or five more queries out this morning, and I got one reply so far (I'm actually impressed by how fast he was in getting back to me.)

One of them asked for people to send the first few pages along with their queries, and the first chapter of Clockwork is definitely the best (in my opinion, anyways.) Another said to attach the first 50 pages. Strangely enough, I'm more nervous about that one. The first 50 pages are very Queste-centric and set-uppy. And we all know that Queste is annoying. It's very girly YA and not much sci-fi. However, it does have the tea people in it, so I think that's good. It's pretty much immediately after that point that things start getting interesting (she finds the library, talks to Ronald for the first time, etc.)

Driving-wise, they took me driving around downtown Raleigh today (scary, right?), and then afterwards my mom and I went over to the elementary school and I practiced parking (I'm not very good at that. Especially right-hand parking.)

The Parselmouths are an excellent band. This is my second-straight time through their CD I bought last night at the concert.

And also, since I wrote some reviews of it on here during the beginning of the season (which I won't be doing this time around), I figured I'd tell you that Syfy's Caprica will be starting up again in January. 

Byes to the Contest, KKC Updates, and Caprica

Okay, it turns out that the contest I was going to enter is way  more complicated than I thought it would be. Basically, if I still wanted to enter, I would have to write a 300 word "pitch," a "biographical information" piece, completely finish Clockwork plus all editing and revising and table of contents and acknowledgements and, well, everything in 13 hours. Not going to happen, unless my friend David's time machine gets out of the repair shop on the moon sometime this year. It's in there because of an incident with cheese. The good news is, before I looked at all of the requirements and stuff, I wrote a synopsis of the rest of the plot. Now I have a better idea of what's going to happen.

On the subject of the KKC, I can barely walk today, and when I do, it looks really weird and (obviously) hurts a lot. We're going to have to do a lot of walking up and dow hills today, apparently, in order to help us recover.

Now for a review of last week's episode of Caprica.

Lacey and Robot-Zoe entered the tiny virtual room where Zoe's dad was keeping the other guy (can't remember his name)'s daughter. They let her out into the virtual nightclub. Now the guy is mad at Zoe's dad because his daughter is no longer there. We saw the semi-evil nun talk to these people that are part of Soldiers of the One while in a virtual room with a candle. She's trying to find Zoe's Avatar (robot Zoe). Robot Zoe is trying to escape to the planet Geminon because she knows that's what Real Zoe wanted her to do. Apparently she has some sort of mission there.Zoe's parents are being attacked because Zoe's mom announced to the world that her daughter was a terrorist (which she wasn't- it was her boyfriend who blew up the train).

Both after the episode (Friday night) and yesterday, we (my dad, sister, and I) mentioned to each other that we really want to watch the entire rest of the season in 1 day just so we can find out what haopens.

An Epic Announcement Less Epic Than The Last One

This Epic Announcement has nothing on the birth of Henry Green, but I'm pretty excited about it.
Are you ready for it?

I finished editing what I have so far of the first draft of The Clockwork Experiment!!!! YAY! I actually enjoyed editing it and making it better, but the fact that I completed that undertaking makes me happy.
My sister kicked me off her laptop (I prefer to write on the computer downstairs on the couch rather than here in my room), so now I'm back up here. Speaking of me being back places, I'm back to writing new material for it.

Not that this has any effect on all of you, since next meeting you'll just hear chapters 4 & 5 (and maybe 6, depending on how long they are. I'm not exactly sure).

On chapters, I happen to write rather short ones, so Clockwork is at around 57,300 words with about 50 chapters. (Well, I'm technically not done editing what I've written so far, but I've decided that a certain scene needs to happen after some things that I haven't written yet, so I'm not editing that part yet).

Oh swain. I was just looking at the sticky notes stuck to the outline that is still taped to my wall...and I realized there is an important thing I need to add that I didn't come up with until last Monday, so it never made it into the first edit. I'll have to do that before reading you that part.

The magic has removed itself from the book considerably more willingly than I expected it to. Everything has worked out (well, all of the major things).

I've had a very productive day, actually. I went sledding and had some fun in the morning (by the way, I never did have eggs again for Third Breakfast. I had some English Muffin bread instead), wrote another two Character Profiles for school, and then did all of the stuff I've just been telling you about this afternoon. Oh, and I also worked in some Super Mario Bros. Wii in there too. :)


The following will be completely unrelated to the above. I'm just putting it in the same post.

I did a review of sorts for the first episode of Syfy's Caprica, so why not another one?

It was very cool how they balanced showing the robot sometimes as a robot and sometimes as Zoe, since Zoe's Avatar (from the virtual nightclub) is trapped inside. The humans aren't aware of it. I am wondering whether or not she's aware that she's a robot. There's some points where I think she thinks the people are treating her the way they do just because they know she's not the real Zoe.

My dad and I were discussing the virtual nightclub, and he says all of the stuff inside (like the death-cult people thing), as well as the polytheism throughout the show, is to represent the ancient Romans and how they went way too overboard on the "living in the moment" slogan.
When I hear that, I think it means to enjoy everything you do. Apparently when the Romans and the people of Caprica hear it, they think "always do something I enjoy."
I asked him what the robots were representing, and he didn't know, but that's not terribly important. We know they end up rebelling and taking over because they don't want to be slaves. Old plot, but apparently it was new when Battlestar was first thought up.

Dad says his friend told him that the kid ends up being the hero in Battlestar, so that's good. The way things are going for him, I was afraid he would end up being semi-bad, or at least detrimental to the cause of good in the show. Speaking of the cause of good, are we supposed to be rooting for the robots? Zoe seems to be the protagonist, even though she's part of a terrorist organization. It's so confusing.

My mom says the show is "weird." I think the concepts of widespread polytheism and socially accepted group marriages (there was one of those mentioned in the episode last night) bother her.
I like it. I also like that it is on Fridays, so its okay that it keeps me up past 10:30 (which is something I avoid on school nights).

Caprica and America's Culturally Blank Children

The above is an ad for the new show on Syfy called Caprica, as you can tell. My dad was looking forward to it all week (it was on last night), and talking about the ad. When showing it to my sister (who is 13), he remarked on the apple and asked her if she knew what it symbolized and what it was a reference to.

My Sister: Umm, OH, TWILIGHT!

Me: That's pathetic.

Her: What?

Dad: (laughs)

Me: How could you not know what the apple represents?

Her: Ummm, Snow White?

Me: NO!

Dad: (laughs)

Me: Have you ever heard of this book called the Bible, (insert her name here, but she has requested that I don't mention it)?

Dad: Snow White was a fair guess.

Me: No it wasn't! Oh, come on, (name), Twilight? Are you serious?

Dad: (laughs)

Dad: Adam and Eve. Temptation. It represents a choice.
Me: Well, I suppose Twilight is about a choice too, but still.
Her: Oh.

I might have been a bit hard on my sister, but really. What have we come to that people see the apple and think Twilight? The apple in Twilight was chosen as a reference to the story of the Fall. a might equal b, but b equals c, so let's follow it through to the natural conclusion that a=c. Transitive Property of equality (and I'm reviewing for math next semester [not really]).

Summary of the Episode: SPOILERS

Caprica itself was really cool. It's a spin-off from Battlestar Galactica (which I have never seen, but it sounds cool). It begins with a subtitle "58 years before the Fall." Cut to a virtual night-club. These were invented so teens can go and do stuff without suffering any consequences in the real world. It is entered through a Holo-Band. The three real people in the night clun, Zoe, Lacey, and Ben, are part of a secret terrorist organization of a monotheistic religion (they decline to tell us which one, but it could be any monotheistic religion. That's not the point. The point is that they're radicals because the rest of the worlds (yes, there are several) are all polytheistic). Zoe & Ben blow up a train while Lacey bails out. Zoe's dad, working on androids for the military, enters the nightclub and finds a version of Zoe living inside. Zoe created her and had been trying to get her into the real world. Zoe's dad begins working with the father of a girl who had been on the train to get the virtual version of Zoe into the robot body.
Tangent:

Something I thought was funny: Zoe's parents are yelling at her because she's never had to work for anything, always has stuff handed to her, has no idea what it is like to "build something".... and she says to her mother "I guess I'll just have to learn how to marry into money then."

End of tangent.

He also tries to create a virtual version of the other guy's daughter, but that doesn't work very well. Zoe did/knew something that he didn't. Her virtual self feels real, while the other girl knows she's fake and can't feel her heart beating. Zoe's digital self gets transfered into the robot. She's really pissed because she didn't want to leave the virtual world in the first place, and she definitely didn't want to be a robot. According to my dad, who has watched Battlestar Galatctica, her rebellious nature will cause the robots to rebel and form the Silon, which are apparently important in Battlestar.